EDUCATION AND RESISTANCE IN COMMUNITY-BASED SPACES

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 505

Explore urban education in the United States and its relationship to broader political, social, and economic contexts; focuses on contemporary urban educational issues and students' experiences in school and community settings, the experiences of students and families of color and the relationship between race, class, gender, and inequality in urban education.

EDPOL 210

Explores the study of youth through theoretical, historical, social, and cultural perspectives with a focus on Minoritized Youth; interrogates the concept of "youth" as a socially constructed category; examines how "youth" have been positioned within educational, political, economic, and social contexts; analyzes how youth's racialized experiences intersect with other social identities: social class, gender, and sexuality. Themes explored: conceptions of youth as a social category, education and schooling, race, gender, sexuality, politics and activism, community-based learning, criminal justice, media, and popular culture. Uses historical and contemporary "texts" and current events to study the lived experiences of young people within diverse racial, cultural, gendered, sexualized and classed contexts. Reflect on own experiences as "youth," their relationship to education and other social institutions, and how it informs understanding of society, educational theory and practice.

EDPOL 911

Historical and contemporary urban educational issues and policies. Emphasis on the relationship between educational issues in U.S. cities and other issues in cities and metropolitan regions (e.g. housing, poverty, gentrification, community development), as well as the policies and practices that seek to address these issues.

EDPOL 212

Learn theories and practices of educating for social justice, a pedagogical-political approach based on participatory methodologies that is committed to positive social change. Discuss popular education, peace and human rights education, critical pedagogy, and related approaches. Engage in theoretical debates, focusing on the ideas of transformative educators such as Paulo Freire and bell hooks, and learn about radical educator collectives and transformative education efforts in districts, schools, classrooms, community associations, and NGOs from around the world.