Democracy Schools
(2019 – 2022)
CURL partnered with the Loyola School of Education on a Democracy Schools grant from the McCormick Foundation. The intent of the grant was to support the advancement of civic education in public high schools by addressing race equity issues. This collaborative venture, the Equity Cohort Initiative, partnered with five public high schools (Senn, Curie, Grayslake Community, Hinsdale South, and Glenbard South) in the Chicago metropolitan area. Our work was framed by Banks' model of multicultural engagement. Banks' argues that schools need to pay attention to integrating curriculum, equity in pedagogy, empowering school climate, knowledge construction, and prejudice reduction. Each of the five school partners, with leadership provided by the Democracy Schools coordinator, identified a specific strategy to develop towards racial equity. CURL played a critical role in our work with Curie High School as the school sought to implement and evaluate school strategies around culturally responsive pedagogy, restorative justice and student voice. CURL facilitated and analyzed teacher and student focus groups in order to help Curie understand how its strategies resonated with school stakeholders.
The three-year Equity Cohort Initiative also included a research component that sought to understand the role that informant school leaders play in working toward racial equity and justice. Pursuing racial equity in suburban high schools: How informal school leaders rise to the challenge of addressing racial equity (Race and Pedagogy Journal, 5(4), 2022) documents how three diverse school leaders in diversifying suburban high schools navigated the opportunities and challenges of responding to the problem of racial inequities in schools.
Journal Article:
Research Team:
T. Neumann, CURL
J. Schmidt, School of Education
S. Burton, School of Education
Y. El Ashmawi, School of Education
K. Ferguson, School of Education
T. Moody, CURL Graduate Fellow
M. Farrar, CURL Undergraduate Fellow
A. Monarski, CURL Undergraduate Fellow
Community Partners: