Loyola University Chicago
Here you will find all of CURL's research projects and publications.
The Justice for Families Comprehensive Project is a three-year, multifaceted collaboration between the Circuit Court of Cook County and Loyola University Chicago’s Center for Urban Research and Learning, School of Social Work, and School of Law. Funded by the National Institute of Justice in 2020, it aims to increase the safety of families impacted by Domestic Violence and the well-being of the children in those families.
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CURL is working with Jane Addams Resource Corporation (JARC) to improve tracking of the organization's main outcomes for their career manufacturing trainees in ways that are the most efficient and are disaggregated by race and gender.
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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.
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CURL is performing research and evaluation for HEART Women & Girls’ 2017 initiative. The initiative is composed of a series of trainings for Muslim college students and student leaders on up to five college campuses. The students will come together to understand sexual violence, learn how to support victims, and develop victim-centric approaches, polices, and best practices that address and prevent sexual violence in student organizations.
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Chicago's Fifth House Ensemble (5HE) partners with local non-profits to offer music education residencies to vulnerable populations throughout the city. Recent residencies include Teen Living Programs, a homeless youth services provider; Deborah's Place, homeless women services provider; and Nancy B. Jefferson Alternative High School, an alternative school located within the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. The Center for Urban Research and Learning (CURL) and Brian L. Kelly of Loyola University Chicago, School of Social Work, are working together to evaluate the benefits of these residencies, by measuring their effects on participants' mental health, professional skills, engagement with the community, and other dimensions of social and personal life.
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Instituto del Progreso Latino (Instituto) has developed a new model for providing ESL training to its community of learners. They are combining the best of online educational practice with intensive one-on-one and in-person classroom mentoring to fully meet the needs of their students. CURL evaluated this pilot program which is funded by the MacArthur Foundation.
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Chicago Public Schools launched the Global Citizenship Initiative (GCI) in 2012-2013. GCI provides rigorous curriculum aligned with high standards, supports high quality pedagogy that meets the needs of diverse learners and reflects best practices in civic education, and generates multiple external learning opportunities throughout the city of Chicago.
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CURL started an evaluation partnership with Community Organizing and Family Issues (COFI) focusing on their recently awarded multi-year grant from the Kellogg Foundation. The process evaluation examined the implementation of COFI’s parent leadership program - Family Focused Organizing - in four Illinois communities that are building collaborations to improve access to and quality of early learning programs. Family Focused Organizing develops parents as leaders in their communities so they may advocate on behalf of themselves, their families, and their communities.
Read MoreThe purpose of this project was to develop specific strategies for using whole school climate prevention to support the morale of staff when experiencing unexpected change which increases teacher’s stress and may have a negative impact on student’s learning. We performed a mixed method study of an urban middle school that was targeted for downsizing in a large urban district and is now implementing school-wide prevention for behavior problems.
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CURL and Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI) have created a Knowledge Exchange to assist BPI staff and board members in understanding demographic trends, theory, and current research related to policies aimed at reducing poverty.
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