LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY

EDPOL 595

Overview of language politics, policies, and practices in global perspective; draws on the work of anthropologists, sociolinguists, and language policy scholars to examine how language choices in and regarding schooling interact with ethnic and linguistic diversity. Consider the following questions: How and under what conditions do language policies, practices, and pedagogies redress or exacerbate inequalities? How people at the local level, including educators, negotiate language and literacy policies and politics. Uses a global lens to expand local understandings and practices.

EDPOL 640

Introduces the social, political and cultural influences surrounding educational policies and practices and the role of teachers in education policymaking. Focuses on the purpose(s) of schooling, considering questions such as: What should the purpose of schooling be? How do our assumptions regarding the purpose(s) of schooling shape our understandings of education policies and practices? Considers educational inequalities and contemporary education policies.

EDPOL 460

Examines policy issues surrounding the education of children from immigrant families in K-16 educational settings in the U.S. Explores the economic, social, political, and ideological contexts of immigration and education, as well as school factors and home-school relations through readings, discussions, and assignments. Considers the impact of various policy and pedagogical approaches. Course readings draw from relevant literature in educational anthropology, sociology of education, educational policy, sociolinguistics, and language pedagogy.

EDPOL 200

Explores the complex relationships among race, ethnicity and inequality in U.S. public education through theoretical, historical, social, and cultural frameworks and perspectives. Specifically, examine how schools serve are sites where racial/ethnic inequality is produced, reproduced, and resisted through institutional structures and the "everyday" practices of teachers, students, parents, and community members. Examine how race and ethnicity intersect with other identities (e.g. gender, social class, sexual orientation, etc.). It is centrally focused on K-12 education and working in multicultural contexts.

EDPOL 150

Examines a variety of topics related to educational policies, practices, and issues in social, cultural, historical, and political economic contexts in the U.S. and around the world.