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Assistant Professor Adriana Villavicencio was recently awarded two grants, both to begin in 2022, aimed at reducing inequalities among English Learners and dismantling racism in K-12 schools.
First, a three-year, $598,000 grant from the William T. Grant Foundation, “Reducing Inequalities for Immigrant, Multilingual Students in Secondary Schools,” will research the impacts of Internationals Academies (IAs). IAs are specialized learning communities embedded in public secondary schools that deliver rigorous, linguistically and culturally responsive instruction, while providing tailored support to meet the academic and socioemotional needs of English Learners.
Villavicencio’s research will examine the impact of IAs on students’ academic outcomes compared to non-academy English learners in the district, and draw on fieldwork to understand mechanisms that explain the IA’s potential impacts.
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Adriana Villavicencio
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“English learners are one of the fastest growing student demographics and increasingly reside in non-traditional receiving communities, which are largely overlooked in education research,” Villavicencio said.
A non-traditional receiving community, Villavicencio explained, is a neighborhood or city that has not historically been considered an immigrant destination.
“Furthermore, English Learners graduate at much lower rates – nearly 20 points lower at 67 percent – compared to their non-English learner peers, which points to educational inequalities that risk creating long-term negative impacts on the life outcomes of immigrant youth,” Villavicencio said. “Given these disparities in opportunities and outcomes, it is critical to learn how schools can directly address the causes of educational failure and implement scalable programs to address the needs of immigrant youth, especially those who are developing proficiency in English. Findings from this study will inform policies and practices of other schools and districts serving immigrant students, especially in non-traditional destinations.”
The study will follow six IAs in three districts that are non-traditional immigrant destinations in West Contra Costa Unified, Calif.; Alexandria City Public Schools, Va.; and the District of Columbia Public Schools. Research on the newly awarded grant will build off a previous study, also funded by the William T. Grant Foundation, that examined the IAs whole school model in New York City. Villavicencio served as Co-PI on this study, which ran from 2017-20. Read more about the previous study here.
Villavicencio also received a two-year, $250,000 grant from the Spencer Foundation, “Disrupting Racism in Schools: A Mixed Methods Study of Educators’ Racial Dispositions and Organizational Change.”
The grant seeks to understand how educators can disrupt and dismantle racism within schools. Building on a 2018-19 pilot study in New York City, led by Villavicencio, the mixed-method study will examine the influence of a yearlong racial justice program across three public high school in Southern California and its influence in shaping an anti-racist school culture.
Two research questions will guide the study. First, how does participation in a yearlong racial justice program influence educators’ racial dispositions? Second, how does participation in a racial justice program influence school-wide policies and practices?
“While the body of research documenting the deleterious effects of racism in schools is extensive, there is less empirical research on interventions designed to mitigate racial bias in schools,” Villavicencio said. “As the U.S. experiences a pandemic that disproportionately impacts Black and Brown communities and unremitting police violence against Black men and women, there is increased urgency to combat racism in systems that perpetuate its harm.”
The aforementioned pilot study found that educators participating in the racial justice program demonstrated a deeper understanding of their own racial biases, developed a shared language to identify and name different forms of racism, and reported greater confidence to disrupt racist incidents in their schools.
The Spencer Foundation grant will begin in March 2022, and the William T. Grant Foundation grant will begin in July.
Learn more.
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