New School Collaboratory
What makes civic engagement projects at the New School so abundant and successful?
Qualitative research, analysis, synthesis and reporting for the New School Colalboratory, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.
How do we conduct research on civic engagement?
The research team secured access to project founders, faculty and students and conducted observational studies and interviews to collect data. After compiling all field notes and transcribed recordings into one complete book, we coded the data to find core patterns, and established a thesis on the answer to the research question.
What did we find?
Our findings were sensitive and pushed back on the deep infrastructure of the organization that exceed the intended scope of the study, which pointed to the fiscal infrastructure rather than the scholarly infrastructure of the campus. We struggled with how to express this in such a high profile paper. Despite advocating for a sharper critique of fiscal practice, we were directed to soften those points in favor of celebrating the small wins of the projects rather than the challenges that made projects short lived.