The William T. Grant Foundation recently awarded ten grants to researchers and organizations working toward the common goal of understanding and improving youth settings. The six research grants focus on how to achieve positive youth outcomes in classrooms and after-school programs, as well as understanding adolescent risk behaviors. The three capacity-building grants reflect a range of needed developments in the youth field, including technical assistance for direct-service organizations; guidance for researchers on study design and methodology; and data archiving for public use. One communications grant was awarded to support ongoing seminars for policymakers working on after-school.
“The awards reflect our focus on improving services for vulnerable youth, with a particular interest in the practices that make an organization or household effective,” said Foundation President Robert C. Granger.
Information about each of these grants follows. Those seeking further information are invited to contact the principal investigators.
Research Grants Organizing Schools and Classrooms to Engage Latino Youth In Academically Challenging Work Betty Achinstein, Ph.D.
Rodney Ogawa, Ph.D.
University of California, Santa Cruz
$600,000
2010–2013
What accounts for the success of high schools that have positive academic outcomes for urban, low-income Latino students? Research shows that youth from ethnic and linguistic minority communities are more engaged and achieve more success in school when teachers access home culture and language, provide opportunities for collaborative work, and explicitly teach skills to help students decipher and navigate the school system. Little is known, however, about how and to what extent specific classroom interactions support Latino students' learning, and how elements of school organization (e.g., normative social structures, capital) shape teachers' ability to implement these innovative practices. This three-year project includes case studies of three California high schools that have demonstrated some successful academic outcomes and serve predominantly urban, low-income Latino students. The investigators are examining the ways math and English teachers in these schools are using instructional activities meant to support Latino youth engagement
in academically challenging work. The team is also exploring how schools' normative social structures and physical, social, human, and cultural capital influence classroom interactions that affect learning. The investigators are observing classrooms, and school and department meetings; conducting focus groups with teachers, students, and parents; collecting samples of student work; administering school-wide surveys; and interviewing department chairs and school administrators.
Challenging Underserved Children to Achieve Academic Excellence Jean Grossman, Ph.D.
Princeton University
Carla Herrera, Ph.D.
Public/Private Ventures
Leigh Linden, Ph.D.
Columbia University
Richard Tagle
Higher Achievement
$245,000
2010–2011
Does an intensive, academically-oriented after-school and summer program for low-income, urban youth have positive long-term outcomes on academic engagement, performance, and the selection of and admission to competitive high schools? The Higher Achievement Program (HAP) serves motivated 5th through 8th graders in Washington D.C. and Alexandria, VA. In 2006, the researchers began a randomized trial study of HAP with 952 student participants (enrolled over three years). The investigators will use this grant to finish the 24-month follow-up wave. They will also collect and analyze a 48-month follow-up of the first cohort to test the hypothesis that HAP leads to improvements in academic achievement after the second year of program participation, and that these gains—together with high school selection counseling—will increase the likelihood that students will enroll in more competitive high schools.
Health Risk Trajectories Across Adolescence: Understanding Gender Differences Rebekah Levine Coley, Ph.D.
Boston College
Sara Jaffee, Ph.D.
King’s College
James Mahalik, Ph.D.
Boston College
$394,058
2010–2013
What factors contribute to gender differences in adolescent health risk behaviors (e.g., cigarette, alcohol, and drug use, sexual activity, birth control use)? How can this information be used in intervention programs and policies to reduce engagement in such risky behaviors? Important changes in health risk behaviors occur during adolescence as youth undergo puberty, have less direct parental supervision, and spend more time with peers. Risk rates differ between males and females, but little is known about when, why and how gender differences emerge. The researchers will explore these questions using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health). They will focus on how the influence of family life, peer groups, and genetic risks work individually and interactively to predict gender divergence in behaviors threatening adolescents’ health. Add Health participants include 15,000 youth ages 12–26. Data includes saliva samples for DNA analysis, as well as information on substance use/abuse and sexual risk behaviors; family processes; parent, peer, and school social norms; and gender roles.
Development of Self-Direction in Youth-Program-Family Interaction Systems: Latino and Non-Latino Adolescents Reed Larson, Ph.D.
Marcella Raffaelli, Ph.D.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
$640,034
2010–2013
How do adolescents’ engagement in youth programs and their interactions with program leaders and parents contribute to their development of self-direction? Many project-based youth programs (e.g., arts and community service-based) cite helping youth set and achieve goals as a major program objective. However, although many of these project-based youth programs succeed in cultivating these self-direction skills, little is known about how they develop and how adults support this development.. This study will examine how cultural factors, adolescent-parent interactions, and parent-leader interactions shape youth experiences in programs. Particular attention will be given to low- income and Latino youth. The study will involve 12 project-based programs (focused on art, technology, science, or leadership and service) serving low-income youth ages 13 to 19 in Chicago, central Illinois, Minneapolis, and St. Paul. Youth, parents, and program leaders will be interviewed and complete questionnaires three to four times over the course of the year, and investigators will observe program sessions, using the Youth Program Quality Assessment to evaluate the quality of youth-staff interactions.
Supporting Successful Transitions to Adulthood: Understanding the Potential of Career Academy High Schools Richard Murnane, Ph.D.
Harvard Graduate School of Education
$25,000
2010–2010
For the past 15 years, MDRC has been conducting a random-assignment evaluation of Career Academies, a secondary education model in which schools structure their curricula and student opportunities around career themes. The most recent findings from the study show that career academies have a striking impact on long-term labor outcomes for participants. For example, over the eight years after scheduled high-school graduation, those who were randomly assigned to career academies earned an average of $2,088 more annually than their non-academy counterparts. Murnane will use this grant to reexamine these labor market outcomes, looking at which programmatic components were likely the most influential.
Using Emotional Literacy to Improve Youth-Serving Organizations Marc Brackett, Ph.D.
Susan Rivers, Ph.D.
Peter Salovey, Ph.D.
Yale University
$50,187
2010–2011
This grant supplements a project funded by the Foundation to test the impact of a school-based emotional literacy intervention randomly administered to 5th and 6th grade classrooms in 65 schools. Given that these students remain in the same schools for 7th grade, the investigators raised the question of whether demonstrated changes in student-teacher interaction in the 5th and 6th grades carries over to their 7th grade classrooms. This grant will enable the Brackett and his team to collect both student surveys and classroom observation data in the fall of 7th grade.
Capacity-Building Grants The Taproot Foundation Service Grant Program Megan Kashner
The Taproot Foundation
$40,000
2010–2011
The Taproot Foundation will provide capacity-building services for five New York City-based grantees of the Foundation’s Youth Service Improvement Grants program. These services will focus on improving the organizations in one of the following areas: leadership development, human resources, strategy management and marketing, and information technology.
Archiving Data from a 70-Year Longitudinal Study of Human Development Robert Waldinger, M.D.
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
$90,996
2010–2011
Started in 1938 as the first William T. Grant Foundation-funded research project, The Study of Adult Development is one of the longest and richest longitudinal studies of human development ever conducted. To date, it has been a resource for over 150 scholars studying topics ranging from the influence of maternal warmth on adult physical health to links between childhood adversity and late life cognition. Until now, all data were stored on non-archival paper. This grant will allow the investigators to archive years of data in electronic format, preserving this one-of-a-kind data set and making it more widely available to scholars of human development.
Improving Studies of the Impact of Group Level Interventions on Program Quality and Youth Outcomes Stephen Raudenbush, Ph.D.
University of Chicago
Howard Bloom, Ph.D.
MDRC
$300,000
2010–2010
Drs. Raudenbush and Bloom will use this grant to continue guiding researchers on how to design group randomized studies. They will expand researchers’ access to empirical evidence regarding the distribution of a wide range of youth outcomes and enable researchers to seamlessly incorporate this evidence into the planning of their studies using the “Optimal Design” software. Drs. Raudenbush and Bloom will develop new methods and software for assessing the validity of setting-level quality measures and for planning associated studies. They will also expand their work on how to analyze data to reveal the impact of setting quality on youth.
Communications Grants Using Research on Improving the Quality of Youth-Serving Program to Inform Policy Betsy Brand
American Youth Policy Forum
$162,745
2010–2011
American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF) will provide information to national policymakers—including six Capitol Hill forums—about research on effective strategies to improve the quality of youth-serving programs. The AYPF will focus on after-school programs that serve at-risk and vulnerable youth.