School of Social Welfare launches site dedicated to assets, education research

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas School of Social Welfare's Assets and Education Initiative has announced the launch of its new website, dedicated to research on assets and education. The purpose of the website is to make such research more accessible to policy makers and practitioners. Some of the materials found on the website include easily accessible subject bibliographies, working paper series, briefs, reports, news and events related to assets and education.

For ease, subject bibliographies are broken down by youth's savings and household savings as well as by type of data collection (primary or secondary data) and by where they were conducted (in the U.S. or internationally). In addition, the website contains links to 16 video presentations along with three keynote speeches by Michael Sherraden, Mark Rank and Michael Lomax from the Assets and Education Research Symposium, a collaborative effort between KU's School of Social Welfare and the Center for Social Development at Washington University, which was March 29-30 at KU.

As part of the buildup to the launch of the AEDI website, last week the KU School of Social Welfare Assets and Education Initiative released the first paper examining the association between youths' savings and saving across adulthood (at ages 18 to 58 at 10-year intervals). The paper is titled "It Is Not Just Families; Institutions Play a Role in Reducing Wealth Inequality: Long Term Effects of Youth Savings Accounts on Adult Saving Behaviors" and can be found on the AEDI website.

In the upcoming months as the School of Social Welfare hires new staff with concentrations in the area of assets and education, each section of the website will be further developed and maintained. However, the real key to maintaining the website and the subject bibliographies will be the active involvement of the consumer.

"If you see something missing from the bibliographies that should be added just let us know. An important way that you can participate is by sign up for the listserv on the website and informing us of when you conduct new research or have read about new research on assets and education related topics. It also provides a great way to communicate with others who are also interested in the topic and ask questions when you have them," said William Elliott, assistant professor of social welfare.