At the Klingenstein Center, we want to build our community's capacity to employ evidence-informed strategies to bring about a desired educational future to life across the independent and international school ecosystem. To do so, we engage in timely, critical, forward thinking research that is dedicated to informing, impacting, and transforming independent and international school teaching, learning, leading, and governing practices, as well as our schools' cultures, structures, and policies. Our faculty and research associates—many of whom are Klingenstein Center alumni and research-practitioners working in schools—engage in dynamic research projects that often involve schools as partners in inquiry. Our graduate students engage in research-practice partnerships with their practicum schools. In focusing on independent and international schools in our research, we are tending to an area that is under-researched, but holds great learning and discovery potential that could benefit the educational ecosystems well beyond independent schools. To learn more, scroll our current projects below.
Current Research Projects
- BlackAt Social Media: Dr. Nicole Furlonge and Dr. Kenny Graves, assisted by graduate students, are analyzing the content of BlackAt social media accounts that have been created over the last several years to provide teachers and leaders with a data about the range of experiences of BIPOC students in predominantly white independent and international schools. At the conclusion of this research, resources will be available to the wider community.
- Impact of Listening Practices on DEIJ Leadership at Independent, Predominantly White Schools: Dr. Nicole Furlonge was awarded a grant through the Teachers College Diversity Research Awards Program to construct a Listening Leadership framework to better understand the use and impact of listening practices for independent PreK-12 school leaders as they develop DEIJ efforts in their schools. Based in the hypothesis that as independent schools engage in DEIJ work, a listening leadership ear—one that is culturally responsive and informed by sense-making and systems thinking practices—might benefit their learning communities and disrupt and repair inequality. This project aims to address the gap in research, literature, and practice regarding the potentially productive intersection between listening, leadership, and DEIJ change work.
Research in Partner Schools
- Student Practicum Projects: Applied research is a participatory, emergent, inquiry, systems thinking process that drives organizational change. Klingenstein Center Full-Year program graduate students conduct applied research and consulting in partner schools under the supervision of Teachers College professors in their Practicum coursework. If your school is interested in being a partner school in the 2021-2022 school year, please review this document about the Practicum and how to submit a Design Brief. Design Briefs are due by September 13, 2021. The opportunity is open to all independent and international schools regardless of location as students can engage in this work remotely.
Resources
- Klingbrief: Published monthly during the academic year, each issue of Klingbrief cuts through the noise to offer a carefully-curated collection of books, articles, podcasts, and other resources of import to independent and international school educators.
- KlingShare: In March 2020, as schools were forced to transition rapidly to online operations, the Klingenstein Center launched KlingChats. These lightly-facilitated sessions convened educators around a common challenge to brainstorm ways to teach, lead and learn in a pandemic world. The outcomes of these conversations were collected into KlingShare documents to provide all educators with access to fresh ideas and solutions.
