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Policy and Research Centers Update
This section contains a summary of the activities of four research centers and one research program affiliated with the Harris School. Center for Human Potential and Public Policy (CHPPP) Center-Based Research • Good things come in 3's: Single-parent multigenerational family. Using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) of 1988, Tomas DeLeire and Ariel Kalil find that teenagers living in non-intact families are less likely to graduate from high school and less likely to attend college. • "Social Fathering in Low-Income, African American Families with Preschool Children." Rukmalie Jayakody and Ariel Kalil are examining the factors associated with social father presence and their influence on preschoolers' development. Early findings indicate that the presence of male relatives who serve as "social fathers" is associated with higher levels of children's school readiness, while mothers' romantic partner social fathers are associated with lower levels of emotional maturity. • "Children's Cognitive Skill
Development in the U.S. and U.K." University-Based Research • There are three research initiatives underway, including a collaborative venture with the University of Chicago Hospitals' Doula Project, led by Syndey Hans. Working with Hans, Robert LaLonde is participating in a statistical evaluation of this project. Center staff member and former student Susan George and current students are assisting in this evaluation and are thereby gaining experience in applying their understanding of evaluation research. Research Events • The Center continues to hold regular academic workshops designed to explore issues and research related to human potential. This year's workshops included "Abstinence, Birth Control, and the Sexual Activity of Teenagers," with University of Pennsylvania Professor Rebecca Maynard; "Drugs, Mothers, and Children," with University of Chicago Professor Sydney Hans; "The Economics of Child Care," with University of North Carolina Professor David Blau; and "Should Juvenile Offenders Be Tried as Adults?" with Temple University Professor Larry Steinberg. • Ariel Kalil presented "Transitions to Adulthood for Adolescent Mothers" at a Center-sponsored research briefing in November. Harris School Research Briefings are monthly presentations designed to communicate the findings of current policy-related research to policy makers, journalists, and social service agency and foundation representatives. Kalil's talk centered on the unique transition to adulthood that adolescent mothers face and the relationship of this research to the welfare reform policy that is directed at young teenage mothers. • Separately, economist Robert LaLonde spoke to state-level policy makers at a November workshop designed to explore the skills gap in the labor market as part of the Council of State Governments Annual Legislative Conference. The workshop, moderated by Illinois Representative Judy Erwin (D-Chicago) and led by LaLonde and a representative from the National Association of Manufacturers, was designed to explore the changing demographics and skill demands of the workplace in the New Economy. LaLonde presented his research on America's changing workforce and disparities in workers' skill levels and discussed the ways that policy makers and employers can close this gap. The Center for Social Program Evaluation • The Center for Social Program Evaluation is directed by James Heckman, recent Nobel Laureate and the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. Heckman's recent research deals with such issues as evaluation of social programs, econometric models of discrete choice and longitudinal data, the economics of the labor market, and alternative models of the distribution of income. The Center is currently engaged in four projects, including the Cognitive Ability Project, which was founded in the spring of 1995, motivated by Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve. The primary interest of this project is to examine the relationship between measured cognitive ability and wages in a serious manner. The Center is currently in the final stages of wrapping up the project. Since 1995, this project has produced papers on cognitive ability, wages, and meritocracy; meritocracy in America; measuring the effects of cognitive ability; wages, ability and human capital; and cognitive ability and the rising wage return to education. The Center for Urban Research and Policy Studies (CURPS) • The proceedings of the third Illinois Welfare Reform Symposium, "Welfare Reform and Beyond," were published in December 2000. The symposium, which brought together more than 350 participants from across the state, was sponsored by the Center for Urban Research and Policy Studies (CURPS), Voices for Illinois Children, the Joint Center for Poverty Research (JCPR), and the Welfare Information Network, which is affiliated with the Finance Project in Washington, D.C. • CURPS and JCPR are co-sponsoring a series of briefing sessions on newly completed and ongoing research related to welfare reform in Illinois. Each session is held at the Gleacher Center as part of the Harris School's monthly series of research briefings. The schedule of CURPS/JCPR sessions for the 2000-2001 academic year includes: Steven Anderson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, "Illinois Study of TANF Leavers" (November 9); Dan Lewis, Northwestern University, "Work, Welfare, and Well-Being: An Independent Look at Welfare Reform in Illinois" (January 25); and Rachel Gordon, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Carolyn Heinrich, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "The Context of Moving from Welfare to Work for Young Families" (May 24). •The latest Chicago Assembly book, Education Policy for the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities in Standards-Based Reform, was published in February. The volume is edited by Lawrence B. Joseph, associate director of CURPS, and is distributed by University of Illinois Press. The book includes chapters on educational trends and issues in metropolitan Chicago, state education policy in Illinois, standards-based reform in other states, school accountability systems, effects of school spending on student achievement, building-level obstacles to reform in urban public schools, and lessons of Chicago school reform. • CURPS's updated and expanded web site now features a comprehensive set of Chicago and Illinois policy links. These links include state and local public agencies, non-profit organizations, and other resources in policy areas such as public finance, education, welfare reform, children and families, health care, economic development, housing, community development, environmental protection, and metropolitan development. The Joint Center for Poverty Research (JCPR) • In the 2000-2001 academic year, the Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research (JCPR) conducted nine poverty research seminars, four research conferences, and seven research briefings, supported two visiting scholars and eight graduate fellows, and produced four issues of its newsletter, Poverty Research News. Topics of the newsletter included the latest research from the Moving to Opportunity Project, the effects of welfare reform in rural areas, what policy makers want to know about welfare reform, and research on food and nutrition programs. • Seminar presentations included "Early Lessons from Welfare Reform" in October, "What Government Can Do: Dealing with Poverty and Inequality" and "The Social Organization of Underground Economies in Chicago's Urban Poor Neighborhoods" in November, "Youth Smoking in the U.S." in January, "Do Enclaves Matter in Immigrant Adjustment?" and "The Community Ecology of Family Influence on Delinquency and Violence" in February, "Social Class and Race Differences in the Children's Lives Outside of the Home," "Teen Mothers and their Children's Developmental Outcomes" and "Ethnic and Family Income Differences in the Home Environments of Children from Infancy to Adolescence and How those Differences Relate to Patterns of Well-Being in Children" in May. • The JCPR holds research briefings that are designed to share current findings with state and city policy makers and journalists, and representatives from social service agencies and foundations. In the last year, briefings topics ranged from the responsibilities of government for situations of poverty and inequality to an Illinois study of former TANF clients and a report on state reforms from the University Consortium on Welfare Reform. In February, the implications of expanding or maintaining the current Illinois Earned Income Tax Credit was the focus of a national research briefing sponsored by the JCPR and by Illinois State Representative Barbara Flynn Currie (D) and Illinois State Senator William E. Peterson (R). Economists from Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities presented research findings at this event. • In December, the JCPR held a Washington,
D.C. conference on the incentives effects of tax and transfer
programs for low-income families, with funding from the Annie
E. Casey Foundation and in collaboration with Manpower Demonstration
Research Corporation. Conference papers focused on the Earned
Income Tax Credit and Medicaid; behavior and outcomes such as
labor supply; family structure • Using funds from HHS-ASPE and the Census Bureau, the JCPR issued grants for nine research projects, which included studies of low-income minority families, teenage childbearing, street gangs, Medicaid expansions, and Medicare enrollment trends. The JCPR also issued three grants through its USDA ERS food assistance grants program. In addition, the JCPR funded two visiting scholars and eight graduate students for the 2000-2001 year. • The JCPR working paper series continues
to expand, with 22 papers added since August 2000. In addition,
the JCPR website is an international resource for poverty research;
the site averaged 23,500 visits in one month alone, and its bimonthly
electronic newsletter reaches more than 3000 subscribers worldwide.
During December 2000, users downloaded over 5,500 copies of research
studies from the JCPR website. Cultural Policy Program (CPP) • The Cultural Policy Workshop explored
issues of culture, commerce, and politics throughout the fall
quarter. As part of this series, workshop organizers hosted a
discussion of experimental art in China • The program also hosted a winter/spring research briefing series, Measuring the Effects of the Arts and Culture, modeled on the Harris School's own monthly downtown briefings. Visiting lecturers joined faculty from the School, and collaborative workshops allowed students to engage in discussion with the researchers. As part of this series, the program held two presentations of large-scale arts and culture surveys in the winter quarter: RAND Corporation researchers Kevin McCarthy and Arthur Brooks presented findings of a broad survey of the performing arts landscape, and Urban Institute researchers Maria-Rosario Jackson and Joaquin Herranz discussed their project to develop arts and culture indicators in urban communities. • University President Don Michael Randel delivered opening remarks for the final briefing in this series, "Getting Down to the Basics: Fundamental Research into Cultural Preferences and Success." That event featured new research by Harris School faculty members Don Coursey and Colm O'Muircheartaigh, whose projects explore ways to measure the basic and elusive attributes that mark a cultural institution's success. Coursey discussed his investigation into the ways people make decisions about investing money and time in cultural activities, and O'Muircheartaigh described his work in developing a new survey instrument to measure the aesthetic experiences of museum visitors. More than 50 foundation executives, city policy makers, cultural organization staff and current students were in attendance at the briefing. • The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
awarded the program a $115,000 project grant for initial planning
for these O'Muircheartaigh's project, and a project for 2001-2002
Harris School Visiting Professor Mark Schuster (currently MIT
Professor of Urban Cultural Policy). Schuster's project is a
review of state-level cultural policy that will map the contributions
of different areas of state and local government to cultural
activities. An initial planning meeting was held in April to
gather advice from • Visiting Professor Mark Schuster plans to teach a course in comparative international cultural policy next year, as well as a course in urban planning. Steering committee members are coordinating with Dean of Students Nancy O'Connor to create a CULTPOL course heading for cross-listed courses that meet master's program elective requirements. • The program's annual conference, Playing by the Rules? The Cultural Policy Challenges of Video Games, has been scheduled for October 26-27, 2001. The event will bring together a variety of experts from the fields of art, media studies, policy analysis, economics, psychology, and legal studies to evaluate current video game policies and to propose new measures for developing the educational, social, and artistic potential of this entertainment medium. • The program is assisting the Illinois Arts Alliance with a three-year study of leadership transition in the nonprofit arts sector. Many arts organizations will be facing the retirement of their founding leadership, directors and boards, in the coming decade. With the understanding that most current arts organizations developed in a funding climate that was very different from what is seen today, the Alliance will develop a set of tools to help smaller organizations survive this transition period. Three Harris School students are currently engaged in a literature review for the Alliance project. • Another research internship in cultural policy for Harris School students is being developed with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. The Department has asked for six to ten students to work on a Cultural Landscape Survey project. For this survey, which aims to clarify the financial health of city cultural institutions, students will help design data-gathering strategies, perform data input and analysis, create maps of selected data runs, and conduct follow-up interviews. Work will begin in May 2001.
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