SBP: Creating change in education systems: Can leadership-level inclusion training reduce achievement gaps?

美国的种族和民族多样性比美国历史上任何时候都要多。然而，成绩差距继续将少数族裔和低收入学生与白人和高收入学生区分开来。旨在缩小这些成就差距的研究主要集中在学生的特征上，如动机、归属感和表现。由此产生的干预措施往往旨在改变学生参与学校环境的方式。然而，消除成绩差距可能需要的不仅仅是改变个别学生。这可能需要改变破坏少数族裔和低收入家庭学生成功的主流社会规范和信念。该项目研究如何培训学校领导人，以建立具有文化包容性和可持续的学习环境。目标是塑造学校和教师对不同学生的信念，以及他们用来吸引来自不同种族和社会阶层背景的学生的做法。这些在文化上包容学习环境的改变，预计将通过培养对学习的归属感和积极的学习信念来改善少数族裔和低收入学生的学业成绩。该项目使用地区范围的干预措施，在学校内创造文化变化。干预的重点是教教育领导者理解和验证在学校和教室里的多种文化方式，这样所有的学生都觉得自己属于学校，并有能力在学校取得成功。教育领导者将通过参加为期一周的研讨会来学习改变他们的学校文化，这些研讨会提供了在教育背景下运用文化差异的理论和实践信息。讲习班课程已经与教育工作者一起试行，并努力弥合实证研究和现实世界课堂体验之间的差距。该课程反映了基于研究的对文化如何影响认知发展、动机和情感表达的理解。它还提供了在教育环境中应用经验知识的具体策略。这项研究考察了这种干预如何影响a)地区和学校领导层制定的政策；b)教师创造的课堂文化和他们对不同学生使用的做法；以及c)学生的心理和学业成绩，特别是在少数族裔和低收入学生中。教授机构领导人了解和验证不同的文化背景有望改善少数族裔和低收入学生的教育体验，减少种族和社会阶层的成就差距。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The U.S. is more racially and ethnically diverse than at any other time in the nation's history. Yet achievement gaps continue to separate racial minority and lower-income students from White and higher-income students. Research designed to reduce these achievement gaps largely focuses on student characteristics, such as motivation, belonging, and performance. The resulting interventions often aim to change the way students engage with the school context. However, eliminating achievement gaps may require more than changing individual students. It may require changing the prevailing social norms and beliefs that undermine racial minority and low-income students' success. This project examines how school leaders might be trained to build culturally inclusive and sustainable learning environments. The goal is to shape the beliefs that schools and teachers hold about diverse students and the practices they use to engage students from different racial and social class backgrounds. These culturally inclusive changes in the learning environment are expected to improve racial minority and low-income students' academic outcomes by fostering a sense of belonging and positive beliefs about learning.This project uses a district-wide intervention to create cultural change within schools. The intervention focuses on teaching educational leaders to understand and validate multiple cultural ways of being in their schools and classrooms, such that all students feel that they belong and are capable of succeeding in school. Educational leaders will learn to change their school cultures by attending week-long workshops that provide theoretical and practical information about engaging cultural differences in educational contexts. The workshop curriculum has been piloted with educators and works to bridge the gap between empirical research and real-world classroom experiences. The curriculum reflects research-based understandings of how culture influences cognitive development, motivation, and emotional expression. It also offers concrete strategies for applying empirical knowledge in educational settings. The research examines how this intervention shapes a) the policies district and school leadership enact; b) the classroom cultures teachers create and the practices they use with diverse students; and c) students' psychological and academic outcomes, particularly among racial minority and low-income students. Teaching institutional leaders to understand and validate diverse cultural backgrounds is expected to improve minority and low-income students' educational experiences and reduce racial and social class achievement gaps.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.