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Prudence L. Carter
Stanford University
Visiting Scholar
2015 to 2016
Carter will examine belief systems that shape educational policy‐making. Using the results of a multi-method qualitative study, she will investigate how student success is framed in public discourse by the mainstream media and how policymakers use research to shape policies designed to enhance student and school success. Carter will also examine how policymakers’ social backgrounds relate to their educational policy decision‐making. She will present her findings in a series of journal articles and a book manuscript.
David A. Gamson
Pennsylvania State University
Visiting Scholar
2015 to 2016
Gamson will research the history of “equal educational opportunity” and how its definition in the U.S. has changed over time. Using archival source materials, he will examine the ways in which conceptions of equal educational opportunity have been mutually reinforcing, overlapping, or contradictory. He will also examine the extent to which prevailing notions of academic ability have undermined many efforts to improve educational quality.
Benjamin Justice
Rutgers University
Visiting Scholar
2023 to 2024
Justice (together with Tracey Meares) will co-author a book on how experiences with criminal legal institutions shape one’s civic identity. Drawing on scholarship from law, history, and the social sciences, they will examine how legally innocent people encounter three phases of the “curriculum” of American justice: policing, pretrial detention, and adjudication.
Michal Kurlaender
University of California, Davis
Visiting Scholar
2017 to 2018
Kurlaender will research inequality in higher education, using data from California’s public higher education systems to explore the correlates of racial and socioeconomic disparities in academic achievement and college completion. She will also evaluate policies aimed at increasing college completion and explore how different institutions’ programs and practices can either ameliorate or exacerbate attainment gaps.
Amy Stuart Wells
University of California, Los Angeles
Visiting Scholar
1999 to 2000
Amy Stuart Wells, associate professor of educational policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, will study a growing, broad-based educational reform movement that seeks to break away from the model of the "common" school -- offering similar and equal educational opportunities to all -- toward greater specialization and privatization, as exemplified by charter schools. Wells contends that charter schools are no more accountable for student outcomes than normal schools and have won greater autonomy from government at the cost of reduced support.