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:

• 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).

• Option 2: EDUC 360/EDUC 370 (Senior Thesis)

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 

Important Considerations to the Education Studies Major:

Beyond the three requirements described above:

• 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.

• 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).

• 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. 

• 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

 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.