Professor Peter K Smith (born 23 September 1943) is a developmental psychologist with a particular interest in children’s social development.

Career

Smith received his B.Sc at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

and his Ph.D. from the

University of Sheffield The University of Sheffield (informally Sheffield University or TUOS) is a public university, public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Its history traces back to the foundation of Sheffield Medical School in 1828, Fir ...

. Following his doctorate he continued at the

, obtaining a Personal Chair in 1991, before moving to

Goldsmiths, University of London Goldsmiths, University of London, formerly Goldsmiths College, University of London, is a constituent research university of the University of London. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by ...

in 1995. There, he was Head of the Unit for School and Family Studies in the Department of Psychology from 1998 to 2011. He retired as Emeritus Professor of Psychology in 2011.

Academic work

Smith has authored, co-authored or co-edited 28 books, and authored or co-authored 198 journal articles and 124 book chapters. His general works in children’s development include the book Adolescence: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2016) and successive editions of the textbook (with Helen Cowie and Mark Blades) Understanding Children’s Development (Blackwells, 1988, 1991, 1998, 2002, 2011, 2015). He co-edited collection (with Craig Hart) the Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Social Development (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). In 2015 he was awarded the William Thierry Preyer award for Excellence in Research on Human Development, by the European Society for Developmental Psychology. He is known for his work on children’s play, and works include the edited collection (with Tony Pellegrini) ''The nature of play: Great apes and humans'' (Guilford, 2005), and the book ''Children and Play'' (Blackwell, 2010) His most extensive research has been on bullying and violence in schools, where he has led a number of research projects. He was the Chair of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology Cyberbullying Action (COST ACTION IS0801) from 2008 to 2012, and was PI of a project Bullying, Cyberbullying, and Pupil Safety and Wellbeing, financed by the Indian-European Research Networking in the Social sciences initiative (2012-2015). He is currently co-PI of a project Comparative study of cyberbullying in Qatar and the UK: risk factors, impact on health and solutions, financed by the Qatar National Research Fund (2013-2016). Publications include the edited collections (with Debra Pepler and Ken Rigby) Bullying in Schools: How Successful can Interventions be? (Cambridge University Press, 2004); (with Qing Li and

Donna Cross Donna Cross is an Australian academic, professor, a child health advocate at the School of Global and Population Health within the University of Western Australia and leader of the Telethon Kids Institute. She was awarded an Order of Australia fo ...

) Cyberbullying in the Global Playground: Research from International Perspectives (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012); (with Georges Steffgen) Cyberbullying through the new media: Findings from an international network (Psychology Press, 2013) and (with Keumjoo Kwak and Yuichi Toda) School bullying in different cultures: Eastern and western perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 2016). He is author of Understanding school bullying: Its nature and prevention strategies (Sage, 2014).

Awards

He is a Fellow of the

British Psychological Society The British Psychological Society (BPS) is a representative body for psychologists and psychology in the United Kingdom. History It was founded on 24 October 1901 at University College London (UCL) as ''The Psychological Society'', the org ...

, the Association of Psychological Sciences, and the Academy of Social Sciences.

References

External links

Official staff page
at Goldsmiths College {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Peter K. 1943 births 20th-century British psychologists 21st-century British psychologists Living people Academics of Goldsmiths, University of London Alumni of the University of Oxford Alumni of the University of Sheffield Fellows of the British Psychological Society