Educational Studies Concentration

The Educational Studies Concentration provides an interdisciplinary approach to the study of education as an individual pursuit, an institutional venture, and a societal imperative. The concentration aims to develop thoughtful, skillful and imaginative students of the psychology, social and cultural history, and politics of education. Students will pursue the study of education as a liberal art, one that both reveals the constraints of socialization and informs alternative visions of self and community. The concentration is appropriate for students of all majors interested in the stewardship of education as a cornerstone of democracy.

Requirements for the Concentration

All students will be required to take a minimum of seven courses: three core courses, three supporting courses and a senior seminar. Students interested in the concentration are advised to begin their study during their sophomore year.

Core Courses:

Supporting Courses: Select one course from each of the three clusters; these courses must be from three different departments. The list below is not an exhaustive one. Please check the appropriate department pages for course descriptions and prerequisites and when courses are offered. We can neither control nor predict when courses from other departments are offered. If you have difficulty enrolling in a course for a particular cluster, please see the concentration coordinator to discuss other courses that might fulfill the requirement.

Cluster I Learning, Cognition and Development The purpose of this cluster is to provide additional perspective about how K-12 students develop physically, cognitively and socially. This cluster builds on the core course, Educational Psychology.

  • CCST 100 Growing Up Cross-Culturally
  • CGSC 130 Revolutions in Mind: An Introduction to Cognitive Science
  • CGSC 130 What Minds Are What They Do: An Introduction to Cognitive Science
  • CGSC 232 Cognitive Processes
  • EDUC 344 Teenage Wasteland: Adolescence and the American High School
  • PSYC 232 Cognitive Processes
  • PSYC 250 Developmental Psychology
  • PSYC 258 Social Cognition
  • PSYC 366 Cognitive Neuroscience

Cluster II Social and Cultural Context of Schooling in a Diverse Society The purpose of this cluster is to provide an in-depth understanding of the broader historical, social and cultural context in which U.S. educational institutions are located. This cluster builds on the background knowledge provided by the core courses Introduction to Educational Studies and Multicultural Education.

  • AMST 115 Introduction to American Studies: Immigration and American Culture
  • HIST 122 U.S. Women's History to 1877 (not offered in 2016-17)
  • HIST 126 African American History II
  • HIST 224 Divercities: Exclusion and Inequality in Urban America
  • HIST 228 Civil Rights and Black Power
  • HIST 229 Working with Gender in U.S. History
  • PSYC 384 Psychology of Prejudice
  • RELG 140 Religion and American Culture
  • SOAN 114 Modern Families: An Introduction to the Sociology of the Family
  • SOAN 218 Asians in the United States (not offered in 2016-17)
  • SOAN 226 Anthropology of Gender
  • SOAN 272 Race and Ethnicity in the United States
  • WGST 110 Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies

Cluster III Public Policy and Educational Reform The purpose of this cluster is to explore the public policy contexts, issues and questions that are most relevant to educational policy making and school reform. This cluster builds on the background knowledge provided by the core course Introduction to Educational Studies.

  • ECON 246 Economics of Welfare
  • ECON 270 Economics of the Public Sector
  • EDUC 245 The History of American School Reform
  • EDUC 250 Fixing Schools: Politics and Policy in American Education
  • EDUC 260 The Politics of Teaching
  • POSC 122 Politics in America: Liberty and Equality
  • POSC 218 Schools, Scholarship and Policy in the United States

Senior Seminar: