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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 […]

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.

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 […]

The question of how to improve the use of research (URE) in policy and practice can be approached from diverse disciplinary and methodological angles. For many who study research use, attention to the challenge of URE grows naturally from an already established line of research. Other times, first-hand experience with the obstacles that prevent greater […]

Newcomer unaccompanied youth in the U.S. The United States defines an unaccompanied minor as an immigrant who is under the age of 18 and not in the care of a parent or legal guardian at the time of entry, who is left unaccompanied after entry, and who does not have a family member or legal […]

Although there are dots that have yet to be linked explicitly, the connection between fee-for-service reimbursement models and supply-induced demand is the sort of explanation one should expect to find when looking for the connection between system structure and disparity.

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 […]

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.

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.