Student Researchers Present at UPenn Consortium

On April 28, the Exeter Student Participatory Action Research Collaborative (SPARC), presented their research findings on the role of identity at the Harkness Table at the School Participatory Action Research Collaborative (also known as SPARC) Consortium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Principal Bill Rawson traveled with them as a board member of the SPARC boarding school coalition.

Led by faculty advisors Aviva Halani and Hannah Hofheinz, the eight student researchers—uppers Arin Akcura, Julia Vilela, Addie Graham, Mia Kuromaru, lowers Joseph Chen, Rachael Kim and Christina Xiao—conducted research with faculty from the University Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.

Since its inception in the 2016–2017 school year, Exeter SPARC, previously known as the Center for the Study of Boys’ and Girls’ Lives, has researched a variety of school issues ranging from campus hookup culture to socioeconomic status. At the end of the year, the researchers’ work is shared with other boarding schools at the consortium and, more importantly, PEA administrators with the purpose of informing discussions about policy.

The SPARC team reported their findings to Principal Rawson this past Sunday and will present their research data and findings to a subset of faculty on May 13th and the student body on May 24 during assembly.

Halani clarified SPARC’s purpose as it pertained to Exeter’s campus. “The idea [of SPARC] is that members of a community get together to figure out what some challenges are that their communities house,” she said. “They research it, and they put together an action plan.”

This year, Columbus Academy, Greens Farms Academy, Greenwich Academy, Lawrenceville School, Miss Porter’s School and The Shipley School also attended the consortium and presented their own research on topics such as white fragility.

Xiao believed that being a part of this collaboration between schools was a valuable opportunity. “There were a couple of other schools there, and I thought part of what made this trip so good for me was being able to meet people from other schools and also to hear their presentations about the research that they’ve been,” she said.

Rawson expressed how inspired he was by the student-driven aspect of SPARC. “It is exciting to see students taking responsibility for understanding and shaping their own education,” he said.

Last summer, Hofheinz and Halani sent the student body an email with an application to form a team of dedicated students that would create the SPARC team. Once formed, the new members selected a topic that they felt was relevant to the student body. This year, the SPARC team chose to examine how the burden of representation affects students’ comfort levels at the Harkness table. They met twice a week for an hour in order to complete their research project.

After the team decided upon their topic, they began to gather qualitative data through interviews and focus groups. According to Hofheinz, their method of primarily analyzing qualitative data was chosen over quantitative because it revealed more about student experiences. “We can find ways in which they are similar experiences and can find meaning out of that and be able to say some things very clearly in a social scientific way about the quality of an Exeter student experience,” they said.

Members of the SPARC team reflected upon their learnings throughout the year. For Kuromaru, public speaking for their presentation at last week’s conference was a new skill she gained through the club. “We didn't have much experience in public speaking at Exeter in general. It was a skill that we had to kind of figure out, and we had a lot of help from Dr. Halani and Dr. Hofheinz,” Kuromaru said.

Along the way, the team faced challenges such as the structuring of the presentation to accurately and fairly convey information, according to Xiao. “We’d found so many ideas to go into, and we wanted to present them in a way that flowed,” she said. To achieve this goal, the group ended up reformatting their slides.

Halani noted that the logistics of scheduling meetings throughout the year put a strain on students. “It's been challenging because we haven't had very much time set aside … This term it has felt very challenging because we meet during the reserve and during lunch,” she said. “There’s fat block and sports around lunch block, and nobody has eaten, but it is also confidential stuff we are working on. It's just really challenging logistically this year.”

Despite the tight schedule, the team was able to persevere and produce great results. “I've been very impressed by how seriously the students have taken this and how much they've learned over the year,” Halani said.

In order to better facilitate team meetings, next year SPARC will run under an Exeter Innovations Course (EXI559).