Community Engaged Scholarship

Overview

In community engaged scholarship (CES; Glossary), investigators collaborate with partners outside of the university (e.g. government and non-government agencies, community groups) to co-produce scholarship that advances knowledge and addresses questions of immediate relevance for action. Practitioner, policy-maker, and community member knowledge is explicitly valued, directly informing co-constructed research questions, design, and impact. Community engaged research that draws on the partnership and expertise of young people and other experts outside of Berkeley is especially important as we work to reverse youth inequalities and promote adolescent health and wellbeing. 

For more information, contact i4y@berkeley.edu.

Institutional Change Initiative

Our community engaged scholarship institutional change initiative, led by Emily Ozer and Susan Stone at Berkeley and Norma Ming at SFUSD, is funded by the WT Grant Foundation Institutional Challenge Award, also with support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. We work with colleagues across campus to improve the support for community engaged scholarship in order to strengthen the relevance and impact of that work.

School and District Partnerships

Many researchers, students, and departments at UC Berkeley collaborate closely with communities near and far to produce impactful scholarship that answers questions that are directly relevant to policymakers and practitioners. With internal and external support, I4Y has been strengthening networks and cross-learning across Berkeley investigators and their research partners.

Design Assessment Systems to Inform and Improve SEL Initiatives

This team is dedicated to designing, developing, testing, and improving measurement tools to support local SEL programming for equity and wellbeing. Within this aim, the Berkeley Assessment of Social and Emotional Learning (BASEL) was developed to facilitate the measurement of (a) wellbeing, (b) the social and emotional competencies and conditions required for learning, teaching, and leading, and (c) the levers of system transformation.  We work with counties, districts, and schools who are interested in using data to explore school experiences, understand individual and collective strengths, and identify areas for growth. We are currently partnering with the Sacramento City Unified School District Department of Professional Learning– Culture, Climate & SEL to support two Data Collection Spotlight Schools. For more information, contact project coordinator and postdoctoral scholar, Dr. Addison Duane AddisonDuane@berkeley.edu