SOE Awards Inaugural Signature Seed Grants

Three interdisciplinary project proposals from School of Education faculty have received funding in the first round of Signature Seed Grant awards. These grants support faculty and graduate students in developing collaborative research around one or more of our signature areas of scholarship: Antiracist and Inclusive Pedagogy and Practice, Digital Pedagogy and Practice, and/or Experiential Pedagogy and Practice.

Consideration for an SOE Signature Seed Grant encourages faculty to collaborate across programs within the school; cut across more than one signature area whenever possible; and create a clear plan to pursue external funding for the project in the long term.

Christy Ashby, Ben Dotger, and Bong Gee Jang, along with graduate assistant Emilee Baker, received funding for “Benefits of Alumni Mentor Teacher Modeling: An Exploration of Study Away.” They will be conducting focus groups and interviews with SOE Bridge to the City participants and mentor teachers to better understand the benefits of alumni mentor teacher modeling through a study away program.

Julia White, Christy Ashby, and Qiu Wang, along with graduate assistant Lauren Ashby, received funding for “Funding Segregation: An Analysis of Educational Service Agencies, Access, and Outcomes for Students with Disabilities.” Their QuantCrit (Quantitative Critical Race Theory) study will involve a secondary analysis of state- and district- level data to explore the variability in the use of Educational Service Agencies (e.g., BOCES), as well as school district configuration, demographic factors, and funding variables on inclusive learning opportunities and educational outcomes of students with disabilities labeled with autism, intellectual disability, and emotional disturbance in two “representative” states.

Bong Gee Jang, Dawn Johnson, Qiu Wang, and Yanhong Liu received funding for their project, “How Can Educational Inequities Caused by Racial Wealth Gap Be Reduced? A Critical Quantitative Analysis of Individual, Home, and School Factors.” This QuantCrit analysis will explore individual and institutional factors that may influence mediated relationships between socio-economic status and opportunity to learn on educational inequity.