BUSSW Professor Renée Spencer and Collaborators Awarded $1.4m Grant for Research on Children of Mobile Military Parents

For children of highly mobile active-duty military parents, finding stability in a school setting poses exceptional challenges. To address this issue, Boston University School of Social Work Professor Renée Spencer (PI) and her research team have been awarded a four-year, $1.4 million grant from the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.

The mixed-methods study will investigate school resources offered to military students in grades K-5, the students’ educational outcomes, and school connectedness. Spencer and her team expect that the results will enable schools and social workers to mitigate the negative effects of military students’ mobile upbringing and will lay a much needed  foundation for responding to these students’ distinctive needs.

“Military students experience about six to nine moves during their K-12 years — a mobility rate three times that of non-military children,” Spencer said. “Many are resilient and weather these disruptions well, but some are negatively affected by the strain of multiple moves.“

“School Support, School Connectedness, and the Educational Outcomes of Military-Connected Students: An Exploratory Study of Student Mobility” is not Spencer’s first foray into the wellbeing of school-age youths. She has worked extensively with youth mentoring programs and has been an investigator in research centered around at-risk youth populations, adolescent stress, and foster care relationships.

The project collaborators are a bi-coastal research team from an institutional array that includes the University of Arkansas, New York University, Herrera Consulting Group, North Thurston Public Schools (Lacey, WA), and Mentor Washington.

This team’s most recent grant-funded study, “Developing a Model for Delivering School-Based Mentoring to Students in Military Families” (2014-2018) will set the stage for this new collaborative project.

“Schools need a better understanding of the risks associated with high mobility and the types of supports likely to benefit military-connected students,” Spencer explained. “With these understandings and supports in place, we can provide better experiences for the families who serve our country.”

Learn more about the awarded study here.