GWIPP Research: Social Policy
Title: Private Two-Year Colleges and Their Students: Pathways, Returns, and Policy
Funding: Ford Foundation
Status: Current
Title: The Cumulative Effect of the PreK-3rd Education Experience on English Language Learners
Funding: Foundation for Child Development
Category: Education Policy
Start Date: November 2008
Status: Current
Summary: The primary goal of this study is to understand how the cumulative primary school experience influences the academic proficiency of English Language Learners (ELL) in the Miami-Dade County Public School System. By primary school experience, we refer to the amount and type of services that students receive in the PK-8th grades from the public school system, including their grade upon entry into the system (with specific attention to the PK and K entry points); the characteristics of the schools, teachers, and peers to which they are exposed; and the types of English language instruction services they receive.
Title: Cybersegregation
Researcher: Gregory Squires
Funding: SUNY-Albany
Start Date: September 2008
Status: Current
Summary: forthcoming
Title: Etiology and Course of Depressive Symptoms in African American Adolescents
Researcher: Dylan Conger
Funding: National Institute of Mental Health
Start Date: December 2007
Status: Current
Summary:
Adolescent depression is a significant public health problem associated with concurrent and later impairment in multiple domains, including interpersonal difficulties, academic and occupational problems, substance use, and suicidal behavior, as well as increased risk of depressive disorders and psychiatric comorbidity. To date, however, there have been few prospective longitudinal examinations of the course of depressive symptoms in adolescence, limiting our understanding of the etiology and course of depressive problems in youth and restricting the knowledge base available to inform the development of preventive interventions and health policies targeting adolescent depression. Moreover, the available research on adolescent depression has been conducted almost exclusively with middle class and Caucasian samples to the relative neglect of ethnically diverse samples.
Additionally, there has been relatively little attention to the role of contexts beyond the family in the emergence and maintenance of depressive symptoms. Therefore, this examines the longitudinal course of depressive symptoms in a community epidemiologically-defined sample of urban African American adolescents, and the role of the neighborhood context in the etiology of depressive symptoms in these adolescents. Multilevel and geostatistical models will be used to understand the effects of location on these adolescents' mental health adjustment, and inform the development of contextually relevant interventions. Implications of this work for public health policies regarding the content, timing, duration, and location of interventions for adolescent depression will be presented.
Title: Technical Assistance for the Administration for Children and Families
Researcher: Michael Wiseman
Funding: Administration for Children and Families
Start Date: October 2007
Status: Current
Summary:
Project product will be the TANF Disability Transition Demonstration Initiative designed to motivate States to develop programs to encourage employment of individuals with health barriers to work. It will also provide technical assistance to the Disability Transition Project by assisting in the development of a development of a draft initiative implementation and evaluation plan.
Title: Time to English Proficiency Among Young English Learners
Researcher: Dylan Conger (GWIPP)
Funding Source: Foundation for Child Development
Start Date: July 2007
Research Status: Current
Summary:
Acquiring English proficiency early in school is a crucial step to high academic performance and, ultimately, to successful labor market outcomes and social integration. Yet there is substantial variation in the speed with which young children pick up their second language, and inconclusive evidence about the factors that influence these varying trajectories. Aiming for a more complete understanding, this project investigates how long it takes students to become English proficient and how the time to proficiency varies according to students’ background characteristics (e.g. country of origin), the grade at which they enter school, and the type of English instruction they receive. The study uses longitudinal panels of young English Language Learners in New York City public schools.
Title: The Implications of High School Course Availability and Course-Taking for
Achievement, Graduation, and Postsecondary Enrollment
Researchers: Dylan Conger (GWIPP); Patrice Iatarola (Florida State University); Mark Long (University of Washington)
Funding Source: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences
Start Date:July 2007
Research Status: Current
Summary:
Responding to increases in the demand for skilled labor, persistent racial and income gaps in academic outcomes, and the higher relative performance of secondary students from other developed countries, U.S. policymakers and educators have turned their attention, once again, towards high school curriculum. To inform this effort, our study identifies the determinants of course-offerings across schools and course-taking within schools, and the effects of course-taking on outcomes at multiple stages of the students' high school and postsecondary careers. We seek primarily to estimate: 1) the share of socioeconomic and demographic disparities in course-taking that can be attributed to variation across schools in their course offerings versus variation in course-taking among students within schools; and 2) the share of socioeconomic and demographic disparities in 10th grade test scores, four-year graduation rates, and enrollment rates in postsecondary institutions that can be attributed to differential returns to course-taking, differential course-taking within schools, and differential course offerings across schools. The research relies on administrative data from the Florida Department of Education on the census of 8th through 12th grade public school students (and their schools) from 1998 to 2005.
Title: Trajectories of Immigrant Performance Over Time
Researcher: Dylan Conger (GWIPP); Amy Ellen Schwartz, Leanna Stiefel (New York University)
Funding Source: Spencer Foundation
Start Date: September 2006
Research Status: Current
Summary:
Despite the difficulties of learning a new language and new customs, prior research suggests that young immigrant children fare relatively well in U.S. public schools. Yet, very little research has carefully studied how immigrant children fare over time in school and how their performance trajectories are shaped by the schools they attend, the age upon which they enter the U.S., and other family and student attributes. This study carefully examines the performance trajectories of immigrant children in New York City public schools. Specifically, we are tracking several cohorts of immigrant and native-born students and comparing changes in their relative performance from elementary through high school. In addition to determining how their performance changes over time, we are exploring the effect of age upon entry—separately from the effect of length of residency—on children’s performance upon immigration and their trajectories over time. Finally, we distinguish among the foreign-born, identifying the multiple pathways that they take and the factors that determine those pathways. With this final analysis, we seek to identify the various peer groups that immigrant children assimilate to as they age and how their demographic and educational characteristics along with their schools influence these trajectories. Our research is aimed at informing New York City educators and educators across the nation facing growing immigrant populations.
Title: The Ingredients for Successful and Vibrant Cities
Researcher(s): Hal Wolman, Royce Hanson, Pamela Blumenthal, Nancy Y. Augustine (GWIPP) and Ned Hill (Cleveland State University)
Funding Source: CEOs for Cities
Start Date:
Research Status: Current
Summary:
What are the ingredients that go into making a city successful? What public policy processes, investment strategies, and political actions are required to support the ingredients for city success? Affiliates of CEOs for Cities, a network of elected and appointed officials and business leaders in American cities, are being asked these questions to provide insight on the policies that help cities achieve success and help prioritize the allocation of political energy, capital, and financial resources to promote city renewal.
Title: What Difference Does Representation Make?
Researcher(s): Garry Young, Hal Wolman, and Royce Hanson (GWIPP)
Funding Source: Trellis Foundation
Start Date:
Research Status: Current
Summary:
Viable representation in Congress is a key goal for many citizens of the District of Columbia . Yet, the debate over representation lacks some specifics. What will be the substantive effect of representation? How will the District’s influence over Congress change and how will this change in influence alter public policies directly relevant to the District? These are questions the proposed project seeks to answer. In the project we will consider several different possible forms of District representation. We will then evaluate those forms in regard to their likely impact on policy benefits through legislation (passed or stopped) and fiscal allocation. We will also consider the impact of representation in other areas such as the congressional ombuds role, oversight of executive branch regulation, and the symbolic importance of representation.
Title: Back Home from Prison: Understanding Why Offenders Recidivate
Researcher(s): Charis E. Kubrin (GWIPP and GWU Sociology Department)
Funding Source: Smith Richardson Foundation
Start Date:
Research Status: Completed
Summary:
With more than 600,000 prisoners returning to society each year, the issue of prisoner reentry is at the forefront of domestic public policy. How many of these prisoners will reoffend, and which factors influence the likelihood of recidivating? Prior studies have focused exclusively on individual-level characteristics of offenders and their offenses to determine the correlates of reoffending. Notably absent from recidivism studies are measures reflecting the neighborhood contexts in which the individuals live. Few studies document the types of neighborhoods prisoners are released into or whether ex-offenders tend to disproportionately live in socially disorganized neighborhoods with high rates of poverty, joblessness, and residential mobility—factors that can facilitate recidivism. Neighborhood context is fundamental to our understanding of why people reoffend yet we know little about how ecological characteristics of communities influence the reoffending behavior of prisoners. Using data on a sample of released offenders in Washington, D.C., this study will examine both individual and neighborhood level correlates of recidivism. The questions that motivate this research are: 1) To what extent do neighborhood characteristics account for variation in the reoffending behavior of prisoners that is not explained by their individual-level characteristics?, 2) How do individual-level and neighborhood- level characteristics interact to influence rates of recidivism?, and 3) Does neighborhood context help explain why minorities are more likely to reoffend than whites once released.
Title: Explaining Suicide among Blacks and Whites: How Socio-Economic Factors and Gun Availability Affect Race-Specific Suicide Rates
Researcher(s): Charis E. Kubrin (GWIPP and GWU Sociology Department)
Funding Source: Smith Richardson Foundation
Start Date:
Research Status: Current
Summary:
What are the correlates of suicide among blacks and whites? One body of literature suggests that structural factors such as poverty, inequality, joblessness, and family disruption are the key contributors while another literature considers the availability of firearms to be the central factor. No studies have thoroughly explored both of these possibilities together and thus we know little about the relative contributions of motivation to commit suicide due to structural conditions and opportunity to commit suicide due to firearm availability. The current research addresses this issue. We examine the roles of motivation and opportunity in shaping suicide rates among young white and young black males in U.S. cities using suicide data from Mortality Multiple Cause of Death Records and 2000 Census data. We find racial differences in the predictors of suicide; although concentrated disadvantage directly affects suicide among young white males, it only raises levels for young black males by increasing their access to firearms. This finding is confirmed in additional analyses, which examine the effects of concentrated disadvantage on black and white gun and non-gun suicides separately. The findings have important implications for the study of race and suicide.
Title: The Open Method of Coordination
Researcher(s): Michael L. Wiseman (GWIPP)
Funding Source: The Annie E. Casey Foundation/Rockefeller Foundation
Start Date:
Research Status: Current
Summary:
The European Union has adopted procedures for identifying common member state goals for social welfare policy, monitoring progress toward attaining these ends, and sharing information on best practice and successful innovation. The system is known as the “Open Method of Coordination.” This project is intended to bring OMC ideas to the attention of American policy makers and to investigate possible application to issues of coordination of state Food Stamp, TANF, and Workforce Investment policies.
Title: High Performance Bonus Data for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
Researcher(s): Michael L. Wiseman (GWIPP)
Funding Source: Department of Health and Human Services
Start Date:
Research Status: Current
Summary:
Since April, 2002 the Office of Family Assistance of the Administration for Children and Families has contracted with GWIPP for consultative services on a range of issues related to design, operation, and evaluation of state Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs. Topics investigated include the TANF “High Performance Bonus,” requirements for state program descriptions, strategies for improving management, and results of various program evaluations. This work has involved TSPPPA students, and is ongoing.
Title: Office Policy
Researcher(s): Michael L Wiseman (GWIPP)
Funding Source: Social Security Administration
Start Date:
Research Status: Current
Summary:
This project involved work on a variety of issues of concern to the Social Security Administration, including policy related to support for persons with disabilities, creating a “safety net” for the elderly after Social Security reform, and international policy comparison under auspices of the International Social Security Association.
Title: Focus on Success: How do Children from Poor Families Escape from Poverty?
Researcher(s): Hal Wolman and Nancy Gardner (GWIPP), George Galster (Wayne State), Marvin Mandell and Dave Marcotte (University of Maryland, Baltimore County).
Funding Source: University of Maryland Baltimore County - The Ford Foundation
Start Date:
Research Status: Completed
Summary:
What accounts for the fact that some children who grow up in very poor households in a very poor neighborhood, nonetheless succeed? To answer this question we utilize PSID, a panel database, and follow the cohort of children born between 1967-1974 into their adulthood. We examine the adult outcomes of these children – income, employment, educational attainment, etc. – and, using simultaneous equation models, test the relative impact of parental background characteristics, parental behavior, neighborhood effects, social capital, and housing tenure as a child on adult outcomes.
Title: Job-Centered Welfare: Review and Planning for UK/US Exchange
Researcher(s): Michael L. Wiseman (GWIPP)
Funding Source: Rockefeller Foundation
Start Date:
Research Status: Current
Summary:
A key element of British welfare reforms is a program of linking social assistance for working-age persons with efforts to work by collocating welfare and employment services in a single agency, called “Jobcentre Plus.” The Jobcentre Plus idea originated with visits by British policymakers to similar facilities in Wisconsin, and the program is similar in some respects to the “One-Stop” employment services centers fostered in the United States by the Workforce Investment Act. This project explores these transatlantic connections.
Title: Thin the Soup or Shorten the Line: Choices Facing Washington Area Nonprofits
Researcher(s): Patricia Atkins, Mallory Barg, Joseph Cordes, & Martha Ross (GWIPP)
Funding Source: Fannie Mae Foundation
Start Date:
Research Status: Completed
Summary:
Research on the state of non-profit human services agencies in the Washington, D.C. region during changing economic conditions showed that non-profits are taking short term responses to their rising client need, their increasing costs, their expanded reporting requirements, and their sluggish revenue growth. Many have dipped into reserve funds, frozen salaries, reduced direct assistance, or initiated staff layoffs. Some responsive non-profit human services agencies have begun to make longer-term adjustments by restructuring their organizations to acquire new sources of revenue, expanding private donor campaign efforts, and initiating revenue sources that are more market-based. The report particularly focused on the fiscal contributions of local governments to the human services nonprofit sector, discovering a multitude of support processes unique to each of the six jurisdictions examined. Click here for the full paper.
Title: The Welfare We Want
Researcher(s): Michael L. Wiseman (GWIPP)
Funding Source: The Rockefeller Foundation
Start Date:
Research Status: Completed
Summary:
Since 1997 Britain’s “New Labour” government has introduced the world’s most wide-ranging reform of social assistance. This project assembled a review of the Labour program by British authorities. The result is a book, The Welfare We Want: The British Challenge for American Reform (Policy Press) published in 2003 and various papers.
Title: Does the Community Reinvestment Act Encourage Integration of Urban Communities? Mortgage Lending, Homeownership and Black Wealth Accumulation in Metropolitan America
Researcher(s): Samantha Friedman (Dept. of Sociology, GWU) & Gregory D. Squires (Dept. of Sociology, GWU)
Funding Source: The Ford Foundation
Start Date:
Research Status: Completed
Summary:
This paper, which has been revised and resubmitted to Social Problems, examines the extent to which the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) has helped racial minorities purchase homes in predominantly white neighborhoods from which they have traditionally been excluded. Using 2000 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act reports (HMDA) and 2000 decennial census data, we find that in metropolitan areas where a relatively high proportion of loans are made by institutions covered by the CRA, blacks and Latinos are more likely to purchase homes in predominantly white neighborhoods than in areas where relatively fewer loans are made by such lenders. This finding holds after controlling for a range of socioeconomic characteristics.
Title: State TANF Strategies
Researcher(s): Michael L. Wiseman (GWIPP)
Funding Source: APPAM
Start Date:
Research Status: Completed
Summary:
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act of 1996 substantially increased the latitude granted states in the design of social assistance programs for families with children. This project critically examined aspects of the changes the states adopted.
Title: HRA Program Initiativesl
Researcher(s): Michael L. Wiseman (GWIPP)
Funding Source: New York Human Resources Agency
Start Date:
Research Status: Completed
Summary:
This project focuses on various aspects of welfare reforms introduced in New York City by the administration of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani between 1997 and 2002, including conversion of welfare offices into “Job Centers,” development of the JobStat performance assessment system, and organization of special services tracks for persons with exceptional social services needs. The project produced various papers now under revision or submitted for publication.
Title: Housing and the Locational Attainment of Immigrants in Metropolitan America
Researcher(s): Samantha Friedman (Dept. of Sociology, GWU) and Emily Rosenbaum (Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology, Fordham University)
Funding Source: The Fannie Mae Foundation
Start Date:
Research Status: Completed
Summary:
This project has examined nativity-status differences in housing and neighborhood conditions in metropolitan America using data from the 2001 American Housing Survey. In the first paper, which is forthcoming in Housing Policy Debate, we found that when compared with native-born households, recently-arrived immigrant households are significantly more likely to be crowded, but either as likely or significantly less likely to live in poorer quality housing. Further analyses revealed, however, that race/ethnicity is a stronger predictor than immigrant status in predicting households' housing outcomes.
Title: Organizing Access to Capital: Advocacy and the Democratization of Financial Institutions
Researcher(s): Gregory D. Squires (GWIPP)
Funding Source: The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
Start Date:
Research Status: Completed
Summary:
This grant supported the production of an edited book, Organizing Access to Capital: Advocacy and the Democratization of Financial published by Temple University Press and two public forums to examine the role of community organizing and related advocacy efforts to increase mortgage and small business lending in distressed urban communities. One forum, sponsored by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (Dem-IL) was held on Capitol Hill and the other was held in Chicago as part of the 30th Anniversary Celebration of the Woodstock Institute, a community reinvestment research organization.