Degree Requirements

Course Requirements

Core Curriculum Courses: 16 quarter hours (4 courses) required, grade of C or better required

Social and Cultural Studies Courses: 12 quarter hours (3 courses) required, grade of C or better required

Supervision or Organizational Development Courses: 4 quarter hours required, grade of C or better required

Master of Arts (M.A.) Degree Requirements: 4 quarter hours, grade of C or better required

The Master’s Thesis is completed in conjunction with faculty advisement.  Preparation for the writing of the Thesis should begin well in advance of the completion of coursework. Oral examination on Thesis required.  Consult the M.A. Thesis Handbook for additional information.  

CS 482

THE HISTORY OF CURRICULUM PRACTICE

A survey of trends and movements in curriculum practice. Particular emphasis will be placed on the recurrent nature of curriculum practices and the reasons for this. The underlying models of curriculum practice in their historical settings will be considered as possible methods for modern day needs and the assets and liabilities of those models will be used in viewing modern day practices.

CS 485

CURRICULUM/PROGRAM EVALUATION

Evaluation is essential for curriculum/program development and implementation. Hence, understanding evaluation methods, technologies, and quality criteria is particularly relevant to educational leaders, curriculum/program designers, and technology specialists. In this course, students will critically examine a variety of current evaluation models, instruments, and resources. Students will also conduct a comprehensive analysis of a significant evaluation study relevant to their specific professional interest. Registration is restricted to students in Advanced Master's programs.
Prerequisites:
Status as an Advanced Masters Education student is a prerequisite for this class.

CS 591

CURRICULUM THEORIZING: MULTIPLE LENSES

This course examines diverse curriculum discourses, historical as well as contemporary, within a broader context of issues related to education and schooling. It is designed to engage students critically in the study of curricular frameworks, their assumptions, values, and implications for education, schooling, teaching and learning. Major topics include frameworks for defining and conceptualizing curriculum and curricular visions; social, political, and historical contexts of curriculum construction; issues of gender, race, class, and the media; and the curriculum as socialy constructed and historically contextualized discourse(s) about what is and what should be taught. Particular content areas will be used as examples.

CS 488

DESIGNING AND INTERPRETING CURRICULUM

An examination of the underlying structures of diverse curricula and of the processes by which they are developed and implemented. Principles and methods for organizing subject matter will be analyzed. The translation of subject matter into curriculum will be examined with particular attention to the assumptions about subject matter built into texts and other curricular materials. Students will analyze curriculum guides and materials to uncover their underlying structures and their explicit and implicit assumptions about subject matter.

CS 489

CREATIVITY AND CRITICAL THINKING - VYGOTSKY, BAKHTIN, MAKIGUCHI, IKEDA

Introduces students to the educational philosophies of Russian thinkers Lev Vygotsky (1896 - 1934) and Mikhail Bakhtin (1895 - 1975) and Japanese thinkers Tsunesaburo Makiguchi (1871 - 1944) and Daisaku Ikeda (1928 - ). Students will locate confluences in these thinkers' philosophies and apply them to current curriculum or curriculum theorizing in their chosen discipline(s) (e.g., mathematics, social studies, language education, etc.), context(s) (e.g., policy, gender, socioeconomics, identity, etc.) and K-12/adult level(s). Topics covered include, among others, cultural-historical theory, socially constructed meaning making, zone of proximal development, dialogism, carnival, value and value-creating pedagogy, humanitarian competition, and human revolution.

SCG 610

INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH METHODS

(Special section of SCG 410, Introduction to Research: Purposes, Issues and Methodologies.) This course will examine the basic questions, issues and theoretical frameworks central to the purpose, conceptualization, conduct, writing, reading and the use of educational research as a means for informing educational theory, practice and policy. Students will be exposed to the multiple frameworks which inform educational research, the various methodoogies employed in collecting and analyzing data and will examine the advantages, limitations and values implict in conducting and evaluating research. Students will also begin exploring possible thesis topics as they begin defining their particular research purpose, methodology and issues.
Prerequisites:
Status as a Graduate Social & Cultural Foundations in Education student is a prerequisite for this class.

SCG 410

INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH: PURPOSES, ISSUES, AND METHODOLOGIES

(formerly CUG 400) This course will examine the basic questions, issues and theoretical frameworks central to the purpose, conceptualization, conduct, writing, reading and the use of educational research as a means for informing educational theory, practice and policy. Students will be exposed to the multiple frameworks which inform education research, the various methodologies employed in collecting and analyzing data and will examine the advantages, limitations and values implicit in conducting and evaluating research.

SCG 401

ADVANCED DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

Current research and theories in human development relating to motivation, personality, learning and socialization. Case studies and an analysis of various developmental problems.

SCG 402

PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING

Study of the learning-teaching process with specific emphasis on the person as a learner, human capacity and potential, learning theories and materials, motivation, concept formation, and behavior.

SCG 403

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING: ELEMENTARY

This course will focus on the developmental processes of school-age children, kindergarten through middle school, by beginning with the study of the young child's social, emotional, cognitive, and physical growth and change. The theoretical and observational study of child development will be framed by an examination of culture, gender, and socio-economic factors as they inform assumptions about normative processes. The relationship between development and learning in a social context will be examined with particular attention to children's developing concepts in math, science, and language arts. Attention will also be given to the role of teachers and schools and other institutions in fostering the healthy development and learning of young people.

SCG 604

PROSEMINAR: IDENTITY CONSTRUCTIONS AND NEGOTIATIONS

This course examines identity construction in educational contexts. Drawing on theoretical frameworks in the sociology of education, postmodernist, feminist and critical theories of education, and cultural studies literature, this course will explore identity as complex and multifaceted. It explores relations of class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality and the implications of sociality for contemporary education.
Prerequisites:
Status as a Graduate Social & Cultural Foundations in Education student is a prerequisite for this class.

SCG 406

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING:SECONDARY

This course focuses on the multiple factors that contribute to the period of adolescence, bridging childhood and adulthood. Particular attention is given to the intrapsychic, interpersonal, biological, and socio-cultural processes that are mediated by the meanings that youth give to their identity vis a vis rac, class, and gender formations within the broader society. Students will engage in interdisciplinary study of theories to examine the implications for teaching and learning processes and the role of educational institutions in fostering the healthy development of youth in society. Forms of inquiry will include students' examination of their own lives and assumptions, critique of theory, and observations of young people in a variety of contexts.

SCG 439

PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY OF YOUTH AND MIDDLE LEVEL EDUCATION

This course examines foundational and contemporary theories of youth and adolescent development. It considers how these theoretical ideas relate to contemporary questions of youth and middle level education. The course explores the historical invention of adolescence, changing ideas about the meaning of childhood, as well as some of the broader social, economic, political, and cultural implications of these changing ideas. This course seeks to develop in prospective educators a broader capacity to theorize about youth and schooling, and, hence, to act critically and reflectively in multiple contexts in which youth learn.

SCG 608

PROSEMINAR: IDEOLOGY, POWER AND POLITICS

This course examines how power operates pedagogically and how domination and resistance get shaped in education. It considers power relations in society and how these power relations enter into educational discourse and practice. It also explores ways in which power produces various educational practices and ways in which power gets psychically configured. Students will examine major theories of power, analyze race, ethnicity, gender, class and sexuality as systems of power and consider the educational implications of such an analysis.
Prerequisites:
Status as a Graduate Social & Cultural Foundations in Education student is a prerequisite for this class.

SCG 408

EDUCATION AND SOCIETY

A study of social forces that impinge upon the educational enterprise and analysis of the relationship to major social problems in urban education with emphasis on their social, economic, political, historical and philosophical dimensions.

SCG 603

PROSEMINAR: CULTURE AND EDUCATION

This course focuses on the relationship between education, pedagogy, and theories of culture framed by a concern for social justice. Topics may include the pedagogical and political dimensions of popular culture, questions of knowledge production, the relationship between knowledge and power of the political economy of culture production.
Prerequisites:
Status as a Graduate Social & Cultural Foundations in Education student is a prerequisite for this class.

SCG 409

SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION

This course focuses on the relationship between school structures and culture, social relations of race, ethnicity, class, and gender, and ideologies organizing education in the United States. Students will explore a range of theories in the sociology of education atha5t explore linkages between school structures and processes and broader social forces. Readings may examine the political economy of schooling, inequalities in educational practices, and student and teacher identities shaped by schools and the larger society.

SCG 611

PROSEMINAR: PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES IN EDUCATION, CULTURE AND ETHICS

Examines both traditional philosophical questions in education from such perspectives as Africana, feminist, Latino/Hispanic thought and distinctively Africana, feminist, and Latino/Hispanic issues in a philosophical way. Some of the perspectives are, for example, the necessary conditions of a humanistic education, the relation between theory and practice, the relationship between individual and institutional/society, the role of education in the struggle for social justice, the role of aesthetics in human development and projects of political emancipation, the dialectics of history and experience in the development of liberatory ideas, and the moral and ethical dimensions of education.
Prerequisites:
Status as a Graduate Social & Cultural Foundations in Education student is a prerequisite for this class.

SCG 411

PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

This course examines the relationship of education to the moral and ethical dilemmas or predicaments of the human condition. It will entail issues related to the nature of education's responsiveness, or lack there of, to the concerns of the human condition: for example, human alienation, suffering, success and failure, caring, freedom, responsibility, liberaiton and agency. Special attention will be given to how these concerns influences or have social, cultural and political implications for how teachers address them within the teaching and learning process.

A&S 498

PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES OF SUPERVISION

Supervision viewed from a human resources perspective, dealing with motivation, responsibility and successes at work as a means to intrinsic satisfaction.
Prerequisites:
Status as an Advanced Masters Education student is a prerequisite for this class.

A&S 590

ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

A development approach used in combining theory, research, and applications for improving interpersonal effectiveness and to develop problem-solving capacity of the organization. The course is about change theory, people in organizations and the achievement of individual and organizational goals.
Prerequisites:
Status as a student in a College of Education Advanced Master's program is a prerequisite for this class.

CS 589

THESIS RESEARCH IN CURRICULUM STUDIES

A student writing a thesis registers for this course for four quarter hours of credit. Where the thesis research and the writing of the thesis itself are prolonged beyond the usual time, the program advisor may require the student to register for additional credit.
​