Federal Grant With PURPOSE Helps Tallahassee

We’ve been having a national conversation about social justice. And it’s obviously an important conversation. Part of this conversation involves initiatives to be able to increase diversity and representation in different industries. One of these industries is higher education, where diversity, equity and inclusion efforts have improved but still seem to lag at the higher levels. Earlier this year, a collaboration of the Eos Foundation and the American Association of University Women produced a report that looked into this. The results of the study found that at top universities, the highest-paid professionals are still overwhelmingly white men. Increasing diversity within education at all levels is important.

The reports details that while women receive the majority of master’s degrees as well as PhDs:

• As of 2019, women earned 54% of all PhDs and 60% of all master’s degrees.
• Less than a quarter – 24% – of top earners are women, and this can vary by category.
• Women of Color comprise only 2.5% of top earners.
• Black men comprise only 3.5% of top earners.
• Only 3% of top earners are Latino.

This is why it’s great to hear about a new grant award aimed at increasing diversity in the field of research education. This grant was jointly awarded to Florida State University and Florida A&M University, both located in Tallahassee. How will the grant help with this goal?

A grant with PURPOSE

The Institute of Education Sciences awarded this 5-year, $1.5 million grant. IES is a nonpartisan statistics, research and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Education. The grant will go toward supporting the continuation of the Partners United for Research Pathways Oriented to Social Justice in Education (PURPOSE) training program.

This program, launched in 2017, places emphasis on training diverse cohorts of students in research education with a focus on social justice within education.

Students who participate in this program will receive:

• A stipend
• Funding for travel
• Funding for research materials
• One-on-one mentoring from the program’s faculty mentors.

Jeannine Turner, associate professor of educational psychology and principal investigator for the project, spoke on the importance of this program:

“Our one-year training program has provided fellows with research knowledge and skills, as well as research apprenticeships,” Turner said. “Our surveys and interviews have consistently shown that although our fellows enter PURPOSE with a strong commitment for social justice, PURPOSE helps them understand the valuable role that research can play in building an equitable educational system.”

The research focus of PURPOSE is social justice issues within educational contexts.

As part of a one-year training program, fellows will:

• Train as educational researchers
• Conduct research together with faculty members in North Florida
• Participate in proseminars
• Receive assistance in applying to doctoral programs

This will give students a well-rounded understanding of what they are interested in researching as well as help with research aimed at combating disparities within education. It will also allow them opportunities to publish original research as well as learn from experts in this field. All of this will help when applying for the next level of education.

GrantWatch Notes:

Similar grants can help with funding other similar initiatives focused on combating disparities, such as this one for North Carolina nonprofits and agencies addressing systemic racism. That’s why we are pleased to feature a social justice grant category over at GrantWatch.

We also have other grant categories that may be helpful for grant seekers such as an education grant category as well as one for research and evaluation grants. Many grants have crossover into multiple categories. Look around GrantWatch and sign up for a subscription today.