Faculty

Gina M. Samuels, Ph. D.

Gina Miranda Samuels is an Assistant Professor at the School of Social Service Administration, a Faculty Affiliate of the Center for the Study of Race Politics and Culture, and a Faculty Associate at the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago. Her scholarly interests include transracial adoption, mixed race and multiethnic identity formation, interpretive research methods, and the development of relational, kinship, and cultural ties among young adults whose childhoods are shaped by foster care and adoption. Professor Samuels' scholarship situates these lived experiences in a broader socio-historical, cultural, and theoretical context to critically explore how personal identity and well being are constrained and promoted by child welfare policy and practice and by societal and personal constructions of race and family. Dr. Samuels' makes use of interpretive methods of research to inform foster care and adoption practice and policy.

Professor Samuels is currently involved in several research projects: a national study of multiracial adult transracial adoptees to explore racial and cultural identity development, racial socialization, coping strategies, and broad outcomes of well being, funded by the Heller Research Award; a study of Illinois youth with histories of running away from their foster homes to understand where youth run and why; a three-state mixed-method longitudinal study of broad outcomes among youth aging out of foster care in the Midwest, funded by the W. T. Grant Foundation, and a national study seeking to understanding the relational networks of young adults with foster care backgrounds, funded by Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative.

Her recent publications from these projects include: "‘What doesn't kill you makes you stronger': Survivalist self-reliance as resilience and risk among young adults aging out of foster care," Children and Youth Services Review (with J. Pryce);  "A Reason, a season, and a lifetime: Relational permanence among young adults with foster care backgrounds," Chapin Hall Center for Children; "Identity, oppression, and power: Feminism and intersectionality theory," Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work  (with F. Ross-Sheriff); "Beyond the Rainbow: Multiraciality in the 21st Century" in Our Diverse Society: Race, Ethnicity and Class-Implications for 21st Century America; "Reading between the Lines: Black-White Heritage and Transracial Adoption," African American Research Perspectives; "Domestic Transracial Adoption and Multiraciality," in Multiracial Child Resource Book: Living Complex Identities; and "An ecological Perspective on Cultural Identity Development," in Handbook of Multicultural Competencies in Counseling and Psychology, written with H.L.K. Coleman, R. Norton, and L. McCubbin.

Currently, she serves as a member of the Illinois Adoption Advisory Council and is a Board Affiliate of MAVIN Foundation, a national organization addressing the needs and concerns of multiracial populations and transracial adoptees in the U.S.. Professor Samuels serves as a consulting editor for Social Work and is an editorial board member of the journal Afillia. At SSA, she teaches courses on direct social work practice, interpretive research, and family systems theory approaches to practice. 

Professor Samuels received her M.S.S.W and Ph.D. in Social Work and Social Welfare at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she received a Council on Social Work Education Minority research fellowship funded through the National Institute of Mental Health. She has practiced social work in the areas of child welfare and child protective services, juvenile probation, Africentric school-based tutoring programs, and group therapy with female youth.