Community-Based Research on Educational Equity
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the educational inequities that affect students of color, particularly boys and young men, across the country. COSEBOC advances transformational change in our schools to respond to these long-standing inequities and recognizes that schools cannot return to “business as usual” after the pandemic.
To inform this advocacy, COSEBOC has carried out community-based, participatory action research involving youth, parents, educators, agency staff, and other local stakeholders. Much of this research has focused on the New England region and been supported by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation.
Through this research, COSEBOC has worked with local partners to:
- Build their capacity to gather, interpret, and report information and document their progress towards racial equity goals
- Conduct focus groups and interviews and collect other information to understand the history and current conditions regarding the nature and extent of educational inequities in the community
- Facilitate reflection, storytelling, sense-making, and application of research findings to advance educational equity in the community
- Prepare reports that document the results of the educational equity efforts in the community
A key goal of this research is to ensure that students, parents, and community advocates have their experiences and ideas reflected in any efforts to promote educational equity. COSEBOC recognizes that these groups can provide key insights into the systemic inequities that affect students of color in our schools and provide direction for countering those inequities. COSEBOC is committed to continuing and expanding these participatory action research efforts.