Margo M. Campbell

Margo M. Campbell, PhD, MSS, MLSP

  • Director of PhD Program
  • Associate Professor
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Affiliated Programs

Education

  • MSS, Social Work (1999)
    Bryn Mawr College (PA)
  • MLSP, Law and Social Policy (1999)
    Bryn Mawr College (PA)
  • PhD, Social Work (2017), Bryn Mawr College (PA)

About Me

Professor Campbell joined the faculty at Widener University in 2015. She chose to pursue her undergraduate and graduate studies in social work because of an enduring commitment to social justice and social change. This dedication has driven both her scholarly and teaching pursuits. Her research is focused on the interactive effects of community, family, and individual-level experiences of economic vulnerability and precarity on individuals’ and families’ economic, material, and social-emotional well-being. 

As a professor, she strives to create an engaging, dynamic, and responsive learning environment that demonstrates and facilitates social and economic justice and social change. In doing so, she draws from her own practice to identify the professional skills and capacities social workers need for effective social and economic justice-oriented practice, as well as her own experiences as a learner to create an optimal learning environment in which these skills and capacities are modeled and emphasized.

By encouraging self-reflection, co-created learning spaces, and the collective aspects of learning, Professor Campbell’s ultimate goal for all her students are for them to finish the course with confidence in the material, a sense of empowerment in being the leaders of their own learning, and  an understanding of the link between their work, social justice, and social change.

Research Interests

We live in a world where employment is an expectation and often a requirement for accessing certain safety net supports, such as TANF. Yet, we are also in an era where stable work may be fleeting at best. Given this situation, my research interests have centered on the effects that this precarious condition can have on families' material and emotional well-being.

Currently, I am studying the relationship between families' economic vulnerability and children's social-emotional competence with a focus on family processes. In future research, I plan a continued investigation of the impact of economic vulnerability on family well-being, expanding this inquiry to gain a richer understanding of individual families' experiences with, and responses to, economic vulnerability and the consequent influence on family and child well-being. I am also interested in better understanding intersectionality of identities, particularly those identities that are outside of the dominant culture, and experiences of precarity.

By identifying the interactive effects that system, family, and individual-level experiences can have on the well-being of children and families, my research is intended to build policymakers' and practitioners' understanding of policies' and conditions' impact on families, thereby enabling appropriate policy and programmatic responses to be identified and implemented. In particular, I aim to conduct research that informs social workers' micro- and macro-level responses (ideally in an integrated manner), and by doing so, facilitates social and economic justice and social change.

Publications

  • Sousa, C., Yutzky, L., Campbell, M., & Cook, C. (in process). Refining curriculum for a macro social work concentration: A community-based process. For submission to the Journal of Community Practice.

  • Campbell, M. & Houser, L. (2020). Connecting caregiver wages and distress: Felt precarity, parenting, and child behavior. Families in Society, doi.org/10.1177/1044389420913393

  • Sousa, C., Yutzky, L., Campbell, M., & Cook, C. (2019). Understanding the curricular needs and practice contexts of macro social work: A community-based process. Journal of Social Work Education, doi.org/10.1080/10437797.2019.1656686

  • Campbell, M., Dalke, A., & Toews, B. (2019). Naming and sharing power in prison workshop settings. Ethics and Social Welfare, doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2019.1694960

  • Campbell, M. (2014). Precariousness realized and the earned income tax credit. Oral Presentation at the 2014 Society for the Study of Social Problems Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA.

Professional Affiliations & Memberships

Employment Instability, Family Well-being, and Social Policy Network (EINet), Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR), Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP)

Awards

  • Rivitz Award for Best Dissertation Proposal, Bryn Mawr College, GSSWSR, (2012)

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