The 2016 Grawemeyer Award in Education will be awarded to three scholars from Johns Hopkins University who authored the book The Long Shadow: Family Background, Disadvantaged Urban Youth and the Transition to Adulthood (Russell Sage Foundation, 2014). The authors of the book include the late Doris Entwisle, who was a research professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins, and Linda Olson, who recently retired as an associate research scientist at the university’s Center for Social Organization of Schools.
After studying 800 individuals in Baltimore from first grade to adulthood, the authors concluded that those born into poverty are unlikely to escape it — even if they have access to better opportunities through education. “Studies of this depth and breadth that include census data, historical narratives, personal interviews, race, gender, family background, neighborhood and school conditions and social mobility over a lifetime are quite rare,” said award director Melissa Evans-Andris. “The authors conclude that children’s life outcomes are substantially determined by the families they are born into. For example, just four percent of the youngsters from low-income families went on to get a college degree by age 28.”
The award is one of five Grawemeyers given out annually by the University of Louisville. According to the university, “the Grawemeyer Award in Education is intended to stimulate the dissemination, public scrutiny and implementation of ideas that have potential to bring about significant improvement in educational practice and advances in educational attainment. The award was created not only to reward the individuals responsible, but also to draw attention to their ideas, proposals or achievements. The award is designed to recognize a specific recent idea/study rather than a lifetime of accomplishment.”
The award includes a $100,000 prize which will be presented in April.