Beattie and Graduate Student Awarded Research Grant to Study Teacher Retention

Professor Irenee Beattie and graduate student Melissa Quesada have been awarded a $40,000 research grant from the California Teacher Education and Research Improvement Network (CTERIN) to study the factors associated with teacher retention in underserved schools.

The interdisciplinary grant, which is in collaboration with UC Merced CalTeach Director Chelsea Arnold and applied math Professor Mayya Tokman, will support Quesada as a graduate student research assistant for the summer and the 2018-19 academic year. Beattie and Quesada are in the Sociology program within the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts.

The study will apply theories of the life course — analyzing people's lives within structural, social, and cultural contexts — and racial contact to understand how early field experiences in undergraduate teacher training programs help mediate or moderate the effects of a teacher’s own educational background on their likelihood of teaching in underserved rural and urban schools.

CTERIN is a network of scholars from across all UC campuses aimed at addressing the teacher shortage in California and is funded by UC President Janet Napolitano’s Catalyst Award.