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:
EDUC 110 Introduction to Educational Studies
EDUC 234 Educational Psychology
EDUC 338 Multicultural Education
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-Cultural
CGSC 130 Intro to Cognitive Science
CGSC 236 Thinking, Reasoning and Decision Making (Not offered in 2015-2016)
CGSC 380 Seminar in Developmental Psychology: Cognitive Development During the Preschool Years (Not offered in 2015-2016)
CGSC 385 Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood (Not offered in 2015-2016)
CGSC 386 Adolescent Cognitive Development: Developing an Identity and Life Plans (Not offered in 2015-2016)
EDUC 344 Teenage Wasteland: Adolescence and the American High School (Not offered in 2015-2016)
PSYC 210 Psychology of Learning
PSYC 250 Developmental Psychology
PSYC 258 Social Cognition (Not offered in 2015-2016)
PSYC 366 Cognitive Neuroscience (Not offered in 2015-2016)
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: The Immigrant Experience
EDUC 340 Race, Immigration and Urban Schools
HIST 122 U.S. Women's History to 1877
HIST 123 U.S. Women's History Since 1877
HIST 125 African American History I
HIST 126 African American History II
HIST 219 Is Obama Black?: American Mixed Race History (Not offered in 2015-2016)
HIST 228 History of U.S. Civil Rights and Black Power (Not offered in 2015-2016)
HIST 229 Working with Gender in U.S. History
POSC 122 Politics in America: Liberty and Equality
POSC 306 How Race Matters in American Politics* (Not offered in 2015-2016)
PSYC 384 Psychology of Prejudice
RELG 140 Religion and American Culture (Not offered in 2015-2016)
RELG 249 Religion and American Public Life (Not offered in 2015-2016)
SOAN 114 Modern Families: An Introduction to the Sociology of Family (Not offered in 2015-2016)
SOAN 220 Class, Power and Inequality in America (Not offered in 2015-2016)
SOAN 226 Anthropology of Gender (Not offered in 2015-2016)
SOAN 227 Masculinities and Gender
SOAN 259 Comparative Issues in Native North America (Not offered in 2015-2016)
SOAN 272 Race and Ethnicity in the United States
SOAN 283 Immigration and Immigrants in Europe and 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 (Not offered in 2015-2016)
ECON 270 Economics of the Public Sector (Not offered in 2015-2016)
EDUC 225 Issues in Urban Education
EDUC 245 History of American School Reform
EDUC 250 Fixing Schools, Politics and Policy in American Education
EDUC 353 Schooling and Opportunity in American Society (Not offered in 2015-2016)
POSC 201 Lobbyists, Wonks and Social Media: Public Policy Making in Democracy
POSC 218 Schools, Scholarship and Policy in the United States (Not offered in 2015-2016)
POSC 338 Politics of Inequality and Poverty
SOAN 115 Inequality in American Society (Not offered in 2015-2016)
Senior Seminar: EDUC 395 Senior Seminar