Programs

Master of Arts: Social and Cultural Foundation in Education

The Master of Arts in Social and Cultural Foundations in Education is an interdisciplinary academic program designed to appeal to students seeking alternatives to more specialized or technical programs of study in education. This program is designed to attract teachers, administrators and individuals with bachelor degrees who have a broad interest in educational issues and who may not be professional educators. We anticipate that students pursuing this degree will come from a variety of professional backgrounds involving different forms of educational work such as media, foundations, museums, community organizations, higher education, K-12 and other forms of educational work. In addition, our program should address a variety of reasons for pursuing a masters degree in Social and Cultural Foundations in Education that include personal and professional enhancement, research for private foundations, adult education and training, preparation for doctoral work for a university teaching career, higher education administration and others.

The Master's Degree program provides students the opportunity to study education, not only as schooling, but broadly as a dynamic cultural and political force that unfolds in a wide range of shifting and overlapping sites of learning. Students will consider education as a dynamic process that shapes social identities and social life; as well as the learning of values and beliefs, all of which are central to how people make cognitive and emotional investments and act in the world. As such, education is a significant force in creating, maintaining, and challenging assumptions of neutrality, and hierarchies of race, ethnicity, gender, class and sexual difference. From this perspective education is an indispensable tool for creating conditions for social justice and democratic life.  In this context, students investigate the pedagogical and cultural conditions necessary for supporting the flourishing of human agency and the redefinition of human engagement in social life.

The ESPR faculty brings expertise from a variety of disciplines and fields within educational policy studies: the sociology of education, the philosophy of education, the history of education, the psychology of education/human development, critical pedagogy, cultural studies, feminist studies, urban studies, critical race studies, research methods and more. The faculty also has a diverse range of interests in areas such as: globilization, social theory and social construction of knowledge; the role of education in the production of inequalities of race, gender, class, sexuality, and language; social situated theories of learning and teaching; the role of education in the construction of culture and social identities.

Given the disciplinary and interdisiplinary approaches to the study of education in this degree program, students have the opportunity with the approval of their faculty advisor to take 24 hours of elective courses outside of the Social and Cultural Foundations in Education program as well as the School of Education. Choices of elective include, but are not limited to, courses in departments and programs such as Communications, Philosophy, and Women's Studies, American Studies, International Studies, Public Policy and Sociology.

Admission Requirements

Students entering the program must be able and willing to commit themselves to a program that requires time and intense work. Expectations of students applying to the program are that they show strong promise to do rigorous, critical, and creative intellectual work, be critically self-reflective about their ideas, attitudes, and values, and be committed to the goals of the program.

The admission requirements are as follows:

1. A completed School of Education Graduate Application Form;
2. A bachelor's degree from an accredited institution;
3. A previous grade point average of 2.75 or above on a 4.0 scale.
4. All official transcripts of undergraduate and graduate work (note: undergraduate GPA and academic performance will be evaluated for potential to succeed in the program);
5. Three academic letters of reference;
6. A written, personal statement indicating reasons for wanting to enter the program and what the candidate has done since receiving a bachelor's degree;
7. Resume
8. A writing sample (e.g., a term paper, seminar paper, or senior thesis or portion thereof)

Learn about

Degree Requirements

Application Deadlines

MA Program Handbook

For more Information

For additional information please select this link for the Masters Degree in Social and Cultural Foundation in Education, or contact Nicole Nudo, the Faculty Assistant for the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Research, at nnudo@depaul.edu.

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