The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has announced grants totaling more than $10.1 million in support of inclusive education research.

The grants will help teachers and communities working with researchers in determining what teaching practices foster student well-being and belonging, what student success should look like, and how progress in these arenas should be measured.

Recipients include Assessment for Learning Project, which was awarded $2.71 million in support of its national network of educators, organizers, system leaders, and student activists who are working together to reimagine the role of assessment for learning, agency, and equity; the Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color (COSEBOC), which will receive $1.5 million for professional programs that foster the social, emotional, cultural, and academic growth of boys and young men of color; the Nez Perce Tribal Education Department, which was awarded $650,000 to develop program evaluation approaches grounded in the traditional values of relationships and storytelling, including talking circles and the Nez Perce traditional practice of memory strings; and Village of Wisdom (VOW), which will receive $2 million in support of community-driven research co-led by Black parents to develop tools that help educators create ideal learning environments for children of color.

“We’ve never been given the opportunity, at the level and scope that CZI is supporting, to gather evidence of students’ educational progress based on our traditional processes of assessment,” said Nez Perce education department manager Joyce McFarland. “What we are proposing with the use of storytelling and multi-generational relationships is not new, but we are just remembering how our young people find their purpose in their tribal family and community.”

(Photo credit: Gettyimages / kali9)