Call for Proposals, Fall 2024

The Foundation for a Better Tomorrow

Higher education plays a role in perpetuating and creating social inequalities

at the same time as it holds the potential to help challenge these
inequalities. The Foundation for a Better Tomorrow seeks research proposals
that will shed new light on how higher education is related to social
inequality. We seek projects that will yield real-world solutions to a targeted
problem. Proposals must be firmly grounded in relevant theory and research
in the sociology of education.

The Foundation seeks proposals covering a wide range of topics. Previously

funded proposals have examined the following topics, among others:
affirmative action; the transition from high school to college; diversity on
college campuses; historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs); the
controversy over college rankings; inequality in access to postsecondary
education across racial, ethnic, or social class groups; the role of women’s
colleges in the quest for gender equity in higher education; and inequality in
postsecondary educational outcomes across particular groups. Funded
proposals will use a sociological perspective to uncover new understandings
of the relationship between higher education and social inequality.

Proposal narratives should run no more than 15-20 pages and include the
following elements:

Statement of problem (500 words, about two pages)

The statement of the problem should clearly identify the problem in higher
education addressed by the research and its relationship to social inequality.
This is your opportunity to frame your research in a way that expresses the
social urgency of addressing the problem at hand. Provide background and
context so that reviewers can understand how this problem fits into the
general topic of inequality in higher education. This section should convince
reviewers that your project is addressing a pressing issue in higher
education.

Research question(s) (500 words, about two pages)

Here is where you tell the reviewers exactly which research questions your
project will answer. In the previous section, you identified the problem to be
addressed. In this section you will explain precisely how the research
questions posed by your project will shed new light on the problem at hand
and suggest concrete solutions. What new twist are you adding to research
in this area?

Theoretical and research context (often referred to as a literature

review) (1750 to 2500 words, 7-10 pages)
This section is vital to your proposal because it signals to reviewers, who
may not be specialists on your topic, how your research fits into the field. By
reviewing relevant research and theory, you will be able to explain how your
project challenges and/or extends existing scholarly work on your topic. In
some cases, your work may serve as a bridge between areas of research
that are typically seen as unrelated.

The literature review can be organized in a number of different ways, but the
most effective ones tend to be organized around general themes in the
literature, rather than a sequential summary of separate pieces of work.
However you choose to organize this section, refrain from simply
summarizing studies and theories, one after the other. While a certain
amount of summary is necessary, the focus of this section is not to
summarize, but to synthesize the literature such that your major arguments
about the state of extant research are made clear. The point of the literature
review is not to summarize, but to make an original argument about how
your research fits into the field (by adding something new, challenging major
assumptions, etc.).

Methods (500-1000 words, two to four pages)

This section should explain your methodological approaches. Exactly what
methods will your project employ? The purpose of this section is not simply
to describe the methods, but rather to convince reviewers that your
proposed methodologies are appropriate for studying your research
questions, and superior to alternative approaches. For example, if you plan
to conduct in-person interviews, explain how this method is a better
approach than, say, surveys. The Foundation encourages qualitative and
quantitative methods, as well as mixed methods approaches.

Sampling (250 to 500 words, one to two pages)

What kinds of people or institutions will you be sampling? How will you go
about including them in your research? This section should explain in detail
the target population and how you plan to go about including a sample of the
population in your research.

Data collection (250 to 500 words, one to two pages)

What is your plan for actually carrying out the methods you described above
and locating the people and/or institutions of interest? This section should
convince the reviewers that you have a concrete and realistic plan in place
for completing the research.

Due Dates and Assignments:

1. September 27 (In class!): Emergent Idea Exercise

 Please complete this sheet to help get you thinking about your project
in a more focused way. It is not graded, but all students must complete
it and bring it to class

2. October 4 seminar session: Statement of topic and list of

preliminary sources (5% of project grade)
a. 1 to 2-page single-spaced statement of your substantive topic and
rough ideas for proposed study.
b. Preliminary bibliography with at least 10 scholarly sources not
included in the syllabus. These sources can include either peer-
reviewed journal articles or academic books. Ask me if you’re
unsure about a source. See
http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/research/skill20.html for
tips on identifying scholarly sources.

3. November 1: Detailed topic and outline (10% of project grade)

a. A more detailed description of your topic and research questions
that takes into account feedback that you received on your initial
statement
b. An outline of the theoretical and research context section of the
proposal: Outlines are formal systems for mapping out the
organization of your thinking. Your outline must identify key ideas
and pieces of information to be covered in this section, in a logical
sequence.
c. An Excel spreadsheet which lists each source from which you’ll be
drawing, explaining the particular purpose and significance of each
source. (Use the template provided on Moodle.)

4. November 22: First draft of grant proposal (minimum: 15 pages,

maximum: 20 pages) (25% of project grade)
a. You should follow all formatting requirements in this first draft.
b. Bring two copies to class: one for Professor Wildhagen and one for
your reviewer.

5. December 6: Peer review of proposal (5% of project grade)

a. Your review should be single-spaced and 2-3 pages long.
b. The review should begin with a short recap of the proposal that
states, from the reader’s perspective, the main goals of the
proposal and likelihood of the project actually attaining those goals.
(about 5 or 6 sentences—short)
c. The rest of the review should proceed as an organized and succinct
list of the merits and faults of the proposal.
d. Bring two copies to class: one for Wildhagen and one for the author

6. December 6: PowerPoint presentation (15% of project grade)

 a. The presentation should give the audience an overview of your
proposal, with an emphasis on what you see as your original
contribution.
b. Sharing the results of months of your hard work with your peers can
be a very rewarding experience. Convey your excitement about
your topic and your ideas to the audience. This will make the
experience more enjoyable for all of us.
c. Giving presentations to peers is an unpleasant prospect for many
people. Check out http://news.cnet.com/8301-13555_3-9809573-
34.html for some ideas on how to combat your fear of public
speaking. Also feel free to come speak with me if you think this
might be an issue for you, as it is for many of us.

7. December 17 by 10:00 a.m.: Final draft of grant proposal (35% of

project grade) and memo to reviewers (2-3 single-spaced pages) (5%
of project grade)
d. Final draft should be free of typographical errors and adhere to all
formatting requirements.
e. Final draft should be a revised version of your first draft that has
taken into account the reviews submitted to you by the reviewers.
f. You also must type one memo that tells me how you responded to
the reviews. This should start with an overall reaction to the
reviews: How did the reviews push your thinking forward? How did
considering them improve your proposal? The bulk of the memo
should give responses to the reviewers’ comments, with an
explanation of how you revised your proposal to address the
feedback. If you chose not to revise your proposal in response to a
particular criticism, you should explain your decision. You can
choose to respond to the reviewers’ criticisms separately, but you
should try to combine criticisms and respond to them together
when the two are essentially making the same point.