The William T. Grant Foundation recently awarded seven grants to research teams and organizations who share our interest in understanding and improving youth settings. Two of the funded studies focus on dynamics within the family that influence youth outcomes, while a third explores practices in middle schools. Another grantee is examining how school boards weigh evidence in their decision-making. Finally, we continue our funding of a fellowship program that supports early career researchers working in Congress. We also made two communications awards to assist media outlets in continuing to produce high-quality, youth-centered content.

“The awards reflect several features of our grantmaking. These include our interest in a range of youth settings, our interest in improving policy and practice, and a belief that researchers can address practical questions in a way that advances fundamental knowledge about critical family and organization practices. In a time of tight budgets, several of the grantees will use our support to creatively enhance publicly funded, large-scale efforts,” 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

How School Boards Weigh Research Findings in Policymaking
Robert Asen, Ph.D.
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Deborah Gurke, Ph.D.
Wisconsin Association of School Boards
$448,442
2009–2011

How do school boards understand, weigh, and incorporate various types of research evidence in their policy deliberations and decision-making? Asen and Gurke will observe school boards in three Wisconsin school districts as they communicate their positions on a given issue, explain and offer evidence for their reasoning, and use value systems in advancing their positions and opposing those of others. They will pay particular attention to the circumstances in which school boards successfully manage tensions between research-based decision-making and other concerns. Data will be collected over two years via videotapes of all school board meetings; semi-structured interviews with board members and community stakeholders; and school district documents, media reports, and blog entries related to the board meetings. Meeting transcripts will be analyzed to examine how research evidence is interpreted and used by board members, and how board members’ interactions with each other and with community stakeholders affect their interpretation and use of research evidence.

Early Adolescents’ Experiences of Continuity and Discontinuity of School Micro-contexts: Implications for Place-Based Treatment Effects
Maria LaRusso, Ph.D.
New York University
Joshua Brown, Ph.D.
Fordham University
Stephanie Jones, Ph.D.
Harvard Graduate School of Education
$500,000
2009–2011

What role do the social climates of classrooms and non-instructional settings (e.g., lunchrooms, playgrounds, and hallways) play in predicting youth risk behaviors and outcomes? The Institute of Educational Sciences (IES), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Foundation previously supported an intervention study of a school-wide, classroom-based social-emotional learning and literacy curriculum involving 18 urban public elementary schools. Nine of the schools were randomly assigned to receive the intervention and a sample of 3rd grade children were assessed six times between 3rd and 5th grades, with evidence of positive developmental outcomes. Building on the trial’s success, Brown, Jones, and LaRusso identified social climates in classrooms and non-instructional settings that enhanced or impeded these positive outcomes. Now, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is supporting a follow-up study of these youth as they transition to middle schools and the Foundation is funding an add-on study that will allow the researchers to examine the nature, continuity, and effects of these social climates in middle school. Using surveys, interviews, focus groups, and observations, the researchers will explore whether youth experience social climates similarly in elementary and middle school, and whether or not the quality of middle school social climates impacts whether positive outcomes of the elementary school intervention are sustained.

Opportunity NYC-Family Rewards: An Embedded Child and Family Study of Conditional Cash Transfers
Pamela Morris, Ph.D.
James Riccio, Ph.D.
MDRC
$400,000
2009–2011

How do conditional cash transfers (CCTs) to low-income families affect family social processes, child expectations and motivations, and long-term mental health and behavioral problems? Opportunity New York City Family Rewards (ONCY-Family Rewards) is a CCT program that encourages changes in both parent and child behavior. The cash transfers are given to families that exhibit positive changes in three keys areas: children’s engagement and achievement in school, preventive health care practices for parents and their children, and parents’ employment-related activities. Money is distributed to program participants based on improved health and/or changes in the amount of time parents dedicated to household management versus time at work. The Foundation is funding an add-on to the original study that allows the researchers to focus on how the program impacts family routines and child management. The add-on will focus on 3,000 children and their families in grades 4, 7, and 9. The sample will be selected from among the children and families represented in the full sample of the ONYC-Family Rewards Program evaluation. The add-on assessment will occur approximately two years after families enrolled in the program, at which point the research team will conduct surveys with parents and children.

SRCD Congressional Fellowship Program
Lonnie Sherrod, Ph.D.
Society for Research in Child Development
$375,000
2009–2012

The Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Congressional Fellows Program has four basic goals: (1) to increase the likelihood that scientific knowledge about youth development will be used in the formation of public policy; (2) to expand the pool of leaders in the field who can integrate science and policy; (3) to foster research that effectively contributes to policy applications; and (4) to keep developmental science on the federal and state policymaking agenda. Since 1978, the Foundation has helped fund 68 SRCD Fellows. This grant will fund three more Fellows over the next three years, all of whom will be scholars interested in youth issues and with a background in psychology, human development, education, or a similar field. The year-long fellowship places Fellows in a congressional office, where they will serve as resident scholars in a House or Senate office to assist in bridging research and public policy.

Violence, Sleep, and Child Health
James Spilsbury, Ph.D.
Denise Babineau, Ph.D.
Case Western Reserve University
$491,737
2009–2011

How do the physical and social features of homes affect the sleep, health, and behavior of disadvantaged, urban boys and girls who have been exposed to community and family violence? Exposure to high rates of violence is linked to a wide range of negative effects on the health and behavior of children, which may lead to serious problems in adulthood, but we currently do not understand the exact mechanisms responsible for these effects. The researchers will examine one possible connection by exploring how violence exposure causes sleep disturbances, a condition already associated with poor mental health. Participants include 150 children, ages 8–16, from low-income neighborhoods and families in Cleveland, who have been referred by police to a mental health services agency for trauma and violence. Data will be collected at the time of referral, and then 6 and 12 months after referral, and will include information on violence witnessed in the home and neighborhood; home setting processes such as parental monitoring, household commotion, and family routines; resources such as dedicated sleep areas and locks/window bars; spatial factors including sleeping area proximity to noise and light distraction; and temporal factors such as household members with night or rotating work shifts. Measures of health and behavior problems, as well as sleep patterns, will also be collected.

Communications Grants

Strengthening Youth Today’s Investigative Research Capabilities
William Treanor
Patrick Boyle
American Youth Work Center
$150,000
2009–2011

Youth Today will continue to expand and build platforms for their coverage of youth issues; these platforms include newsprint, the internet with Web 2.0 interactive technology, and electronic communications. They expect to raise their target audiences’ awareness of the ways in which research is helping to influence decision-making in youth settings.

NPR’s Coverage of Youth-Related Issues
Ellen Weiss
Steven Drummond
National Public Radio
$275,000
2009–2011

NPR will continue to cover how trends and developments in education, economic and financial opportunities, and health affect America's youth, ages 8 to 25. NPR’s broadcast news and information programming now reach 27.5 million listeners weekly.