The Department of Education, Culture, and Society is composed of a group of professors and students committed to the study and pursuit of social justice in education. Drawing on anthropology, history, philosophy, sociology, social psychology, and cultural studies, the department offers an interdisciplinary framework for addressing questions about class, race, ethnicity, and gender in contemporary educational policy and practice in elementary, secondary, and post-secondary settings.
Our course work and research shares a common interest in understanding patterns of educational inequality in society and in exploring educational approaches intended to counter these inequities. Some faculty and students study the ways in which racial segregation, discrimination, and Eurocentric curricula prevent students of color from receiving equal educational opportunities. Other scholars in the department study how economic inequalities give educational advantages to more privileged groups while marginalizing those without resources. Still others are interested in the way the norms of society and school systematically direct male students to positions of authority in the public sphere while female students are encouraged to assume more subordinate roles. All of us are interested in studying educational policies and practices--such as multi-cultural education, Afrocentric and Latinocentric schooling, bilingual education, feminist pedagogies, affirmative action, community control, and the redistribution of pedagogical, curricular, and financial resources--that promise working class students and students of color more equal educational opportunities.
We believe that the ECS Department is an attractive place to work and study because it harbors a vigorous intellectual community in which there is a good deal of collaborative work and a sense of shared intellectual projects. Faculty and students regularly present manuscripts in Department colloquia and help one another develop our perspectives. All of us work to maintain a strong community ethos in the belief that a supportive social climate will make each of us better scholars, and we think this is especially true for students. We encourage students to work together and to support one another, and we seek to reduce the competitive graduate school climate that often hurts many students and limits intellectual engagement. We believe that this has contributed to our reputation as a place where graduate students receive outstanding professional preparation. Many of our students have won intensely competitive national and local fellowships in the pursuit of their degrees. Upon finishing their degree programs, students are highly employable and have the opportunity to take positions in research and teaching universities across the country.