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Social scientists are producing thousands of studies relevant to policy decisions, and policymakers are making thousands of decisions that would benefit from research evidence. Policymakers prefer to hear directly from researchers about their findings (Scott, 2021), so why is it that a disconnect often exists? What does the science say about how researchers could more […]

During the COVID pandemic, policy debates about how to address the crisis have often been portrayed as scientific knowledge in competition with political rhetoric for public attention. Yet even in this unprecedented case, rarely has evidence of only a single type been used in policy arguments. Rather scientific research about virus transmission and vaccines has […]

Hosted by the Foundation and the Forum for Youth Investment on March 11, 2021, this webinar focuses on how concepts such as the perceived objective nature of evidence, the positionality of the researcher in policymaking, and the role of power and politics in the use of research evidence are critical to understand as we study […]

Can a model that supports collaboration between the scientific and policy communities improve the use of research evidence in child and family policymaking?

Critical race theory provides a useful lens for understanding how racism pervades our research and policy institutions and ways we might reconstruct them in more equitable ways. On October 1, the Foundation hosted a virtual panel discussion, “Critical Race Perspectives on the Use of Research Evidence,” which featured three researchers offering ideas about how to […]

As evidence continues to mount regarding the central role of close human connection to everything from our mental health to how long we live, the idea that we can use the endogenous capacity for connection and support among youth provides a bright spot in our efforts to address inequality in our society.

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 […]

Empirical understanding of the “how” of policymakers’ research use can inform our theoretical explanations of the “why”.

As the shock of the current health and economic crisis takes a heavy toll on millions of Americans employed in the service sector, we must remember that millions of children are also vulnerable to dire consequences.

In a recent interview we conducted with a congressional aide, she remarked that she was often inundated with research when working on a new policy issue. The aide’s primary goal in seeking out research evidence was to bring a new perspective to how her team was thinking through a given policy issue. This type of research use, wherein the research is a source of ideas, information, and orientations, is frequently defined as conceptual use of research.

If we hope to train practitioners to use new interventions with fidelity, it may be necessary to first explicitly differentiate between previous and new instructional practices.

New research has the potential not only to shape the school finance debate in years ahead, but improve policies and ultimately reduce inequalities in student opportunities and outcomes.

In this chapter from What Works Now: Evidence-informed Policy and Practice, Vivian Tseng and Cynthia Coburn delineate the evolution of evidence use in the United States, specifically the ways that research evidence has been used in public education. From the narrow focus of the What Works agenda to the emergence of more holistic conceptions of […]

In June 2019, Michigan’s Attorney General dismissed all criminal cases connected to the Flint water crisis. This crisis, which hit the headline news in early 2016, exposed as many as 8,000 children under age six to extreme lead levels in drinking water. Many Americans were left wondering: What effect would this have on the community, […]

For over three decades, research has shown that young people transitioning to adulthood from foster care in the United States have fared very poorly compared to their peers who have not been in care. This is the case across measures of well-being including educational attainment, employment and earnings, material hardship, and criminal justice system involvement. […]