Ron Avi Astor: Concept of Opportunity Structures Can Lead to Improving School Climate and Equity

Ron Avi Astor, professor of social welfare in the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies and the Crump Professor of Social Welfare in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, has co-authored the article, “A Call for the Conceptual Structures Within School Safety Research,” for the latest issue of School Psychology Review. In it, Astor delineates the need for new studies on how opportunity structures – factors such as geographic location, gender, race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, and family background – influence and shape patterns that impact school safety, school climate, and bullying.

In education, the concept of opportunity structures – historically used to study equity in the labor market – has been used when describing systemic racism in educational inequality. Examples are drawn from several bodies of research that have strong implications for future study of these issues. Astor and co-authors apply school-centered ecological theory as a heuristic conceptual framework that links opportunity structures and school safety, and recommend further research on communities and families, creating positive school cultures and climates, and different types of educator bias that restrict opportunities and result in less safe environments. 

Astor’s co-authors are Pedro Noguera, the Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean, USC Rossier School of Education; Edward Fergus, associate professor of Policy, Organizational, and Leadership Studies, Temple University; Vivian L. Gadsden, the William T. Carter Professor of Child Development and Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania; and Rami Benbenishty, professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Professor Astor’s work examines the role of the physical, social-organizational and cultural contexts in schools related to different kinds of bullying and school violence, including sexual harassment, cyber bullying, discrimination hate acts, school fights, emotional abuse, weapon use, and teacher/child violence. He is a Felllow of the American Psychological Association, the American Educational Research Association, and the Society for Social Work and Research. Astor is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.

To read, “A Call for the Conceptual Structures Within School Safety Research,” click here. 

Photo courtesy of Ron Avi Astor