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The Raise Center

raise center logoOur Grounding

The United States continues to face persistent challenges in ensuring equitable educational access, achievement, and attainment across the entire PK-20 learning continuum. Despite significant investments, outcomes remain uneven, particularly for students from historically marginalized backgrounds. A PK–20 education research center is essential to address these challenges by producing rigorous, actionable research that informs policy, improves practice, and strengthens student pathways from early childhood through postsecondary education and into the workforce as represented by the academic programs and education practice areas represented within the Department of Education. Through rigorous mixed-methods research, culturally responsive evaluation, and collaborative partnerships, the center can serve as an expert and scholarly resource for driving evidence-based policy, strengthening practice, and amplifying the impact of educational, social, and community programs.

Purpose

The Research, Advocacy, and Initiatives for Student Equity (RAISE) Center is a collective research hub and professional development outreach for educational equity at Delaware State University in the Education Department. The mission of the RAISE Center is to serve as a hub for scholarly inquiry, policy development, and proactive professional engagement to envision an education that recognizes and addresses diverse students’ unique cultural, socioeconomic, and educational needs.

Research Impact

A specialized center offers the necessary infrastructure to foster innovative methods in teaching, learning, and assessment throughout the educational continuum. This initiative fosters a collaborative environment for researchers, educators, community leaders, and policymakers to jointly develop contextually relevant and scalable solutions. The center  functions as a platform for securing grants, facilitating interdisciplinary projects, and disseminating research to various audiences. A PK-20 education research center is vital for promoting comprehensive, equity-focused, and practical research throughout the educational continuum. The center offers essential insights and innovations by integrating systems, prioritizing equity, and collaborating with communities, thereby transforming educational practices and enhancing overall social and student well-being. The center also offers professional development programs which will create programmatic partnerships and future research opportunities which all generate additional revenue.

Areas of Focus

The RAISE Center will be organized into 4 different foci which will address PK-12 culturally responsive teacher preparation, identity & belonging, inclusive leadership, and educational access. These research themes also address topics which cut across other CHESS disciplines including:  Sociology, Languages, Arts, Women’s Studies, History, Languages, and Criminal Justice.

  • FOCUS AREA 1: Culturally Responsive Teaching We believe diverse cohorts of teachers can provide effective, culturally and linguistically responsive and equitable instruction, interventions, and services to improve outcomes for students with disabilities. We investigate how teachers and school administrators can better prepare and support professional educators who are skilled at situating their teaching to the identities of their students in ways that make them feel visible and valued.
  • FOCUS AREA 2: Identity & Belonging We critically interrogate the ways in which schools and universities facilitate spaces of belonging and the ways in which these provide a humanizing experience towards authentic identity development.
  • FOCUS AREA 3: Inclusive Leadership We examine how schools and universities can prepare educational administrators as leaders who are ready to transform their spaces to value and empower people of different backgrounds, elevate diverse perspectives to ensure inclusive working conditions, and create learning conditions where diverse students will thrive.
  • FOCUS AREA 4: Educational Access We challenge how schools and universities can serve as sites of learning as anchor institutions to transmit culture and transform communities. We critically examine their own professional practices, analyze the systemic barriers hindering access to high-quality education for our most vulnerable students, and develop effective advocacy strategies that ultimately lead to improved outcomes for the students they serve.