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Kate Melissa Wegmann

Associate Professor

Research Interests

Kate Wegmann received her PhD in Social Work from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her studies included a pre-doctoral fellowship at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany as part of the Transatlantic Consortium on Global Education and Development, funded by the European Union and the United States Department of Education. She received her Master’s degree in Social Work (Macro and Community Practice) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Bachelor’s degree in Education from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Dr. Wegmann conducts school-based social work research focused on social and environmental barriers to academic achievement and children’s general well-being. She is particularly interested in the role that stereotyping plays in the “achievement gaps” between different groups of students and how this knowledge can be leveraged for both prevention and intervention. Dr. Wegmann is currently working on a qualitative project exploring elementary school children’s perceptions of stereotyping in the school setting and their relationships to learning and achievement. She is also conducting quantitative analysis of a school-based intervention to reduce the effects of stereotype threat in a diverse middle school and evaluating the effects of school-based mental health services on academic achievement and behavior in six high-needs urban elementary schools.

Education

BS, Education, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 1999

MSW, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, 2010

PhD, Social Work, University of North Carlina - Chapel Hill, 2014

Additional Campus Affiliations

Associate Professor, School of Social Work

Recent Publications

Garthe, R. C., Kim, S., Welsh, M., Wegmann, K., & Klingenberg, J. (2023). Cyber-Victimization and Mental Health Concerns among Middle School Students Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of youth and adolescence, 52(4), 840-851. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-023-01737-2

Tan, K., & Wegmann, K. M. (2022). Social-Emotional Learning and Contemporary Challenges for Schools: What Are Our Students Learning from Us? Children and Schools, 44(1), 3-5. https://doi.org/10.1093/cs/cdab034

Powell, T., Wegmann, K. M., & Backode, E. (2021). Coping and Post-Traumatic Stress in Children and Adolescents after an Acute Onset Disaster: A Systematic Review. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(9), Article 4865. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094865, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094865

Tan, K., Wegmann, K., Patino, R., Hand, B., Mitchell, J., & Moser, K. (2021). Social and Emotional Learning Group Work during the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Reopening, and the Mobilization for Racial Justice. Children and Schools, 43(2), 118-122. https://doi.org/10.1093/cs/cdab002

Powell, T. M., Wegmann, K. M., & Overstreet, S. (2019). Measuring Adolescent Coping Styles Following a Natural Disaster: An ESEM Analysis of the Kidcope. School Mental Health, 11(2), 335-344. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-018-9288-x

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