Dr. Emily Hodge Receives Funding from the Spencer Foundation

Dr. Emily Hodge, Assistant Professor in the Educational Leadership department, recently earned a Spencer Conference Grant for her proposal, “New Applications of Social Network Analysis to Education Policy: Building the Capacity of the Field.” Social Network Analysis (SNA) is increasingly being utilized in education to understand how social networks influence policy and decision making; yet more methodological development and research is needed to understand how to make SNA relevant to policymaking. The central question being asked in the conference is, “How can social network analysis be applied to education policy in ways that are directly relevant to policymakers and other educational stakeholders?” The conference is a vehicle to build capacity in the field for new applications of social network analysis to education policy, such as discourse network analysis and quantitative modeling.

Dr. Hodge’s work uses historical and qualitative methods, to understand the changing nature of strategies for educational equity. Recent projects have explored how education systems, schools, and teachers negotiate the tension between standardization and differentiation in the context of Common Core State Standards, and the varied strategies state education agencies are using to support standards implementation.

Please visit the Spencer Foundation for more information about their grants.