Educational Studies

Full Time Faculty: Ruthanne Kurth-Schai, Tina Kruse

Part Time Faculty: Brad Belbas, Ann Hite, Steven Jongewaard

Steering Committee Karin Aguilar-San Juan (American Studies), Dianna Shandy (Anthropology), Mark Davis (Biology), Ron Brisbois (Chemistry), Ruth Janisch Lake (Civic Engagement Office), Daylanne English (English), Chris Wells (Environmental Studies), David Lanegran (Geography), Ray Rogers (Geology), Molly Olsen (Hispanic Studies), Yue-him Tam (History), Leola Johnson (Media and Cultural Studies), Michael Porter (Internship Office), David Bressoud (Mathematics), James Doyle (Physics), Paul Dosh (Political Science), Brooke Lea (Psychology), Jaine Strauss (Chair, Psychology), Terry Boychuk (Sociology), Beth Cleary (Theatre and Dance).

 MISSION & GUIDING PRINCIPLES

The Educational Studies Department, in collaboration with colleagues on campus and in the community, strives to:
     - provide opportunities for students to engage in the study of education as an interdisciplinary field of inquiry and advocacy;
     - prepare teachers to provide social service and leadership in culturally diverse, economically challenged, public educational systems; and
     - develop both contributions within the context of Macalester’s continuing commitments to academic excellence, internationalism, cultural pluralism, and civic engagement.

The Educational Studies curriculum is centered in five interdependent principles:

Integrative Theory
The Educational Studies experience is designed to ensure ongoing opportunities for conceptual integration across disciplines and across domains of theory, research, philosophy, policy, and practice. Drawing from diverse perspectives and methodologies ranging from empirical and behavioral analyses in the natural and social sciences, to critical and interpretive studies spanning the arts, humanities and social sciences, the curriculum promotes understanding of the complex constellation of factors that actively shape educational processes.

Engaged Inquiry
The Educational Studies experience enacts a cycle of learning progressing through stages supporting multi-dimensional exploration, critical reflection, creative development, and principled action. Engaged inquiry is intensely individual and profoundly social, continually opening opportunities for diverse learners to deepen personal meaning while expanding capacities to learn from, for, and with others.

Youth Development
The Educational Studies experience reflects current theory and research that articulates a developmental continuum of human learning and addresses patterns and processes across cognitive, affective, intuitive, social, moral and physical domains. The Educational Studies curriculum acknowledges that each learner develops within an embedded ecology of experience that includes the physically immediate as well as the more abstract, socio-historical settings. Learning and development are explored in both formal and informal, traditional and non-traditional settings; in the school, home, and community.

Pluralism and Equity
The Educational Studies experience reflects commitments to pluralism and equity in schools and society. Diverse cultures increasingly co-exist in our modern world. Public schools remain as one of the few social settings through which diverse citizens can interact in sustained and meaningful ways to achieve a common and critical goal—that of preparing all young people to pursue life with intelligence, dignity, affiliation, and an ever-evolving sense of purpose and possibility. Accordingly, the Educational Studies curriculum embraces the concept of human diversity as a resource to schools and society. The curriculum further the ways in which unequal distributions of power and resources continue to affect education and life opportunities available to school-age youth and therefore emphasizes efforts to advance educational equity on individual and systemic levels.

Social Advocacy
The Educational Studies experience reflects John Dewey’s premise that, “Education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform.” These words assume special significance at a time when there is widespread recognition that current social and educational policies designed to fulfill the needs and aspirations of children and youth are in crisis. Social advocacy is understood as the ethical imperative to apply educational theory, research, philosophy, policy and practice to deepen and extend human potential. Educational Studies prepares teachers and concerned citizens to provide social service, social vision, and social leadership especially as these commitments advance the welfare of children and youth and the role of public education in promoting democratic social and educational reform.
 

General Distribution Requirement

EDUC 220 - Educational Psychology , EDUC 230 - Community Youth Development in Multicultural America  , EDUC 280 - Re-envisioning Education and Democracy , EDUC 240 - Race, Culture, and Ethnicity in Education , EDUC 370 - Education and the Challenge of Globalization , and EDUC 460 - Education and Social Change  count toward the general distribution requirement in social science. EDUC 330 - Philosophy of Education  counts toward the requirement in humanities.

General Education Requirements

Courses that meet the general education requirements in writing, quantitative thinking, internationalism and multiculturalism will be posted on the Registrar’s web page in advance of registration for each semester.

Additional information regarding general distribution requirements and general education requirements can be found in the graduation requirement section of this catalog.

Independent Study

The department offers independent study options in the form of tutorials, independent projects, internships,and preceptorships. For more information contact the department and review the Curriculum  section of the catalog.

Programs

• Educational Studies Major
• Educational Studies Minor