77 research outputs found
Legal Empowerment and Horizontal Inequalities after Conflict
This article explores whether legal empowerment can address horizontal inequalities in post-conflict settings, and, if so, how. It argues that legal empowerment has modest potential to reduce these inequalities. Nevertheless, there are risks that legal empowerment might contribute to a strengthening of group identities, reduction of social cohesion, and, in the worst case, triggering of conflict. It looks at how two legal empowerment programmes in Liberia navigated the tensions between equity and peace
Recommended from our members
Opportunities Suspended: The Devastating Consequences of Zero Tolerance and School Discipline
The authors used data from the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), federal biennial K-12 student suspension data from 2009-2010, to analyze and compare rates of suspension for nearly half of the nation’s school districts, broken down by race and ethnicity. For each of the nearly 7,000 districts and each of the 50 states, they further examined differences in suspension by comparing the rates of students with disabilities with their non-disabled peers. Additionally, the authors analyzed data on the extent to which students are repeatedly suspended in the same school year. They also highlighted the highest suspending districts for each racial group and disaggregated data on the nation’s largest districts, with an added analysis of gender disparities as they intersect with race and disability status. National level findings show that 17% of Black school children in K-12 grades were suspended at least once and that after combining racial groups, 13% of students with disabilities were suspended. At the state level, Black students had the highest suspension rate in most states; however White students had the highest rate in Montana. At the district level, male students of color with disabilities had suspension rates higher than 33% in some of the largest districts. Authors make recommendations to different constituents, suggesting that policymakers make classroom management part of teacher evaluations, educators seek changes to school policies where suspension rates are high and researchers conduct cost/benefit analyses of frequent use of out of school suspensions
Recommended from our members
Dropouts in the South: Confronting the Graduation Rate Crisis
Recommended from our members
Opportunities Suspended: The Devastating Consequences of Zero Tolerance and School Discipline
The authors used data from the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), federal biennial K-12 student suspension data from 2009-2010, to analyze and compare rates of suspension for nearly half of the nation’s school districts, broken down by race and ethnicity. For each of the nearly 7,000 districts and each of the 50 states, they further examined differences in suspension by comparing the rates of students with disabilities with their non-disabled peers. Additionally, the authors analyzed data on the extent to which students are repeatedly suspended in the same school year. They also highlighted the highest suspending districts for each racial group and disaggregated data on the nation’s largest districts, with an added analysis of gender disparities as they intersect with race and disability status. National level findings show that 17% of Black school children in K-12 grades were suspended at least once and that after combining racial groups, 13% of students with disabilities were suspended. At the state level, Black students had the highest suspension rate in most states; however White students had the highest rate in Montana. At the district level, male students of color with disabilities had suspension rates higher than 33% in some of the largest districts. Authors make recommendations to different constituents, suggesting that policymakers make classroom management part of teacher evaluations, educators seek changes to school policies where suspension rates are high and researchers conduct cost/benefit analyses of frequent use of out of school suspensions
Recommended from our members
Dropouts in the South: Confronting the Graduation Rate Crisis
Recommended from our members
What Works for the Children? What We Know and Don't Know About Bilingual Education
Recommended from our members
What Works for the Children? What We Know and Don't Know About Bilingual Education
Brief of 823 Social Scientists as Amici Curiae
Social science research strongly supports the Fifth Circuit’s conclusion that the holistic consideration of race in admissions is a necessary complement to the percent plan for UT Austin to further its educational mission. UT Austin has a compelling interest in creating a meaningful level of inclusion of students from different racial groups and generating rich diversity to dispel racial stereotypes and foster educational excellence.A substantial body of rigorous social science research supports the Fifth Circuit’s conclusion that the extensive outreach and recruitment efforts UT Austin implemented to obtain racial diversity under the percent plan, on their own, have not been sufficient complements to the percent plan to achieve UT Austin’s educational mission. The claim that the percent plan is an effective alternative to a race- sensitive admissions policy relies on the Petitioner’s effort to problematically lump African American and Latino students into a single category, concealing important differences related to the workability of the plan for each group. The percent plan, which relies on segregated school attendance patterns in the state, has not yielded the desired results at UT Austin. Whereas as a complement to the plan, the individualized consideration of race has enabled UT Austin to create a more stimulating and productive educational environment for all of its students.UT Austin’s experience with the percent plan and analyses based on statistical simulations for other states show that percent plans alone, even in states where secondary schooling is largely segregated by race (as it is in Texas), do not yield the level of diversity needed to obtain the educational benefits of diversity. Giving weight to socioeconomic status alone does not produce the diversity needed to further UT Austin’s academic mission, and relying largely or solely on socioeconomic status to achieve diversity is not a feasible alternative. The extensive experience of selective colleges and universities using alternatives to race-sensitive admissions decisions in other states, including California and Michigan, underscores the need for UT Austin’s holistic policy. This evidence compels the conclusion that there are no effective substitutes for race-sensitive admissions decisions in generating the diversity required to further UT Austin’s educational mission.There are great costs in not considering race in admissions in the narrowly tailored manner that UT Austin employs. Research on the impact of laws that ban the consideration of race in admissions shows that at selective schools these bans have led to de- clines in racial and ethnic student body diversity, including in the important fields of medicine, law, business, and science. Not only do these declines degrade the educational experiences of students, but they harm the nation’s future. Research shows that barring the kind of consideration that UT Austin gives race in its holistic admissions system cannot only isolate and stigmatize admitted students, but may also harm race relations by limiting cross campus racial integration and preventing institutions from addressing and countering the ways in which race shapes the educational experiences of all students
- …