Lynch School of Education and Human Development

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Quick Facts

#23

ranked graduate school of education
U.S. News & World Report

#1

ranked Catholic school of education
U.S. News & World Report

$11.4M

financial aid awarded each year

Featured Research

Our faculty researchers are pursuing answers to society's most pressing challenges, from racial inequality in the classroom to youth mental health. Learn about their projects.

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Total results: 76

School Counselors and College Counseling During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The onset of COVID-19 brought myriad challenges to educational systems and the students they serve. Our study set out to explore specifically how the pandemic influenced students’ college-going processes. Using the conceptual model of student college choice by Perna (2006) and the school counseling equity framework by Savitz-Romer and Nicola (2021), we examined students’ college-going processes through the perspectives of school counselors, who are professionals uniquely positioned to speak to students’ college-planning behaviors and the institutional changes that directly affect students. Findings suggest that students’ college-going and planning was directly compromised by challenges from the pandemic and indirectly by changes in their college access support landscape.

Project Details

A Study of Urban School Leadership

Following three early-career urban school leaders from charter schools, district public schools and Catholic schools this study examined the practices of these leaders as they mobilized faculty, engaged students and families, and enriched their own professional efficacy through the Academy. In consequence, this long-term study illuminates how these urban school educators sought to promote educational equity in their schools, drawing on their work with the Lynch Leadership Academy to help them do so.

Project Details

Formative Leadership Education Project

The Formative Leadership Education Project was recently awarded a grant from the Kern Family Foundation entitled "Expanding the Reach of Formative Leadership Education by Building Communities of Practice." This funds the facilitation of the Kern Partners for Character and Educational Leadership (KPCEL) network. KPCEL is a nation-wide network of institutions in the process of implementing character education initiatives. As a starting point, the Lynch School will organize and host a Summer Institute in 2022 to bring these partners together into productive dialogue. Throughout 2022-2025, we will facilitate a series of working groups and professional learning communities across the network to support the work of our partners from inquiry to implementation.

Project Details

Educating Others: A Vocation Promoting Meaning & Purpose

This project aims to better understand Urban Catholic Teacher Corps members' perceptions of leading a life with meaning and purpose. To our knowledge, this research program is the first intended to provide documentation and measurement of purpose and meaning in the lives of educators, in particular in urban Catholic schools.

Project Details

School Counseling in the Time of COVID

Motivated by growing concerns about inadequate support for students' mental health and postsecondary transitions due to challenges brought on during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study captures school counselors' experiences during the crisis, including what they are learning about students' needs and the opportunities and constraints facing their practice.

Project Details

Preparing for the future with purpose, awareness, and agency

Young people confront a number of challenges related to an unstable and changing world of work, growing economic inequality, social discord and racial oppression, and uncertainty fostered by the global pandemic. Applying a psychology of working theory framework, this project seeks to identify how schools can cultivate the psychological assets and social supports that young people need for successfully navigating these challenges.

Project Details

OpenSciEd Equitable Instruction (OEI) Initiative

Historically, minoritized students, such as students of color, students who speak first languages other than English, and students from low-income communities, have had limited opportunities for high-quality and meaningful classroom science. The goal of the OpenSciEd Equitable Science Instruction (OEI) Initiative at Boston College is to help disrupt these inequalities by supporting schools and teachers in instruction that begins with the interests and curiosities of students and empowers student voices to support more equitable learning opportunities for all students.

Project Details

Migration Narratives

This book describes an American town that became home to thousands of Mexican migrants between 1995-2016, where the Mexican population increased by over 1000% and Mexicans became almost a third of the town. We emphasize the ongoing changes in prior migrant communities and the interactions these groups had with Mexicans, showing how interethnic relations played a central role in newcomers’ pathways. The book richly represents the voices of Irish, Italian, African American, and Mexican residents.

Project Details

Discourse Analysis Beyond the Speech Event

This book introduces a new approach to discourse analysis. It argues that discourse analysts should look beyond fixed speech events and consider the development of discourses over time. Drawing on theories and methods from linguistic anthropology and related fields, the book is the first to present a systematic methodological approach to conducting discourse analysis of linked events, allowing researchers to understand not only individual events but also the patterns that emerge across them.

Project Details

Conditions of Work: Decent Work, Dignity, Unemployment / Underemployment, and Precarious Work

Working involves interactions with contexts and people that reflect very diverse conditions, some of which can be very challenging. To explore the context of work, our research team has been investigating decent work, dignity at work, unemployment/underemployment, and precarious work. Individually and collectively, these issues reflect the importance of attending to the resources and barriers that people face at work. These projects involve theoretical contributions, empirical research, and policy advocacy.    

Project Details

Initiatives With Impact

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Justice

The architecture of diversity and difference enables us as faculty to advance a broader, richer, and deeper understanding of how professionals in education and applied psychology can create a more just and compassionate world.
Ana M. Martínez Alemán, Associate Dean of Faculty & Academic Affairs
The Lynch School has a wonderful and distinctive mission: to enhance the human condition, expand the human imagination, and make the world more just. Through our research, teaching, and service, we strive to understand and create opportunities for others to develop as whole people across multiple interrelated dimensions—intellectually, spiritually, socially, emotionally, and ethically.
Stanton E. F. Wortham, Charles F. Donovan, S.J., Dean, Lynch School of Education and Human Development

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