Establishing generalizability from research projects done in our suburban districts:

Research-based projects are often meant to test theories or establish procedures that can be replicated in other places.  Many funders have a prejudice against our suburban districts, believing that they are not representative of the diversity of the schools across the nation.  They believe that results from our studies will therefore not be generalizable to the general population.  Below is a segment of text that can be pasted (and adapted and added to, of course) to help establish that indeed our students are representative of those across the nation.

(Often, challenges can become strengths. GRO’s challenge in formulating the _________ Project and in our work in general is the diversity of our student and teacher population: Our teachers range from veterans to first-year teachers.) The students in our component districts range from below the poverty level to affluent, speak more than 70 different languages, attend schools of widely varying sizes, come from diverse backgrounds, and range from special-needs to gifted and talented - with a fair number falling into both categories. They represent the full spectrum of populations found in our state and most of the states of this country.  While this makes serving these students and organizing an action-research project on this population challenging, it also represents a great advantage we would bring to _______ [funding organization] research. Our research focuses on _____________________________, and, for that research, we will draw upon populations spanning more than 60 miles in the most populated and diverse region of our state, the Twin Cities Metro area.  Our research population would represent a wide range of students present throughout the nation. The findings from the research would therefore be highly generalizable overall. Our focus on dual needs students would also be generalizable, because students with dual needs (those who are gifted and also have other needs or conditions, including low-English-proficiency (LEP), mental health or behavioral issues, Asperger’s Syndrome, other cognitive or physical disabilities, chemical dependency, teen parenthood) can also be found in every state.

Furthermore, the student population in our districts represents and reflects the diversity of suburban students nationwide. In an article in NCREL Policy Issues (December, 2002), Ronald F. Ferguson writes: “Improving the quality of inner-city schools will be an important aspect of pursuing these [No Child Left Behind] goals, but it will not be sufficient.  Suburbs must respond as well. An analysis of U.S. Census data for the year 2000 indicates that 33 percent of the nation’s African-American children, 45 percent of Hispanic children, 54 percent of Asian children, and 55 percent of white children live in suburban communities.  Some children attend poor, segregated schools, similar to the poorest in the inner city, while others attend racially integrated schools in well-off communities where resources are relatively abundant and schools are reputedly excellent.” (p. 1) Research conducted in GRO’s highly varied suburban districts will reflect the racial and economic diversity of the country and can be generalized for use in most states.