Collaboration between universities and community agencies is essential for developing and testing practical responses to persistent racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic inequalities that afflict our nation. Here, Adam Gamoran expands on how the Foundation’s Institutional Challenge Grant can help support such collaboration and allow universities to fulfill their potential for leadership towards social justice.

We are proud to announce six new research grants, including five to support studies on reducing inequality in youth outcomes and one to support a study on improving the use of research evidence.

By Joseph Allen

As part of their grant, “The Connection Project: A Social Intervention to Reduce Drivers of Disparity for Disadvantaged Youth,” Joseph Allen and colleagues are examining whether and how a school-based, experiential program to enhance students’ social supports could play a part in reducing racial and socioeconomic inequalities in academic, behavioral, and health outcomes. In this post, Allen shares initial findings, discusses the role of programs like the Connection Project in the context of broader structural reforms, and outlines next steps for the work.

By Carolyn Heinrich, Jennifer Darling-Aduana, and Annalee Good

Digital educational tools are touted for their promise in increasing equitable access to enhanced learning opportunities and improving educational outcomes for K-12 students. Yet there is a growing consensus that the thorniest challenges schools and educators face in integrating educational technology are around how digital learning interacts with the systemic social, economic, racial, and historical patterns of inequity in education.