Featured Work
The Youth Service Capacity-Building Grants (YSCG) program supports activities to strengthen the organizational infrastructure of small nonprofit organizations in the five boroughs of New York City that provide direct services to young people ages 5 to 25. The program provides $60,000 of general operating support over three years so that grantees can determine the best […]
Puerto Rico’s public school system was facing a daunting process of reconstruction even before the COVID-19 pandemic. In September 2017, the devastating force of Hurricane María destabilized the entirety of the island’s service infrastructure, public education included. Puerto Rico’s public school system had been historically underperforming relative to its peers in the mainland US and, […]
This winter I attended the William T. Grant Foundation convening for the Reducing Inequality Grants program. As I attended each of the sessions and listened to my colleagues share their findings, their struggles, their successes, and their human experiences of engaging in the hard work of building knowledge of how to reduce inequities in a […]
In reflecting on the Foundation’s convening of grantees and partners focused on research to reduce inequality in youth outcomes, I found myself thinking a lot about power as it relates to reducing inequality. These ideas and questions aren’t necessarily new, but I would encourage you to think about them anew. Power—in the research we conduct […]
The William T. Grant Foundation encourages research on reducing inequality that is grounded in well-theorized, rich conceptualizations of race, ethnicity, and Indigeneity (as well as other dimensions of inequality like immigrant origin and economic standing). In keeping with this interest, we awarded Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang an Officers’ research grant to develop an […]
New research finds that bringing counseling and advising services to the classroom can provide a critical connection to campus for immigrant and refugee newcomer students in ESOL programs.
The role of research evidence in improving policy and practice outcomes has been a topic of public debate and focus of research for some time. To date, scholarship has focused largely on two evidence challenges: 1) the role of evidence in policy formulation, for example how to get various types of evidence into the hands […]
Research is core to the William T. Grant Foundation, as is the use of the knowledge that results from high-quality, community-based empirical investigations. We are committed to funding the study of 1) programs, policies, and practices to reduce inequalities in the lives of young people and 2) ways to improve how research evidence is produced […]
Researchers and reformers in education and likely other arenas would do well to recognize how they are implicitly or explicitly defining “systemic” in their equity approaches and to understand some predictable limitations when their approaches do not focus on institutional change.
Research has a critical role to play in challenging damaging narratives and establishing different perspectives. In supporting the project “Public Learning in a Multiracial Democracy,” we hope to help change the environment for antiracist education in ways that foster greater understanding of the importance of teaching about race and racism.
In 2018, when we launched our study, Putting Immigration and Education in Conversation Everyday (PIECE), it was a time of crisis for immigrant communities. Anti-immigrant policies, aggressive enforcement, and xenophobic discourse were causing upheaval for students, families, and the educators serving them. As scholars committed to improving the educational experiences of immigrant-origin students, we designed […]
Local policymakers often lack rigorous data and analysis about which programs are most effective. But too often academics do not apply their knowledge to the most pressing policy issues in these local contexts. This creates a “valley of death” between knowledge and practice that leaves many local policy problems unadressed. As local institutions, universities have […]
Some of the most impactful contributions universities make to society stem from faculty members’ external engagement—i.e., researcher engagement with policymakers and practitioners. A faculty member’s meeting with a CDC official can lead to new public health guidelines. A faculty member’s op-ed on student debt forgiveness can catalyze executive action. A faculty member’s congressional testimony on […]
In recent years, research interest in knowledge brokerage has expanded across disciplines as scholars and practitioners alike seek to better understand the mechanisms that impact use of research evidence in policymaking processes. With funding from the William T. Grant Foundation, we endeavored upon a multi-year process to bring together scholars from health, education, psychology and […]
A new agenda for research on child welfare systems calls for bold new studies that meet the needs of the 21st Century child welfare system and improve the lives of our most vulnerable children, youth, and families. While there have been several research agendas for child welfare developed over the last decade, to our knowledge […]