We Are Rose Park is a school-university partnership between Rose Park Elementary School and the University
of Utah’s Department of Educational Psychology. A focus of this collaboration is to
improve students’ self-efficacy and academic persistence attitudes by enhancing their
sense of belongingness in school. We Are Rose Park implements curriculum centered on enhancing positive racial-ethnic identity development
and awareness of sociocultural issues that affect students’ everyday lives. In this
biweekly program, participants engage in interactive discussions, experiential activities
and arts-based projects intended to promote creativity, self-awareness, empathy, and
community building. Our hope is to help students who may feel school is not for “kids
like us,” draw connections between what they learn in the classroom to their own cultural
contexts.