Education Studies Major
Goals for the Education Studies Major
- Students will engage in and understand the interdisciplinary study of education.
- Students will develop their skills as critical thinkers, analytic writers and skilled researchers through active experiences in course work, independent study, and supervised experiences in the field.
- Students will explore the variety of educational settings where teaching and learning occurs, such as schools, out-of-school settings, families, and communities.
- Through an analysis of past and present school reform efforts, students will examine the various purposes and goals of schooling as well as the role and function of curriculum, teaching, and pedagogy to serve those purposes, including democracy, freedom, and justice.
- Students will examine and understand how contextual factors such as social class, race, immigration, demographic shifts and rural/suburban/urban contexts have influenced educational policies and practices.
- Students will make connections between educational theory and practice while also acknowledging tensions that may occur between educational theory and practice.
- Students will apply their learning in communities of practice such as school classrooms and community agencies, where present educational problems and change efforts can be observed in their full contexts.
Requirements for the Education Studies Major
Students are expected to complete nine units of coursework, six of which must be completed at Wellesley College. The major consists of three primary requirements: education core coursework, a capstone experience, and an additional suite of courses taken within the education department. Supplemental documents to assist students in planning a course of study can be found on the education department website.
Students must complete:
Two of the following three education core courses:
EDUC 214 | Reimagining Youth: Exploring the Role of Family, Community, and Society | 1.0 |
EDUC 215 | Understanding and Improving Schools | 1.0 |
EDUC 216 | Education and Social Policy | 1.0 |
An education studies capstone experience
All education studies majors will be required to take a capstone experience, with guidance on the selection from their major advisor. Education capstone courses have a course number designation in the 330s. Students may choose from the following two options and must declare their intentions by the end of their junior year:
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Option 1 : One course in the EDUC 330’s sequence: These capstone courses include critical inquiry into educational theory and practice, often include an experiential component, and require the student to develop skills in research and inquiry. Capstone courses are offered each year and vary depending on availability. Some examples of capstone courses include: EDUC 334: Seminar. Ethnography in Education: Race, Migration, and Borders; EDUC 335: Seminar. Urban Education: Equity, Research, and Action; EDUC 339 Seminar: Critical Perspectives, Practice, and Reflection in Teaching and Curriculum (restricted to students in the teacher certification program).
At least three and up to six additional courses from the list of Education Research and Theory courses.
Students are required to take at least three additional Education Research and Theory courses to complete their major. These courses allow students to establish a foundation in the interdisciplinary study of education and develop an integrated understanding of educational policy, research, and practice.
Students may also select up to three Curriculum and Teaching courses (which focus on teaching methods and offer field-based experiences in classrooms) and/or three Education Electives courses.
Education Research and Theory Courses
Black Girlhood Studies |
1.0 |
|
Prison Education and Abolitionist Study in the United States |
1.0 |
|
Seminar: Communicating and Teaching Chemistry |
1.0 |
|
Economics of Education Policy |
1.0 |
|
First-Year Seminar: Lessons of Childhood: Representations of Difference in Children's Media |
1.0 |
|
Theory and Practice in Early Childhood Care and Education |
1.0 |
|
Educating Young Children with Special Needs |
1.0 |
|
Schools and Society |
1.0 |
|
Social and Emotional Learning and Development: Theoretically Informed Practice for K-12 Education |
1.0 |
|
Reimagining Youth: Exploring the Role of Family, Community and Society |
1.0 |
|
Understanding and Improving Schools |
1.0 |
|
Education and Social Policy |
1.0 |
|
Growing Up in a Gendered World |
1.0 |
|
Children in Society |
1.0 |
|
Seminar: Social and Emotional Learning and Development: Theoretically Informed Practice for K-12 Education |
1.0 |
|
Seminar: De-centering and Re-centering: Social Theory Across the Globe |
1.0 |
|
Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: Social Technologies and Identity Development |
1.0 |
|
Seminar: Centering Community: Critical Perspectives on Youth Work & Out-of-School Time Programs |
1.0 |
|
Seminar: Ethnography in Education: Race, Migration, and Borders |
1.0 |
|
Seminar: Urban Education and Emancipatory Research |
1.0 |
|
Seminar: Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design in Education |
1.0 |
|
Seminar: Critical Perspectives, Practice, and Reflection in Teaching and Curriculum |
1.0 |
|
Education in Philosophical Perspective |
1.0 |
Important Considerations to the Education Studies Major:
Beyond the three requirements described above:
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Advising is a central element of the education studies major. In consultation with an advisor, students will develop a well-structured and coherent course plan. Students may choose, but are not required, to outline an area of concentration, with an advisor’s support, within the major such as education policy, urban education, or bilingual/bicultural education. Given the wide variety in student interest and the diversity in education coursework, there are many possibilities.
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Students must complete a minimum of two 300-level courses taught within the education department. Courses satisfying the 300-level requirement include those on the Education Research and Theory list as well as those on the Curriculum and Teaching Courses list. These courses may include the capstone seminars, other 300-level education courses, and 360/370 (counting as one course for this purpose).
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Students may take EDUC 250 or 350 (Research or Individual Study), but only one unit of independent study may be counted towards the major. EDUC 350 courses may not be used to fulfill the minimum requirement that two education courses be at the 300-level.
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Students may choose to take up to three additional courses from the Curriculum and Teaching list. These courses allow students both to develop themselves as teachers and to examine leading educational issues as a direct participant in actual classroom contexts, giving them a perspective that can be obtained in no other way.
-
Students may choose to take up to three education electives taught outside the department. Education electives are courses offered outside the department that provide important context for the study of education and/or integrate discussion of educational issues into the course.
Curriculum and Teaching Courses
Teaching and Curriculum in Middle School and High School |
1.0 |
|
Practicum: Curriculum and Supervised Teaching |
1.0 |
|
Curriculum and Instruction in Elementary Education |
1.0 |
|
Curriculum, Instruction and Special Needs in Elementary Education |
1.0 |
|
Seminar: Child Literacy and the Teaching of Reading |
1.0 |
|
Learning and Teaching Mathematics: Content, Cognition, and Pedagogy |
1.0 |
|
Seminar: Educating English Language Learners |
1.0 |
Education Electives
AFR 105 | Introduction to the Black Experience | 1.0 |
AFR 206 | African American History 1500-Present | 1.0 |
AFR 249 | From Mumbet to Michelle Obama: Black Women's History | 1.0 |
AMST 121 | Ethnic studies: Key Concepts, Theories, and Methods | 1.0 |
AMST 151 | Asian American Experience | 1.0 |
AMST 152 | Race, Ethnicity, and Politics in America | 1.0 |
AMST 161 | Introduction to Latina/o Studies | 1.0 |
AMST 222 / PSYC 222 | Asian American Psychology | 1.0 |
AMST 225 / SOC 225 | Life in the Big City: Urban Studies and Policy | 1.0 |
AMST 246 / SOC 246 | U.S. Immigration | 1.0 |
AMST 251 / SOC 251 | Racial Regimes in the United States and Beyond | 1.0 |
AMST 264 | Histories of Asian American Labor and Immigration | 1.0 |
AMST 281 / ENG 297 | Rainbow Republic: American Queer Culture from Walt Whitman to Lady Gaga | 1.0 |
AMST 290 / PEAC 290 | Afro-Latinas/os in the U.S. | 1.0 |
AMST 315 | Beats, Rhymes, and Life: Hip-Hop Studies | 1.0 |
ANTH 210 | Political Anthropology | 1.0 |
ANTH 231 / PEAC 231 | Anthropology In and Of the City | 1.0 |
CAMS 276 | Media Publics: An Introduction to Civic Media | 1.0 |
CLSC 216 / PSYC 216 | Psychology of Language | 1.0 |
CLSC 316 / PSYC 316 | Seminar: Language Acquistion | 1.0 |
CS 232 | Artificial Intelligence | 1.0 |
ECON 241 | Poverty and Inequality in Latin America | 1.0 |
ECON 326 | Seminar: Advanced Economics of Education | 1.0 |
ECON 327 | The Economics of Law, Policy and Inequality | 1.0 |
ENGR 305 / PEAC 305 | Intersections of Technology, Social Justice, and Conflict | 1.0 |
HIST 203 | Out of Many: American History to 1877 | 1.0 |
HIST 204 | The United States History since 1865 | 1.0 |
HIST 253 | First Peoples: An Introduction to Native American History | 1.0 |
LING 114 | Introduction to Linguistics | 1.0 |
LING 238 | Sociolinguistics | 1.0 |
LING 244 | Language: Form and Meaning | 1.0 |
LING 248 | Introduction to Historical Linguistics | 1.0 |
LING 312 | Bilingualism: An Exploration of Language, Mind, and Culture | 1.0 |
LING 338 | Seminar: African American English | 1.0 |
PEAC 104 | Introduction to the Study of Conflict, Justice, and Peace | 1.0 |
PEAC 206 / POL2 220 | Qualitative Methods in the Social Sciences | 1.0 |
POL1 328 | Seminar: Immigration, Politics, and Policy | 1.0 |
POL1 337 | Seminar: Race in American Politics | 1.0 |
POL4 249 | Neoliberalism and its Critics | 1.0 |
POL4 311 | Seminar: Grassroots Organizing | 1.0 |
POL4 341 | Beyond Prisons: Resistance, Reform, Abolition | 1.0 |
PSYC 101 | Introduction to Psychology | 1.0 |
PSYC 207 | Developmental Psychology | 1.0 |
PSYC 210 | Social Psychology | 1.0 |
PSYC 217 | Cognition | 1.0 |
PSYC 245 | Cultural Psychology | 1.0 |
PSYC 325 | Seminar: Adolescent Psychology: Bridging Research and Practice | 1.0 |
PSYC 326 | Seminar: Child and Adolescent Psychopathology | 1.0 |
PSYC 333 | Clinical and Educational Assessment | 1.0 |
PSYC 337 | Seminar: Prejudice and Discrimination | 1.0 |
PSYC 344 | Seminar: Social Imagination | 1.0 |
PSYC 345 | Seminar: Becoming a Mindreader: The Development of a Theory of Mind | 1.0 |
SOC 205 / WGST 211 | Modern Families and Social Inequalities: Private Lives and Public Policies | 1.0 |
SOC 209 | Social Inequality: Race, Class and Gender | 1.0 |
SOC 311 / WGST 311 | Seminar: Families, Gender, the State, and Social Policies | 1.0 |
WGST 108 | The Social Construction of Inequalities: Race, Gender, Class and Sexuality | 1.0 |
WGST 221 | Gender, Race, and the Carceral State | 1.0 |
WGST 224 | Feminist Ethnography | 1.0 |
WGST 326 | Seminar: Crossing the Border(s): Narratives of Transgression | 1.0 |
WRIT 110 | WGST 108 The Social Construction of Inequalities: Race, Gender, Class and Sexuality | 1.0 |
MIT EC. 717 | D-Lab: Education and Learning | 1.0 |
MIT 11.124 | Introduction to Education: Looking Forward and Looking Back on Education | 1.0 |
MIT 11.125 | Introduction to Education: Understanding and Evaluating Education | 1.0 |
Honors in Education Studies
The only route to honors in the major is writing a thesis and passing an oral defense of the thesis. To be admitted to the thesis program, a student must have a grade point average of at least 3.5 in all work in the major field above the 100 level; the department may petition on the student’s behalf if the student’s GPA in the major is between 3.0 and 3.5. See Academic Distinctions.
Advanced Placement Policy in Education Studies
Students may not count AP credits toward the fulfillment of the education studies major, education studies minor, or teaching and learning studies minor.