Foundation Grants
2005 Edmund A. Stanley, Jr. Research Grants
Michael Bitz, Ed.D.,Teachers College, Columbia University, N.Y.
Michael Bitz has been funded to write a research synthesis on comic book clubs during the afterschool hours. He will write about the "dynamics, outcomes, and impacts" of afterschool comic book clubs in four cities: New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Chicago. Bitz will explore the notion that comic books produced by children are based on themes of democracy and leadership and represent the voices of children who in any other setting would be labeled as "under-achieving." The paper will highlight not only the pathways to democracy that afterschool programs afford children, but also the depth of responsibility and awareness that accompany those freedoms.
Georgia Hall, Ph.D., National Institute on Out-of-School Time, Wellesley College, MA.
Georgia Hall has been funded to investigate the approach and activities of the New York Urban Debate League, and how youth, through their participation, "develop democracy skills and experiences that can effect personal change." The research study will: 1) describe the components of the debate program; 2) profile the youth and adult participants; 3) provide an analysis of the "debate" approach and activities; 4) investigate the experiences of and impacts on participating youth; and 5) outline the infrastructure that supports the delivery of urban debate activities. Hall will also compare literature that claims debate skills transfer to other social, civic, and academic arenas with data generated from the study.
Shirley Brice Heath, Ph.D., Brown University, RI.
Shirley Brice Heath has been funded to conduct a case study of The Food Project (TFP), a sustainable agriculture project that brings inner-city and suburban youth in the Boston area together in a year-round work program. TFP participants run two farmers' markets, develop products and services for entrepreneurial ventures, and supply food and labor for homeless shelters. The study will focus on how TFP is both a democratic environment and sustainable organization, framed by the view that democracy is a "way of working and communicating with others through respect for individual autonomy and civic community, the global and local, and difference as well as sameness." One of the outcomes of this study will be to identify guidelines and principles for program replication.
Lissa Soep, Ph.D., Youth Radio, CA.
Lissa Soep has been funded to study Youth Radio, an afterschool youth media program whose participants cover a range of topics and whose broadcasts are carried regularly on National Public Radio and other major outlets. The study will focus on youth from five community-based youth organizations. Research questions include: 1) What principles and practices shape youth media organizations' efforts to cover stories related to democracy and social justice; 2) To what extent are the learning environments marked by evidence of social justice pedagogy; and 3) What conditions need to be in place for community-based organizations to both cover stories related to democracy and themselves to operate as democratic learning environments? Findings from the study will "enable educators, researchers and policy-makers advance education and afterschool programming as democratic practice."
Sarah Zeller-Berkman, Hour Children, Inc, NY.
Sarah Zeller-Berkman, a doctoral student at the City University of New York Graduate Center, has been funded to study how community-based organizations working with youth affected by incarceration—youth with a parent in prison and youth who have been incarcerated as juveniles—are helping youth foster interpersonal relationships, create expanded social networks, engage youth in democracy-in-action and organize youth around social issues. The study will examine "spaces that promote democracy in action in a society that often excludes young people from democratic ideals." Zeller-Berkman will use a participatory action research design and train youth to be co-researchers in the study.
