Corinna Jenkins Tucker

Corinna Jenkins Tucker (born March 17, 1970) is an American Human Development and Family Studies researcher most known for her research on sibling conflict, aggression, and abuse.

She is the Director of the Sibling Aggression and Abuse Research Advocacy Initiative (SAARA), for the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.

Tucker graduated from Clark University in 1992, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology.

She earned a Master of Science degree in Human Development and Family Studies in 1995, and a doctorate in Human Development and Family Studies in 1998 from Pennsylvania State University.

Tucker joined the Department of Family Studies at the University of New Hampshire as an Assistant Professor in 2000.

She has held the designation of Certified Family Life Educator, granted by the National Council on Family Relations, since 2000.

In 2001, she was one of 12 professors chosen to participate in the Research Mentoring Program in Human Sciences sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

She became an Associate Professor in 2004, and a Professor in 2014.

She has received multiple teaching awards and served as a faculty fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy from 2006 to 2019.

In 2022, Tucker retired from UNH as Professor Emerita of Human Development and Family Studies.

The same year, she became the Director of the Sibling Aggression and Abuse Research and Advocacy Initiative (SAARA) an initiative of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, which was founded by David Finkelhor.

Finkelhor serves as a consultant to SAARA.

Tucker has spent over 25 years researching siblings; including the importance of parenting in sibling relationship experiences and the influence of siblings and sibling relationship qualities, such as support and conflict on individual development and mental and physical health.

Since 2013, her work has primarily examined the nature, correlates, and impact of sibling abuse and aggression and abuse across childhood, adolescence, and emerging adulthood.

Her most recent academic publication, published in the Journal of Family Trauma, Child Custody & Child Development, compared the mental health of children who were chronically victimized by their sibling versus children with no such experience and those whose sibling began or stopped victimizing them.

In her other recent work, she compared the "scariness" of sibling versus peer aggression in an article that appeared in Family Relations.

She has worked extensively with a variety of qualitative and quantitative data, but most extensively with U.S. national survey data collected by Finkelhor and Dr. Heather Turner, on on sibling victimization across all stages of childhood and across a range of victimization dynamics, including property offenses.

Her position is that sibling aggression should be distinguished from rivalry, included in the general field of bullying and peer aggression, and re-evaluated as a serious childhood adversity, and classified as an ACE, similar to bullying.

Tucker contends that sibling aggression and abuse should be considered as a form of family violence that is screened for and tracked alongside other forms of family violence.

She has argued that professionals, such as those working in child protective services, law enforcement, school counseling, mental health, pediatrics, and nursing need training to recognize and respond to sibling aggression and abuse.

To do so, undergraduate and graduate curricula and state licensure should require knowledge of sibling aggression and abuse.

In 2013, with the publication of her study, Association of sibling aggression with child and adolescents mental health, Tucker garnered international media attention.

Using nationally representative data from the United States, this work showed that children and adolescents victimized by their sibling reported poor mental health.

Her work brought attention to the hidden experience of sibling aggression and abuse, and was featured Tucker garnered national media attention in a New York Times article, When the Bully is a Sibling, as well as other media outlets, including the BBC, CBC, Time Magazine, and the Chicago Tribune.

Tucker leads SAARA to change the perception of that sibling aggression and abuse (SAA) are not harmless.

Most of the public is unaware the sibling aggression is the most common form of family violence in the United States and has concurrent and life-long associations with emotional and physical harms and interpersonal relationship problems.

SAARA is a first-of-its-kind initiative that aims to draw attention to the overlooked threats of SAA to children, many who have suffered in silence.

In 2022, SAARA received an award of more than $900,000 from the Louis and Anne Abrons Foundation to fund the initiative over five years.

As a translational science organization, SAARA aims to bring awareness and reduce SAA by providing user-friendly information, training, and tools for the public, parents, and professionals.

SAARA provides key research finings and evidence-based best practices that are developmentally appropriate and reflect its values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

To aid in recognition and effective responses to SAA, the initiative has built a network of parent educators, human service and school professionals, and law enforcement, university faculty, physicians, and mental health providers.

SAARA values the lived experiences of SAA survivors by maintaining a testimonial archive and incorporating survivors' experiences into its materials and trainings.

Along with SAARA research scientist Dr. Tanya Rouleau Whitworth, Tucker recently published an article for The Conversation on the lifelong impact of sibling aggression and abuse.

In May 2023, Tucker and Whitworth began writing a monthly column for Psychology Today, called the Science of Siblings, which covers topics such as the impact of sibling abuse on adults.

Tucker regularly conducts trainings about sibling rivalry, conflict, aggression and abuse and about promoting positive sibling relationships.

She regularly participates in interviews as an expert on the topic.

Beginning in 2023, Tucker, Whitworth, and Finkelhor have authored a series of SAARA Bulletins aimed to educate parents and professionals about the harmful impact of sibling aggression and abuse.

In her research, Tucker and her colleagues argue that sibling abuse and aggression meet the criteria for a developmentally significant adverse childhood experiences (ACEs.) She has argued for a broader definition of family violence and child maltreatment that is inclusive of sibling aggression.

Her research shows that sibling aggression sets the stage for peer aggression and that some children experience aggression in two developmentally important contexts: home and school.

Tucker also asserts that sibling aggression and conflict management skills should be included in parenting education programs.