The Urban Learning & Leadership Collaborative: Leveraging a Community-based Research Alliance for Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline Intruding on Detroit

The Urban Learning and Leadership Collaborative (ULLC) is a research-practice partnership that unites Detroit community members with university researchers to create innovative, inquiry-based solutions to challenges identified by community residents. Residents regard dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline as a central education objective since the criminalization, expulsion, and incarceration of school-age youth has devastating effects. This RPP will facilitate the ULLC’s ability to solicit, vet, and support community-based research initiatives that seek to advance equitable educational access, fair discipline, and restorative justice in Detroit’s schools, and also nurture the socioemotional well-being, learning, and retention of youth most susceptible to expulsion and incarceration. U-M Marsal Family School of Education Professor Camille M. Wilson is the ULLC Principal Investigator. Co-investigators include a faculty member from Wayne State University School of Social Work and a leader/activist from Focus: HOPE, a Detroit civil rights organization founded in 1968. The investigators will guide the ULLC in establishing and supporting a cohort of Detroit-based inquiry teams comprised of both academic and community researchers. The project team will mentor and engage youth researchers in this process and evaluate ULLC's efforts to conduct applied research that fosters educational and community thriving.