Innovative Approaches to Addressing Structural Inequality: Developing Knowledge and Networks for Institutional and Social Change

Research Overview

This enterprise rests on the premise that those interested in remedying persistent inequality must figure out how to create the conditions allowing full participation in economic and social life when the problems causing racial and gender under-participation are structural, and they must do this under conditions of considerable legal ambiguity.  The goal is to develop interdisciplinary collaborations that will produce strategic thinking, empirical analysis, and theory-practice research on the future of racial and social justice advocacy and policy under evolving conditions. 

Each project focuses on addressing structural inequality within particular institutional domains with significant impact on economic and social citizenship.  Current projects focus on higher education, police departments, racialized low wage work, and housing segregation.  These projects focus on creating new frames and narratives and developing strategies, frameworks, roles and institutional arrangements that shape advocacy and policy, as well as the interacting relationships of race, gender, class, and power. 

Each project creates a collaboration involving social science, law school faculty, and in some cases faculty from other professional schools, as well as activists, leaders, and policy makers who are seeking new ways to advance full participation and citizenship. The projects include inquiry involving mapping the field, analyses of research across the social science disciplines, conducting pilot case studies and other research, and the development of research agendas and projects that will lead to additional funding from outside sources, ongoing collaborations and networks, publications, and policy recommendations.  The Center supports these projects through collaborative workshops, research support, and integrating knowledge across project areas.

Developing the Architecture of Inclusion in Higher Education

Many existing programs intended to increase diversity in higher education frequently do not address the structural dynamics producing marginalization.  Higher education institutions must develop effective ways to address structural inequality, to refocus diversity efforts toward increasing access and participation for those currently marginalized from high quality higher education, and in the process, to reconnect merit to the mission of advancing knowledge and addressing pressing social problems.  Reflective and collaborative methodologies are needed in order to create sustained progress in both the research and practice of transforming institutions and promoting democratic outcomes across all institutions of higher education. Currently, within higher education there is a need for research about how to institutionalize innovative practices, transformative leadership and program practices; how to assess whether institutionalization and transformation has occurred and to what extent; and how institutions with differing resources that serve both diverse and underserved populations can forge collaborative relationships that encourage institutional transformation that meets the needs of diverse populations. There is also a need to develop strategies for connecting research and knowledge to those directly involved in the decisions and policies determining access to and participation in higher education. 

The Architecture of Inclusion project aims to:

1. Develop and conduct longitudinal research on institutional collaborations designed to build the capacity of each partner to increase access and opportunity, create opportunity cascades among differently resourced institutions and serve as a catalyst for rethinking merit and transforming institutions.
2. Enhance the use of data to transform universities and colleges in terms of promoting greater inclusiveness, including by identifying both the obstacles and the enabling conditions (policies, leadership, integration with organizational routines, a critical mass of activist faculty, researchers, administrators,) that inform how data alters values, attitudes, practices, priorities, and programs within institutions; 
3. Improve the quality and relevance of research on effective institutional change aimed at diversifying higher education through the use of institutional case studies and multi-pronged qualitative methodologies which integrate research and practice on institutional change relating to diversity and opportunity;
4. Develop the role of organizational catalysts and other innovators who are pivotally placed to mobilize institutional change through rigorous inquiry and comparative study;
5. Connect the efforts of creative lawyers involved in facilitating lawful innovation among higher education institutions involved in advancing diversity, opportunity, and inclusion.
6. Build networks of innovative practitioners and researchers interested in collaborating on the development of workable frameworks and strategies by bringing relevant organizations and persons together to share ideas.
   

The Higher Education Research Projects that are the focus of this proposal will be included in a larger collaborative research initiative that seeks to repair institutional structural inequality in higher education. This proposal seeks to address three areas that have largely gone understudied and explored within higher education that address crucial areas of interest to those who seek to increase and sustain efforts to promote equity and equality in higher education for underrepresented and underserved populations.  These three initiatives include: 

1. Studying and supporting the development of collaborative institutional partnerships among research and comprehensive universities with differing resources with the goal of creating opportunity cascades among differently resourced institutions and serving as a catalyst for institutional transformation;
2. Examining transformative leadership that increases opportunity, diversity and inclusion, through focused case study and reflective practice research, with a particular focus on leadership situated to transform universities’ approach to merit, and
3. Developing indicators and evaluative tools that can be integrated into the roles and practices pivotal to shaping opportunity, access and diversity.  
   

The anticipated outcomes for this project include:

• Institutional collaborations producing bridge programs and other student/faculty networks aimed at expanding access, increasing engagement and promoting institutional transformation;
• Publications, including articles, an on-line compendium of case studies, and a book;
• Literature reviews synthesizing and evaluating research in key areas, including rethinking merit, bridge programs, institutional collaboration and networks, institutional change, diversity leadership, transformative leadership, use of data, and indicators of institutional change;
• A website disseminating state-of-the-art information on institutional change relating to higher education, diversity and opportunity; 
• Tools for differentiating between cosmetic and transformative initiatives and roles, as well as for integrating decision making and information gathering as it relates to institutionalizing equity and diversity;
• Networks of innovative change agents, in a position to bring knowledge about transformative change to broader networks and communities of practice;
• Educational programs and conferences designed to build the capacity of students and change agents to pursue institutional transformation.