UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A new civil rights in education initiative, called AdvancED Equity, that focuses on advancing research to inform policy related to civil rights protections in the field of education, was recently established with support from Penn State.
Funded in part by Penn State’s Social Science Research Institute (SSRI), the initiative fills a major research void in the field of education policy, according to principal investigator Maithreyi Gopalan, associate professor at the University of Oregon, and co-principal investigator Erica Frankenberg, professor of education and demography and director of the Center for Education and Civil Rights at Penn State.
“Although some academics and professionals have advocated for a redoubled emphasis on civil rights in federal education policy, a thorough, rigorous research agenda is still lacking,” said Frankenberg, who is also an associate director of SSRI. “By encouraging cooperation between academics, decision-makers, and practitioners in the fields of civil rights and education, AdvancED Equity aims to close this gap.”
Through the AdvancED Equity website, researchers, educators and policymakers can easily access shared data, articles, conference updates and other items detailing work related to or that could potentially inform civil rights laws and policies — specifically, how they affect educational opportunities for all students. The goal of the platform is to encourage new research, teamwork, and act as a clearinghouse of data and research aimed at fostering growth in the field.
Additionally, Gopalan and Frankenberg plan to make several datasets from the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Education more easily accessible, providing a common resource for researchers to examine the effectiveness of civil rights laws and policies as applied in educational environments. The team will also analyze historical data, such as statistics related to civil rights, to identify patterns and insights that may guide future policy choices and enhance student results. One such analysis of school disciplinary outcomes was published in the journal Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World.
Next steps of the initiative include developing a consensus of research priorities to advance the field, including projects focused on understanding disparities in students’ experiences and outcomes in schools as well as studying the outcomes of the federal civil rights in education enforcement process. Other priorities included focusing on how research is used by and communicated with interested policymakers and practitioners. The team hosted a conference in March to discuss civil rights research priorities across research, practice and policy, and they plan to host another conference in 2025.
“An important step in bridging the gap between research, policy and practice in civil rights education has been taken with the launch of AdvancED Equity,” Gopalan said.
The Penn State College of Education, the Student Experience Research Network, and the National Council of School Diversity also provided support for this initiative.