Project Goals

The goal of the Higher Education in Prison Research Infrastructure project, an initiative managed by Ithaka S+R and funded by the Mellon Foundation, is to accelerate the collection, dissemination, and utilization of research pertaining to postsecondary education programs for incarcerated learners. The project facilitates conversations among higher education in prison (HEP) stakeholders, supports shared rigorous research processes and practice standards across an interdependent network of relationships, and promotes the development of an HEP research infrastructure (RI) that coordinates research activities effectively and efficiently. These goals are of particular importance given the forthcoming reinstatement of Pell eligibility for incarcerated students. A research infrastructure will play an integral role in ensuring that policymakers and practitioners have access to standardized data and rigorous research, which in turn will guide policy and practitioners alike.

To meet these project goals, Ithaka S+R engaged with stakeholders at several connection points to gather insights around what conversations and resources may be the most beneficial for developing an HEP RI. These collaborative exchanges were designed to build consensus around key topics amongst HEP stakeholders including ethical research practice, research funding, and the state of the field. Following each conversation, we pulled out key themes to identify resources that would catalyze further collaboration around methodology, incentives, challenges, and priorities that exist within the field.

It is our goal that the resources shared on this platform be used to forge a set of shared norms and systems that support high-quality, student-centered HEP research. Below, we summarize key takeaways from the researcher forum and the funders working group we facilitated earlier this year.

Contextual Note

Though the discussions were organized and supported by Ithaka S+R staff, the opinions expressed below reflect the views of the forum and working group participants.

The purpose of both the researcher forum and the funders working group was to highlight and align priorities between HEP researchers and philanthropic funders. This research brief outlines key insights from the conversations during the one-hour virtual researcher forum, focused on challenges and opportunities for research, and two two-hour working group sessions, focused on funding priorities for HEP. The top priorities and key takeaways from the researcher forum helped to inform the working group sessions with HEP funders. The perspectives and comments presented below are not meant to be definitive but rather to encourage future conversations between researchers and funders. We invite you to share your thoughts, reactions, and questions in the feedback box immediately following this brief.

Researcher Forum

Researcher Forum Summary
The goal of the researcher forum was to synthesize priorities and takeaways that would be used to inform funders on the current state of the HEP research community, what is needed to advance the field, and the directions researchers see as most important and promising.

Building consensus between a diverse range of stakeholders was a driving principle behind our approach to the researcher forum. Before convening the researcher forum, we discussed the importance of having a diverse group of participants with varying experiences and viewpoints in HEP. We specifically invited participants from HEP programs, government entities, and research organizations across the country.

Twenty-six participants engaged in the researcher forum, with the majority working in HEP programs from varying states in the US. Sixteen participants work in HEP programs, nine for research organizations, and one for a government agency. While there were representatives from regions across the US, almost half the attendees were from the Northeast.

To stimulate robust dialogue and exchange of ideas, participants were placed into breakout groups, facilitated by an Ithaka S+R team member, where they responded to questions focused on helping the small groups identify key research priorities to share with funders and the benefits and challenges related to them. To organize the discussion, the groups worked on a collaborative document, with the Ithaka member taking notes to capture the robust dialogue. Break out groups shared key takeaways from their individual conversations with the full group to build consensus around priorities.

The discussions held during the researcher forum focused on articulating the top priorities in supporting and conducting student-centered and ethical HEP research, the benefits of targeting these priorities, and suggestions for prioritizing these initiatives. Below, we present the major priorities and takeaways from the discussions that took place during the researcher forum.

Top Research Priorities in HEP
Research priorities shared across stakeholder groups are an important component of a HEP RI; they help identify key questions that are integral to the advancement of the field and highlight the systems needed to answer them. The incredibly interdisciplinary nature of the HEP field has many benefits, including bringing together a diverse set of perspectives. However, because the field pulls from so many others, foundational components like a set of research priorities and established data sharing apparatuses are more difficult to coordinate and put in place. As a first step in striving to encourage cooperation across groups invested in HEP research, each breakout group of participating researchers discussed a top priority for conducting student-centered and ethical research in HEP that would then be shared with a small group of funders during a funders working group. The resulting priorities focused on developing responsive metrics, building data systems, enabling inclusive methods, and constructing a theoretical framework. Below, in no particular order, is a list of the five priorities the groups identified and what they signify for the HEP field.

  • Develop inclusive and holistic measurement(s) for defining student and program success
    Participating researchers asserted that student success measures need to focus on holistic outcomes and not only on post-release employment and recidivism. Metrics, insights, and theories in HEP can be drawn from higher education studies and used to determine how program success is defined compared to student success. Currently and formerly incarcerated students need to be involved in defining measures as well. Developing measures holds departments of corrections and HEP programs accountable for student and program success.
  • Build ethical, reliable, and sustainable data collection and management systems
    Participating researchers articulated the need to use data to show successful educational interventions to create program buy-in from HEP stakeholders across the board (departments of corrections, the public, and political leaders). Participants also underscored the importance of expanding quantitative and qualitative data collection and management systems in order to facilitate program assessment and evaluation. Building ethical, reliable, and sustainable data collection and management systems will allow the HEP field to move toward adopting more student-centered outcomes alongside recidivism statistics, which will be important with the reinstatement of Pell. Programs receiving Pell support will need to demonstrate quality standards and success through enhancing student learning, development, and achievement.
  • Develop metrics that can be applied across different program sizes and are aligned with different stakeholder priorities
    Participating researchers highlighted that the HEP field needs reliable data and metrics to create buy-in from stakeholders. To facilitate this, quantitative and qualitative data collection and management systems need to be expanded, specifically regarding the use of internal vs. external data, longitudinal data systems, and the alignment of documents used to define data and data sharing agreements (i.e. MOUs, codebooks, etc.). Funders’ timelines need to mirror the length of time needed to develop these metrics and collection and management systems.
  • Provide capacity for both formerly and currently incarcerated students to be researchers
    While recognizing legitimate security concerns, forum participants emphasized the importance of ensuring that research taking place in prison is as free as possible from restrictions and censorship instituted by the department of corrections. Participants noted that this means allowing incarcerated students to set their own research agendas and working with college and university institutional review boards (IRBs) to support participatory action research (PAR; see Participatory Action Research Working Group: “What’s Next for PAR in HEP” for a summary of the working group discussion around PAR). Capacity building for formerly and currently incarcerated researchers allows them to have control over their own narrative, disrupting the traditional power relationships that exist in research.
  • Create a framework that both maintains the independence of HEP research and leverages knowledge from other fields
    Participants noted that the HEP field needs a universally-accepted, grounded theory of change that focuses on more than just outcomes. Ideally, this framework would be flexible enough to leverage what is known from other fields, including higher education, to understand the mechanisms of change that exist within HEP. Focusing on other theoretical frameworks can broaden the narratives told about students participating in HEP program, while a simultaneously grounded approach can allow for a properly contextualized framework.

Funders Working Group Summary

When funders make decisions around the projects and programs they will support, they help shape the priorities of the HEP field. As they make these decisions funders must align strategy across internal stakeholders, including board members, while remaining responsive to the field at large. Communication across the industry silos that tend to separate those seeking funding and funding organizations ensures funders are able to respond to the shifting realities experienced by practitioners and researchers. The goal of the working group was to create space for funders to learn about the evolving needs and priorities of the HEP research community and identify areas of strategic alignment. To this end, we invited a small group of funders that were invested in the HEP field and interested in collaborating around HEP research to participate in the working group discussions.

Participating Funding Organizations

  • Ascendium Education Group
  • ECMC Foundation
  • Laughing Gull Foundation
  • Mellon Foundation
  • Michelson 20MM Foundation
  • Porticus

Prior to recruiting participants for the funders working group, we held informal conversations with funders that might be interested in discussing funding HEP research, and we also asked our advisory committee for their recommendations. This process garnered participation from a total of 10 participants, representing six funding organizations.

The funders working group was spread across two two-hour virtual sessions. A member of the Ithaka S+R team along with Rabia Qutab and Jarrod Wall, justice policy fellows from Ed Trust, presented the major takeaways from the researcher forum. After hearing the priorities and needs of the researcher forum participants, representatives from funding organizations were guided through a number of group discussions. Below, we summarize the key topics that came up during these conversations.

  • Recognizing the importance of research and evaluation
    Across the participating funders, there was widespread interest in and agreement about the importance of data and evidence-informed decision making in regard to increasing the quality of educational programming for incarcerated learners. Funders were eager to learn more about the role they could potentially play in aligning philanthropic support with effective creation and use of data. Additionally, the group surfaced a number of questions that could be explored through future research:

    1. What evidence can we pull from the study of higher education to support better programming for students?
    2. How do high-impact practices from the wider education field translate to the HEP context?
    3. How do we build community and belonging for students within HEP programs?
    4. How do we build capacity and provide support without supporting the growth of the carceral system?
    5. How do we transform the carceral system into an education system?
    6. How does learning happen in HEP settings?
    7. What do we know about the learner lifecycle in HEP?
  • Building bridges between research, policy, and funding
    Research plays a key role in informing not just practice, but policy. Members of the working group agreed that informing policy represents a significant point of intervention that can have a direct impact on how HEP programs are facilitated, at what scale they exist, and has the potential to maximize return on investment. Research could also help policymakers and educational providers identify best practices for teaching, building learning communities, and incorporating assessments that benefit students. Moreover, the rules proposed by the Department of Education for the restoration of Pell makes evaluation a requirement and assigns departments of corrections the responsibility of assessing whether HEP programs are operating in the best interest of students.
  • Catalyzing collaboration and conversation between different stakeholders to support a HEP research infrastructure
    The working group identified collaboration as a powerful lever in directing change. Specifically, participants were interested in supporting collaborative systems and partnerships, especially between departments of corrections and policymakers, to create a better support system for the field. One funder, for example, discussed work they were funding to equip department of corrections leaders and higher education institutions with the information they need to forge data sharing agreements, with the goal of enabling a data infrastructure. Participants noted that closer collaboration between funders, which has been relatively informal in recent years, has the potential to create more capacity to meet the resource demands of program evaluation projects. More broadly, funders identified the need for more data collection and sharing, especially around student-centered outcomes. Participants were particularly invested in identifying creative ways to make data more available and robust, while ensuring it is collected and shared ethically.
  • Moving beyond “moving beyond recidivism”
    There was broad agreement that funders wanted to see research that included outcomes outside of recidivism. Specifically, there was a desire to see proposals that cited work beyond the 2013 RAND report that used recidivism as its key measurement. While recognizing that the bipartisan support HEP receives is based on formerly incarcerated students’ lower recidivism rates, the field (and funders) also agree that HEP would benefit from moving beyond this monocausal metric. This shift would include studying more holistic student outcomes, addressing ethical, social, and emotional learning in addition to learning outcomes. For instance, one participant pointed to the need for incarcerated students to understand their individual identity and how they connect with the world—inside and outside of prison—as well as the importance of facilitating belonging and community in both the learning and reentry processes. Better understanding things like identity, belonging, and other key components/outcomes of the HEP learning experience would not only support better programming for students on the inside, but it would help those in the field better frame HEP for different audiences.
  • Centering the student voice and experience
    All participants were interested in the ways to best incorporate individuals with lived experiences into research and the challenges related to researchers utilizing participatory action research (PAR) (e.g. time, IRB, additional resource needs). Participants also mentioned some obstacles that need to be surmounted on the funder side to enable PAR, such as adjusting timetables to accommodate the additional time it takes to build trust and train participatory researchers, redefining deliverables to include mentorship and skill building, and educating board members to the value of PAR. There was a clear interest in supporting PAR as a means of centering students in the research process, and participants agreed that this is the most rigorous option for achieving this end. Nevertheless, given the challenges that must be surmounted to enable PAR, participants wanted to find ways to incorporate student voices in research even when PAR was not possible. In the end, participants agreed that students would need to play a key role in answering some of the questions about high-impact practices and outcome measures.

Aligning between Researchers and Funders

While researchers and funders may sometimes begin their journeys to solving some of today’s most intractable problems from different points of origin, our experience leading a research forum and funder working groups revealed shared values and principles driving change in the HEP sector. Participants in both the researcher forum and the funders working group agreed that systematic data collection and sharing was a major sticking point in enabling HEP researchers to answer certain questions. Relatedly, funders and researchers alike underscored the importance of developing metrics for measuring student success that are student centric and holistic. Specifically, they want to prioritize moving beyond recidivism when articulating the value and impact of HEP programming. Both groups also identified the merits of collaborating across existing siloes to accelerate the field in ways that met the urgent needs of those impacted by the HEP field. Finally, forum and working group participants not only highlighted the need for student-centered metrics but research methodologies as well. PAR and how to appropriately facilitate it in the HEP context was consistently brought up when discussing the best ways to answer key questions. These intersections make it clear that continuing to enable connection points between these stakeholder groups could allow for more intentional collaboration around integral infrastructural components of HEP research.