This mixed-methods study aims to further understand how teachers improve over time--and specifically how white teachers can increase their racial competency and become more effective teachers to students of color--by bridging three previously distinct literatures in education research: the returns to teaching experience, teacher peer effects, and the impact of same-race teachers.

In fall 2016, the University of Michigan (UM) implemented the HAIL Scholarship Study, an RCT to test whether the offer of personalized financial aid can increase enrollment of students from low-income families. HAIL is a low-cost, personalized intervention providing a no-strings-attached, four-year guaranteed scholarship offer to high-achieving low-income students to attend UM. HAIL has been very successful— more than doubling application and enrollment at UM among Michigan students from low-income families. To better understand the mechanisms and take-up rates for the HAIL Scholarship Study, PIRL is conducting qualitative interviews with HAIL-eligible high school seniors in Michigan alongside a team at UM.

This mixed methods study with Nicholas Papageorge (Economics, JHU) examines how beliefs about educational attainment and anticipated adverse shocks (e.g., evictions, incarcerations or deaths of family members, or violence) relate to educational plans and actual attainment for disadvantaged youth. The project is methodologically unique in that qualitative data gathered through open ended interviews of students making decisions will be used to specify a structural econometric model of post-secondary educational decision-making. In turn, the structural model will shed light on what kinds of additional data should be collected to estimate parameters of a model that could be used to evaluate how counterfactual policies can improve outcomes.

Housing abandonment is pervasive in Baltimore city. This study examines the origins of that abandonment by interviewing landlords, property owners, renters, and homeowners who have either divested their real estate portfolio, own abandoned properties, or are maintaining properties in areas with significant levels of abandonment. By understanding what causes landlords to walk away from their once valuable assets, we hope to inform public policy that can reduce divestment in the future.

This longitudinal, mixed methods study of white, black and Latino families in Cleveland and Dallas examines how housing choices intersect with the many challenges low to moderate income families face, and how the inevitable tradeoffs involved in choosing a residence affect child development.

This study capitalizes on a unique housing assistance program to explore whether improvements in housing access translate into gains in educational achievement for poor minority children.

In April 2015, amidst the unrest following the death of Freddie Gray, national and local media were quick to cast the youth in Baltimore as “thugs” and troublemakers. However, these media accounts were nearly devoid of the voices of youth themselves. To discover these voices, the Hearing Their Voices team at the Poverty and Inequality Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University conducted in-depth interviews with 58 young people between the ages of 15 and 24 from some of Baltimore’s most impoverished neighborhoods.

This study examines how the Baltimore community of Sandtown-Winchester has been affected by an intense urban redevelopment project, the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, which has taken place over the past two decades.

This qualitative study conducts interviews with youth aged 15-24 who moved with the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) program. These interviews focus on education, employment, risky behavior, family formation, and mental health, delving into the rich array of social processes and contextual factors that may underlie differing outcomes for youth and their transition to early adulthood.