Equity and Diversity

Beyond a rhetorical commitment to educating all students lies a host of challenges for educators, administrators, and policymakers. How can we ensure that all students have equal access to the best possible education, regardless of race, class, gender, abilities, or disabilities? EDC produces a range of tools and resources designed to help schools and districts identify and remove barriers that contribute to gaps in achievement for different groups of students.

Darfur News and Information Service: Sudan

Funded by the State Department, EDC’s Darfur News and Information Service encourages constructive dialogue, mitigates tensions, and builds the capacity of Darfuri radio journalists to increase the provision of news and information in the region. This two year project offers news, information, and an educational shortwave broadcast service in Arabic, Fur, Masalit, and Zagawa for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and other vulnerable populations in Darfur. Special attention is given to explaining the Darfur Peace Agreement.

Migrant Worker Capacity Building and Better Factory Project

EDC HHD Asia together with adidas and the Foreign Capital Project Management Center State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development (FCPMC), designed a Migrant Worker Capacity Building and Better Factory Pilot Project based on the results of a needs assessment conducted in 8 supplier factories in Shanghai and Guangdong areas in early 2008. We have successfully engaged Asia Foundation, Oxfam, GTZ, Right to Play to participate in the two-year pilot project.

Ready to Learn Summative Evaluation

Using a Literacy 360 approach that acknowledges that children’s literacy is strengthened when they are surrounded by an abundance of opportunities to practice and reinforce specific skills, the Ready to Learn initiative is producing and distributing educational video programming and curricula for children ages 2–8, their parents and educators.

Entitled to Equality

In More than Title IX, women and men who have spent their lives and careers working to achieve gender equity in classrooms and communities describe how hard-won changes in education have improved life in America over the past century.

Educational Video Games for Girls

EDC’s Cornelia Brunner says girls prefer video games with lots of interaction between characters and their environment, and these games require much more sophisticated technology and take longer to develop.

Girls Explore IT Careers (ITEST California)

Build IT is an afterschool and summer program for underserved middle school girls that capitalizes on its participants interest in design and communication technologies by engaging them in hands-on, collaborative, real-world experiences. This project, a collaboration between SRI International and Girls Inc of Alameda County (GAIC). This Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) project is funded by the National Science Foundation and supported by the Learning Resource Center at EDC.

New Book Explores Gender Equity in Education

Closing STEM Gender Gap Through Special Programs

Letter from EDC’s Siobhan Bredin about exposing young people, particularly girls and under underrepresented groups, to careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

EDC Study Examines Hispanic Students Test Scores

New EDC study examines Hispanic student test scores in Massachusetts. EDC’s Maria Teresa Sanchez talks to Education Week.

Report Links Massachusetts Hispanic Students’ MCAS Scores and School and Student Factors

New research from the Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands (REL-NEI) points to links between student and school variables and 10th-grade Hispanic students’ scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) English language arts (ELA) and mathematics tests from 2002 to 2006.