The Racial Equity Research Grants program supports education research projects that will contribute to understanding and ameliorating racial inequality in education. We are interested in funding studies that aim to understand and disrupt the reproduction and deepening of inequality in education, and which seek to (re)imagine and make new forms of equitable education. Thus, we are interested in research projects that seek to envision educational opportunities in a multiplicity of education systems, levels, settings, and developmental ranges and that reach beyond documenting conditions and paradigms that contribute to persistent racial inequalities.

Our goal for this program is to support rigorous, intellectually ambitious, and technically sound research that is relevant to the most pressing questions and compelling opportunities in relation to racial equity in education. In this cycle of funding, we will continue to fund scholarship focused on a range of communities and issues with respect to equity. We encourage proposals from across the methodological spectrum, including qualitative methods, mixed-methods, and quantitative methods. We want to especially encourage Racial Equity proposals that focus on the following areas: (1) innovative forms of measurement and assessment, (2) artificial intelligence (AI), and (3) current political challenges in k-12 and higher education around diversity, equity, and inclusion.

As with other Spencer grant programs, this program is “field-initiated” in that proposal submissions are not required to be developed around a particular research topic, discipline, design, method, or geographic location. We will be accepting applications for projects ranging from one to five years with budgets up to $75,000.

The Racial Equity Research Grants program supports education research projects that will contribute to understanding and disrupting racial inequality in education and work to reimagine generative possibilities to advance educational equity, with budgets up to $75,000 for projects ranging from one to five years. While the field of education has long focused on issues of rising inequality across the globe, we now find ourselves in a time of increased urgency given the current intersections of the COVID19 public health crisis, rapid shifts in educational systems, economic challenges, and growing civil resistance to systemic racism, Indigenous erasure, and anti-Blackness. There is perhaps no issue of greater importance right now than racial inequality across all systems and structures. We believe that educational research can play an important role in developing new forms of education that are humane, equitable, and just. As such, there is a pressing need for robust approaches to scholarship that can contribute consequentially to achieving equity in education. We encourage a wide range of methodological approaches to creatively and ambitiously engage in advancing racial equity.

This program is “field-initiated” in that proposal submissions are not required to focus on a particular research topic, discipline, design, or method. We hope that scholars will identify the most compelling and needed areas of research. For instance, scholars might focus on: instructional challenges and innovations; racial and geographic disparities and promising directions for engaging and supporting children, families, and communities; informal learning environments and informal educators; assessment challenges and opportunities; climate change and equity, social-emotional learning and well-being; educator and leader development; digital learning environments; systems change and policy making; and intersections between housing, health, and education.

We are interested in proposals at all levels and in all settings of learning, including early childhood, higher education, and in schools, families, and communities across the world. We are also interested in studies that seek to understand the situated experiences of minoritized groups, including but not limited to, Black, Latine/x, AAPI, and Indigenous communities. In addition, we are interested in studies that focus on those learners who are multiply marginalized, including intersections with English language learners, immigrants, students with disabilities, highly mobile and institutionalized youth (e.g., foster youth or those in youth prisons), LGTBQIA+ youth, and those in rural communities. Finally, we encourage proposals that are reflective of other international, national, and local contexts. We recognize that the experiences of inequality, as well as the histories and structures producing it, will vary. Thus, we expect to fund proposals that explore meanings and possibilities of equity, as well as explanations of inequality, in a variety of ways. For example, engaging and understanding issues of coloniality may be central to scholarship focused on and with Indigenous communities. We see wrestling with these complexities as necessary to cultivating educational equity. Finally, we especially welcome proposals that advance strength-based perspectives and push beyond solely documenting current paradigms.

Our goal for this program is to support rigorous, intellectually ambitious, and technically sound research that is relevant to the most pressing questions and compelling opportunities in relation to racial equity in education. We seek to support scholarship that develops new foundational knowledge that may have a significant impact on practice and policy. We value work that fosters creative and open-minded scholarship, engages in deep inquiry, and examines robust questions related to education and inequality. We also value work that is engaging emerging possibilities. We invite proposals that aim to grow the current scope of research on racial equity, develop new knowledge through interdisciplinary scholarly engagement, and include collaboration in the service of increasing the impact of educational research.

To this end, this program supports proposals from multiple disciplinary and methodological perspectives, both domestically and internationally, and from scholars at various stages in their careers. We anticipate that proposals will span a wide range of topics and disciplines. We expect and welcome methodological diversity in answering pressing questions; thus, we are open to projects that utilize a wide array of research methods including quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods, ethnographies, design-based research, participatory methods, and historical research, to name a few. We are also interested in methodological research that can enable and support research on and with racialized communities that build capacity for equitable educational systems. This could include exploration of methods appropriate in small samples and populations, the development of new measures and indices, and studies regarding the impact of methods and algorithms on reducing or promoting inequality. We are open to projects that might incorporate data from multiple and varied sources or work closely with practitioners or community members over the life of the project.

We expect that projects will interrogate the systems and structures that are associated with racial inequities. We seek proposals that focus on a strengths-based, rather than a deficit oriented, approach. A strengths-based perspective affirms and extends the knowledge, resources, goals, capacities, and interests of individuals, families, and communities, and identifies and builds upon existing assets and resources.

LOI: May 29th 2024