Cultural Foundations of Education

Welcome to Cultural Foundations

The Cultural Foundations program provides students with the opportunity to strengthen their disciplinary knowledge in history, philosophy, and sociology of education. The program emphasizes multiple theoretical approaches and methodologies to capture the complexities of people's lives. The faculty views the field of education and schooling broadly to include community institutions, neighborhood organizations, and governmental and non-profit groups. We are especially interested in transformational learning and teaching practices, in how disenfranchised communities exercise agency, and in how grassroots organizing creates new social and political spaces for self- and community- determination. Such experiences reflect John Dewey's idea from Democracy and Education that "a democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience." Students in the Cultural Foundations program are encouraged to pursue a wide range of research, which may include but is not limited to: community studies, social movements, politics of gender in education, ethics of educational practice, action-research praxis, and critical pedagogy.

The core faculty in cultural foundations includes Nathalia Jaramillo, Anne Meis Knupfer and A.G. Rud. Nathalia examines education in formal and informal contexts. She writes in the fields of critical pedagogy, gender, and socio-political critique. Anne studied women's activism in twentieth-century United States, with an emphasis on African-American communities in Chicago. Her current research involves the history of cooperatives and organic farming communities. A. G. Rud writes on educational ethics, with a particular emphasis on the moral dimensions of teaching and learning.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
The Ph.D. Degree Program in Cultural Foundations is comprised of coursework in three major areas:
- Cultural Foundations Core
- Cultural Foundations Elective Focus Area
- Educational Research and Praxis
The program is highly individualized to meet the needs of a diverse graduate student body. The Ph.D. degree student, along with his or her committee, must design a program that fits the student's unique intellectual and professional needs.  

I. Cultural Foundations Core (15 credits)
Required 9 Credits:
- EDST 50000: Philosophy of Education
- EDST 50100: History of American Education
- EDST 50200: History of Western Education
An additional 3 credits in Cultural Foundations:
- EDST 50600: History of Women's Education
- EDST 59000: Individual Research Problems
- EDST 60000: Seminar in The Foundations of Educational
- EDST 60000: The Cultural Context of Educational Leadership
- EDST 60000/AMST 65000: The Chicago Black Renaissance
- EDST 60300: The American Colleges and Universities
An additional 3 credits may include, among others:
- ANTH 50500: Culture and Society
- AMST 65000: Postcolonialism and The New Post global Studies
- EDCI 58500: Multicultural Education
- PHIL 55500: Critical Theory
- SOC 61100: Social Inequality: Class, Race and Gender
- HIST 58400: Social History of the United States.

II. Cultural Foundations Elective Focus Area (15 credits)
Students will choose a focus area within cultural foundations, specific to each student's intellectual interests and career aspirations in consultation with the student's advisor. Students are encouraged to take courses outside of the College of Education to satisfy the elective focus area.
Cultural Foundations is an inter- and trans-disciplinary enterprise. Students are encouraged to take courses in the following subject areas: American Studies, Anthropology, Curriculum and Instruction, English, History, Philosophy, Political Science, Sociology, and Women's Studies.
 

III. Educational Research Courses (15 hours)
All Ph.D. degree students in Cultural Foundations must demonstrate research competency by completing the following research methodology course requirements before embarking on their thesis project. Students must enroll in EDPS 63000 towards the end of their program. In addition, students must select at least 3 credit hours* from the quantitative series, List A, and at least 3 credit hours from the qualitative series, List B. Students can distribute remaining credit hours at their discretion.

*pending departmental approval in spring 2008. Current policy is 6 credit hours in the quantitative series.

List A: 
- EDPS 53300: Introduction to Research in Education
- STAT 50100: Experimental Statistics I
- STAT 50200: Experimental Statistics II
- STAT 51100: Statistical Methods
- STAT 51200: Applied Regression Analysis
- PSY  60100:  Correlation and Experimental Design
- SOC 58100: Methods of Social Research II
- SOC 68100: Selected Problems of Social Research

List B: 
- EDCI 56700: Action Research In Science Education 
- EDST 60000: Politics of Race, Class and Gender in Social Inquiry
- EDCI 61500: Qualitative Research Methods In Education
- EDCI 61600: Advanced Qualitative Research Methods in Education
- AMST 62000: Archival Theory And Practice
- ANTH 51900: Introduction To Semiotics
- ANTH 60500: Seminar In Ethnographic Analysis
- WOST 68000: Feminist Theory and Methodology