Dr. Robert Petrone (he/him/his), Associate Professor, is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work lives between English, American Studies, and Sociology, with applications for Education. The central framework for Dr. Petrone’s integrated program of research, teaching, and service is Critical Youth Studies, which offers an important critique to the dominance of developmentalist frameworks in American society that often position people known as teenagers in deficit ways and naturalize expectations for them rooted in dominant sociocultural norms. From this foundation, Dr. Petrone’s research and teaching explores four lines of inquiry, the most recent of which takes up creative writing as a mode of inquiry.

The first is examining the cultural production of (American) “adolescence” through literature, media, and education. A central contribution of his work in this area has been the development of the Youth Lens, which is an analytic approach to examine texts and discourses for portrayals of age and adolescence/ts. This work has been featured in a range of peer-reviewed publications, including the co-authored book, Re-thinking the “Adolescent” in Adolescent Literacy (with Drs. Sophia Sarginiadies and Mark A. Lewis).

Alongside examining cultural production of adolescence/ts, Dr. Petrone’s research examines cultural practices of working-class, racially-diverse, rural young men, particularly through their involvement in skateboarding. Taking a sociological view of youth, this ethnographic work examines how participation—especially informed by the social arrangement of age heterogeneity—provides youth opportunities for practice-linked identities as contributors and educators, which facilitate not only their increased engagement in skateboarding but also their sense of purpose and connection. In addition to peer-review articles, this work culminated in the 2023 solo-authored book Dropping In: What Skateboarders Can Teach Us about Learning, Schooling, and Youth Development (University of Massachusetts Press).

Building with these two areas of inquiry, Dr. Petrone’s third line of research focuses on collaborations with youth and high school humanities teachers to develop curriculum that centers youth experiences and perspectives. Demographically, this work focuses on rural and Native American Reservation contexts, including an 8+ year research partnership with an alternative high school on a Reservation in Montana where the work focuses on critiquing settler colonialism, healing historical trauma, cultural revitalization, and tribal sovereignty. This work has resulted in a series of articles in high impact journals (Journal of Adolescent Research, Harvard Educational Review, Educational Researcher), and the book Teaching English in Rural Communities (with Dr. Allison Wynhoff Olsen), which was awarded the Fry Book Award from the Literacy Research Association, one of the nation’s top literacy organizations.

Most recently, Dr. Petrone has established an area of scholarly work that takes up creative nonfiction writing with an emphasis on memoir, especially coming-of-age narratives. He is currently part of a creative works fellowship program at MU to support the development of an auto-fictional novel (Used Cars) about coming-of-age amidst parental disability, as well as a young adult novel that also explores youth experiences of societal ableism and parental disability.

Rooted in his research, Dr. Petrone’s teaching includes courses in creative nonfiction, critical youth studies, sociology and skateboarding, young adult literature, and adolescence in American literature. He has also held various leadership, administrative, and professional service roles, including Co-Editor for the international journal, English Teaching: Practice & Critique, Co-Director of the Missouri Language & Literacies Center, and Coordinator for the Language and Literacies for Social Transformation Doctoral Program.