Elianny C. Edwards, a 2022 doctoral graduate of the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies has been named the recipient of the American Educational Research Association 2023 Outstanding Dissertation Award in the Field of School Climate.
“This award from AERA means so much to me — not only because of the work that went into this project but because of the ideas it affirms. I am incredibly passionate about racial equity in education and excited to continue working toward supporting educators and schools and Black youth and families,” said Edwards. “This work is important, it matters, especially at a time when curriculum bans, racial injustice, political divides, and structural inequality significantly threaten the safety of Black youth in schools. We need discourse around these topics as just that — issues of safety and wellness. I’m grateful to be able to do this work, and to be recognized by AERA and leading experts in the field is incredible and a huge honor.”
Edwards’ dissertation, “Centering Racism to Examine School Safety for Black High School Students,” challenges the here-to-fore colorblind discourse of school climate and safety to address institutional racism in schools as a threat to Black youth. In her research, Edwards used a traditional single-item measure of school safety to highlight racial-ethnic disparities among ninth-grade high school youths across California. Her work then applies a racial lens to assessing Black youths’ feelings of school safety, demonstrating how they can provide novel and valuable insight into relevant factors that influence the safety of Black youth in school — factors that would otherwise go unnoticed via traditional colorblind measures of school safety.
Edwards’ research showed that Black ninth-grade students felt significantly less safe at school than their white peers. Further, the effect of race-ethnicity on feelings of school safety was significantly moderated by sex, violent victimization, and academic motivation. The research also showed that Black student safety significantly predicted Black youths’ feelings of school safety. Racial-cultural, academic, and physical-environmental safety were stronger predictors of caring relationships, academic outcomes and goals and aspirations for Black youth than the single-item measure of school safety.
Edwards contends that the findings from her dissertation emphasize a need for more comprehensive, multidimensional frameworks and instruments for assessing the safety of Black youth in schools, writing,
“Promoting the safety of Black youth is about more than ensuring they are protected from external physical harm. It requires nurturing an inclusive school environment and community that promotes equitable outcomes and allows Black students to be empowered and engaged participants.”
“In her dissertation, Elianny studied how perceived school safety impacts Black students in public middle schools and high schools. She knows from her educational background and her experiences as a teacher how important feeling safe is for academic success,” says Sandra Graham, Distinguished Professor and UC Presidential Chair in Education and Diversity in the UCLA Department of Education, and chair of Edwards’ dissertation committee. “The innovativeness and theoretical richness of Elianny’s thinking about safety in schools is quite remarkable for an early career educational psychologist and I anticipate a potential impact on the larger field of school climate research. She is an excellent emerging scholar who shows great promise.”
Edwards is currently a visiting assistant professor at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College in Massachusetts.
She received a doctoral degree from the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies in June 2022. Edwards’ research is centered at the intersection of education, psychology, and human development. Her research interests include racial equity in K-12 education, school climate, and safety, anti-blackness in schools, and the role of race, gender, social class and culture on teaching among other related topics. While at UCLA she was the lead author of a research brief, Keeping Students Safe in Los Angeles, examining student safety and school policing in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She was also the recipient of the UCLA Academic Senate 2022 Graduate Student Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award.