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“We had to ask ourselves: How do we respond to complexity that was always there but is now heightened? What knowledge is relevant in practice, and how do we produce that knowledge for use in the practice world?”

Since 2015, the William T. Grant Foundation has funded research on programs, policies, and practices that reduce inequality in youth outcomes. We have supported a diverse pool of highly accomplished researchers, including some who have produced affirmative causal evidence on specific ways to reduce inequality (and others who have provided equally valuable evidence on what […]

The team will conduct a series of macro-simulation exercises to investigate the effects of different configurations of a Black reparations, which will gauge not only the impact on the economic well-being of Black children and their families, but also the economy-wide ramifications for all Americans.

By bringing together university researchers with practitioners and community members, RPPs in education help to ensure that the processes and outcomes of research directly enrich educational practice and policy in ways that community members most desire.

Even to a casual observer, the research-practice partnerships “tent” has expanded considerably since the seminal 2013 paper by Coburn et al., Research-Practice Partnerships: A Strategy for Leveraging Research for Educational Improvement in School Districts.

RPPs have the potential to forge relationships that lead to new possibilities for racial justice. However, they also run the risk of reproducing the very inequities that many claim to challenge. To avoid the second scenario, we need to confront racial injustice directly and build RPPs that are committed to dismantling it.

Research-Practice Partnerships in Education: The State of the Field expands on the 2013 white paper Research-Practice Partnerships: A Strategy for Leveraging Research for Educational Improvement in School Districts by scanning the current landscape of partnerships, identifying points of variation, and outlining shared principles.

At UC-Berkeley, where I trained in clinical-community psychology and have served as a professor for almost two decades, our recent strategic plan framed our public mission as: …a commitment to egalitarian and democratic values; to research and scholarly work that serves our community, our state, our nation, and the world; to providing access for students […]

In partnership with the Spencer Foundation and the Forum for Youth Investment, on June 10, we hosted a 90 minute panel discussion, “Power, Possibility, and Equity in Research Practice Partnerships.” RPPs have been an important approach to research that seeks to center issues of practice and the voices of educators in the research process by […]

We are pleased to announce the election of Scott Evans as the new Chair of our Board of Trustees. Mr. Evans joined the Foundation’s Board in 2013 and has served as the chair of the Finance and Investment Committee since 2018. Mr. Evans succeeds Russell Pennoyer, a senior advisor to Brittany Capital Group, who served […]

Since 2014, the Foundation has focused much of its grantmaking toward supporting studies that examine programs, policies, and practices to reduce inequality in youth outcomes. Subtle as it is, the nuance here—calling for researchers to investigate specific strategies that can ameliorate unequal outcomes—nevertheless represents a pivot from the long tradition of social science research that […]

We are pleased to announce that the Foundation has awarded three Youth Service Capacity-Building Grants to New York City nonprofit organizations that provide services to young people in the five boroughs. Part of a new program, these grants provide up to $60,000 in unrestricted general operating support over three years, with the express purpose of […]

The William T. Grant and Spencer Foundations have awarded a Rapid Response Research grant to the University of California, Berkeley in partnership with James Burch, policy director of the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP) and a member of the City of Oakland’s Reimaginging Public Safety Task Force. The R3 program supports reviews of existing research, conducted […]

The Foundation occasionally supplements its support for empirical research with targeted capacity-building grants. One new award, approved at the Foundation’s spring Board meeting, will support consultations for applicants and grantees and a biennial workshop for grantees to build their capacity to conduct mixed-methods research that integrates qualitative and quantitative methods. William T. Grant Foundation Mixed […]