Formerly the Center for the Study of Boys' and Girls' Lives (CSBGL), SPARC is a consortium of schools and universities that conduct research, encourage public discussion, and advocate on behalf of students. Work with the Center is explicitly collaborative, engaging students, their parents, teachers and administrators, in partnership with university faculty, in the common pursuit of school improvement through inquiry. As the model of continuous improvement through empirical research becomes a part of each school’s culture, this collaborative research approach will develop a convincing body of evidence in support of institutional best practices and school change. Based in the lived experiences of actual students, the Center aspires to bring awareness of boys’ and girls’ expressed needs, especially in relation to the development of healthy identities, more fully into the practice of the institutions that affect their lives. Working closely with university-based researchers, participating schools gather, interpret and disseminate original scholarship on the conditions and potentials of their students.
