The William T. Grant Foundation invests in high-quality research focused on reducing inequality in youth outcomes and improving the use of research evidence in decisions that affect young people in the United States.
Featured Funding Opportunities
William T. Grant Scholars Program
The online application is now open. The next deadline for applications is July 5, 2023.
Research Grants on Reducing Inequality
The online application is now open. The next deadline for applications is May 3, 2023.
Research Grants on Improving the Use of Research Evidence
The online application is now open. The next deadline for applications is May 3, 2023.
The Digest: Issue 8, Winter 2022/23
Reducing Educational Inequality After the COVID-19 Pandemic: What Do We Know, and What Research Do We Need?
Today, as the pandemic recedes, its effects are still with us, in education as well as in other domains. We have considerable knowledge about how to respond to growing inequality, yet many questions remain. New research is needed to help ensure that our education system not only overcomes the increase in inequality induced by the pandemic, but reduces the inequality that was already in place prior to 2020.
Emergency Exits: Avenues for New Research to Improve Youth Outcomes after COVID
As the effects of COVID linger on, researchers have a crucial role to play in cataloging them. Even more important, by developing knowledge about exactly who is affected and how, researchers can provide evidence that points the way toward successful responses.
Learning Across Contexts: Bringing Together Research on Research Use and Implementation Science
The fields of implementation science and the study of research use in policy and practice travel on many of the same roads and share similar goals, chief among which is improving societal outcomes through the application of research. But key differences in these two fields of study and the assumptions they make in the empirical work provide opportunities to strengthen the next generation of both.
Building Evidence Systems to Integrate Implementation Research and Practice in Education
Whether framed as a problem of practice or research use, understanding implementation is critical for identifying and redressing the inequitable distribution of resources, facilitators, and barriers in our systems, which give rise to disparities in student outcomes.
Featured Updates
Foundation News
President’s Comment: Advancing Research on Racial Equity in a Time of Polarization
With their project Public Learning in a Multiracial Democracy, Amy Stuart Wells of Teachers College, Columbia University, and Janelle Scott of the University of California, Berkeley, will synthesize four research literatures that offer evidence about the centrality of race and culture to students’ learning and social development. In supporting the project, we hope to help change the environment for antiracist education in ways that foster greater understanding of the societal benefits of teaching young people about diverse perspectives.
GRANTEE WRITING
Toward lasting change: Supporting school district central offices’ use of research to address systemic educational inequities
Despite the right intentions, many reforms that aim to tackle systemic inequities in school districts come up against limitations. Why are school districts sometimes seeing disappointing results, and what can district leaders and their research partners do about them? New research points to the promise of an institutional approach that surfaces and recasts premises that drive individual practices, policies, and organizational arrangements.
Foundation News
Eleven Finalists Selected for the William T. Grant Scholars Class of 2028
This extraordinary group of early career researchers are committed to stretching their expertise in new directions to tackle a broad array of issues that will certainly make an impact on the lives of many young people.
Insights
The 21st Century Agenda for Research on Child Welfare and our Interest in Studies on Reducing Inequality
The result of close collaboration with Casey Family Programs and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, as well as numerous national organizations, researchers, and individuals with lived experience in child welfare, the 21st century research agenda for child welfare captures the diversity of individuals involved in the child welfare system to highlight the most urgent needs.
GRANTEE WRITING
Partnering through Disruption: Responsive Research with Communities in Crisis
In a new post, grantee Rebecca Lowenhaupt describes how partnering with educators and district leaders during the pandemic yielded new insights about the day-to-day realities of decision-making in rapidly changing environments: “In adapting our work to the new challenges facing our district partners, we learned as much about engaging in productive research-practice partnerships through disruption as we did about the research questions we initially set out to explore.”
Webinar
Research Grants on Reducing Inequality: An Overview of the Program and How to Apply
In this webinar, recorded last week, Senior Program Officer Jenny Irons and President Adam Gamoran discuss the background and goals of our program of research grants on reducing inequality, provide an overview of eligibility details, required materials, and review criteria, and share practical advice on how to prepare a competitive letter of inquiry.
Reducing Inequality
Proposing Research on Reducing Inequality: Is Your Study a Fit?
Since 2015, the William T. Grant Foundation has funded exciting and important research that examines programs, polices, and practices to reduce inequality among youth ages 5-25 in the United States. If you are considering applying for a major grant or Officers’ research award in our reducing inequality focus area, we encourage you to closely evaluate whether your proposed study is a fit with our funding interests.
STAFF WRITING
Proposing Research on Reducing Inequality: Studying Mechanisms and Investigating the “How and Why” Behind Intervention Outcomes
In this new post, Program Officer Melissa Wooten offers guidance for proposing research on reducing inequality, writing: “Understanding why an intervention produces statistically significant outcomes requires moving away from studies that treat participation as the main variable of interest and toward those that analyze the materials and activities within an intervention as malleable factors that influence youth outcomes.”