Samantha Viano, Assistant Professor, Education Leadership, College of Education and Human Development (CEHD), is set to receive funding for the project: “Hardening Schools, Targeting Students? Students’ Perspectives of and Outcomes Associated with School Security Measures” through the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Samantha Viano, Assistant Professor, Education Leadership, College of Education and Human Development (CEHD), is set to receive funding for the project: “Hardening Schools, Targeting Students? Students’ Perspectives of and Outcomes Associated with School Security Measures” through the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.
For this project, Viano will assess whether newly purchased school security equipment like cameras and door locking mechanisms differentially affect minoritized students.
These findings will be among the first causal impact estimates of the effects of a wide array of modern school security measures on minoritized students, including on educational outcomes like suspension, as well as carceral outcomes like students’ probability of arrest. This will ultimately provide empirical evidence on whether school security makes schools safer as well as school security’s role as part of the school-prison nexus.
Dr. Viano is the first faculty member in CEHD to receive the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship since 1984 and the first George Mason University faculty member to receive this Fellowship since 2001. It is a highly competitive fellowship regarded as one of the most prestigious honors an early-career faculty member focused on education research can receive.
Viano will receive $70,000 from the National Academy of Education for this project. Funding will begin in Sept. 2024 and will end in May 2026.
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