DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION

EDPOL 355

Public education in the United States is an inherently political site that offers an important institution to understand politics, power, and injustice broadly. Explore these themes from multiple angles: (a) the layered histories of injustice at the intersection of race, class, gender, and more in historical and present cases; (b) the power of ideas in shaping policy possibilities; (c) shifting levels of governance and questions of injustice; and (c) perspectives of key actors, interests, and stakeholders. Consider the politics of education in relation to broader social, spatial, historical, and political economic contexts. Develop critical analytic and conceptual tools to deeply understand and analyze how power and politics are impacting contemporary educational policy events. By drawing from grassroots and subjugated perspectives, cultivate a policy imagination towards more just educational possibilities, and explore the necessary policy infrastructure and movements to sustain them.

EDPOL 145

Introduction to K-12 education policy, policy processes, and school governance in the United States. Examines the multiple and sometimes conflicting goals that animate education debates; the discourses and representations of schools, students, and education policies that shape policy and politics; research on education and education policy; and the various lenses and conceptual tools that can help us understand education policy. Includes original policy texts, empirical and conceptual research, current events, and film. Considers how key themes may be useful (or not) for thinking about early childhood education, higher education, and K-12 education in historical and contemporary, US and and global, contexts.

EDPOL 300

Focuses on the interplay between schools and society by examining societal and cultural influences on school processes, policies, practices, and pedagogy; or, how society shapes schooling, and conversely, the ways in which schools assist in shaping society. Reflect on the purposes of schools and how these purposes have shifted over time. Examines how assumptions regarding the purposes of schooling interact with debates over how we teach, what we teach, and how we evaluate schools, teachers, and students. Identify the foundations of education in the United States and critically examine the ways in which educational practices and policies impact the lives of students.

EDPOL 240

Examines the socio-cultural, political and economic forces that shape education around the world, including in the U.S. Explores a series of essential questions about the means and ends of education, including: the purposes of schooling in different locations; the role of schooling in producing inequality or supporting social change, particularly in relation to class, race, gender, migration, language, and abilities; global educational reform; global educational assessments; curriculum and pedagogy; and teacher education.

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.