Students in our Ph.D, M.S., and M.ED. programs can specialize in curriculum theory, anthropology, sociology, history, or philosophy of education. Students interested in language and culture can choose from courses where they study the most influential authors in educational anthropology and qualitative research methods, and they can combine that disciplinary grounding with courses such as “Dual Language Schooling,” “Language and Community,” and “Language and Power.” Students with a historical interest can receive mentorship in historical methodology, and they can take specific courses such as “Social Movements and the History of Education in the U.S.” “History of Women’s Education in the U.S.,” and “The History of Black Education.” Students can receive a sound foundation in sociological theory and research, and they can choose from courses on “Schools and Inequality,” “Critical Race Theory,” “School, Work, and The State,” “Whiteness Theory,” or “Sociology of Higher Education in the U.S..” Philosophy of Education students can combine a study of feminist philosophy, African American pragmatism, or existential philosophy with the pursuit of courses like “Critical Pedagogies,” “Feminist Epistemologies and Pedagogies,” and “African American Epistemologies and Pedagogies.

    In addition to their course work, students work closely with faculty to fashion independent research projects in their area of interest. Recent dissertations and theses written in the Department include: an anthropological study of Mexican women’s pedagogies devoted to cultural survival and an enlargement of women’s sphere of activity in a context of globalization and migration; a curriculum study of the ways in which a consciousness raising class allowed high school women to gain a greater sense of agency through writing; an anthropological critique of the public schools’ treatment of African American students by comparing the public school to an African American church school; a historical study of the authority female teachers attained through teaching and school administration; a class analysis of the origins and ideology that informed national education reports such as A Nation at Risk; a feminist discussion of the ways in which a teacher-education program ignored the knowledge of women students; an anthropological study of the way in which youth engaged in hip hop hoped to rewrite racial divisions in their city; a philosophical study of the ways in which a commitment to community in elementary schools often served ends that were not democratic; a post-structural study of counter-hegemonic literacy practices in a second grade classroom; and a sociological study that applied theories of the state to the formation of community colleges.