Provide students with an interdisciplinary, conceptual, and theoretical background in social change, youth development, and education studies.
Students will demonstrate an understanding of and ability to evaluate different theories of:
- Education and schooling in the U.S. (e.g., reproduction theories, transformative theories)
- Identity and positionality.
- Social inequality (i.e., What is social inequality? What are the drivers and root causes of social inequality?)
- Social change (i.e., What constitutes social change? How can we understand impact?)
Students will demonstrate an understanding of:
- Epistemology
- Human development and learning.
Provide students with technical and analytical skills used in community-engaged, participatory research.
Students will be able to:
- Design a strategic theory of change
- Collaborate with others to develop shared questions, goals, strategies, and theories of change
- Engage in and learn skills for facilitating dialogues
- Engage in the cycle of critical praxis
- Identify and develop research questions with community partners
- Situate their research in extant scholarship through a literature review
- Critically evaluate information related to their research topic(s)
- Design a research methodology that aligns with their question
- Utilize a range of data collection techniques
- Analyze empirical data to arrive at findings and implications
- Communicate, orally and in writing, their research findings with multiple stakeholders in a way that aligns with the conventions of their field
- Reflect on the validity, generalizability, and ethics of their research project
Provide students with experiential learning opportunities in community, educational contexts (e.g., K-12 schools, early childhood centers), from which they can foster personal and interpersonal skills for effective practice.
Students will:
- Demonstrate their ability to collaborate across multiple forms of difference
- Establish mutually beneficial, reciprocal relationships
- Receive and give constructive feedback
- Apply frameworks and ideas for educational praxis (e.g., culturally sustaining pedagogy)
- Effectively communicate and present their ideas to an external audience
- Wrestle with uncertainty, navigate complex data and interactions, and creatively problem-solve using available resources
Prepare students to undertake careers in education, youth work, and community development.
Graduates will:
- Demonstrate the ability to use their degrees to undertake careers in education, youth work, or community development, or to gain admittance to graduate or professional school.
- Develop the capacity to be collaborators, strategic change makers, and problem solvers in any field.