09/11/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/11/2024 13:22
Contact: [email protected], (202) 261-5709
WASHINGTON, DC, September 10, 2024 - The Urban Institute announced today the 16 recipients of $3.5 million in research grants, through the Student Upward Mobility Initiative, to investigate how education can more positively influence students' future economic mobility. The initiative, led by Urban, funds research grants to broaden and diversify the field of education-to-economic-mobility researchers.
The grantees will produce new research about the skills and competencies developed in the PK-12 system that drive economic mobility later in students' lives and how to measure them.
Researchers will explore whether high-quality educational data can identify the academic, social capital, and "noncognitive" factors-such as critical thinking and health and well-being-that lead to economic mobility and whether we can better identify technical skills that matter for a successful career. Additionally, researchers will develop new measures of noncognitive factors and career preparedness. All projects will test how results vary by student characteristics, such as race, gender, and disability status, and how they intersect with contextual factors, such as school funding and local labor market conditions.
"We're excited to work with these grantees to build a new understanding of what the most important skills are for the PK-12 system to provide students with the greatest chance of upward economic mobility," says Matthew Chingos, Urban's vice president for education data and policy and head of the initiative. "These studies will build upon leading economic mobility frameworks focused on individual-level and community-level well-being like the Education-to-Workforce Indicator Framework and Urban's Mobility Metrics Framework."
The 16 projects are as follows:
This diverse group of researchers includes sociologists, psychologists, economists, and education scholars. The research will include data representing students in urban, rural, and suburban school districts across the country. Twenty-five percent of grants will be for researchers at minority-serving institutions, and 50 percent of projects will be led or co-led by a scholar of color. A list of the scholars and descriptions of their funded research projects can be found here.
The Urban team leading the Student Upward Mobility Initiative will form an education-to-economic-mobility research cohort among the grantees that will collaborate to discuss research strategies, share preliminary findings, and receive peer learning opportunities. In addition to managing this cohort, Urban will continue to synthesize research insights, highlight effective practices in education, conduct research, and share findings with education policymakers, advocates, and practitioners to elevate how education can drive students' long-term economic success, power, autonomy, dignity, and belonging.
The Student Upward Mobility Initiative is a fiscally sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, with funding from the Walton Family Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Joyce Foundation. To learn more about the initiative, visit studentupwardmobility.urban.org.
About the Urban Institute
The Urban Institute is a nonprofit research organization that provides data and evidence to help advance upward mobility and equity. We are a trusted source for changemakers who seek to strengthen decisionmaking, create inclusive economic growth, and improve the well-being of families and communities. For more than 50 years, Urban has delivered facts that inspire solutions-and this remains our charge today.
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