The Department of Education offers an undergraduate major and minor in Educational Studies for persons interested in the study of educational processes and institutions. The major entails 24 hours of study, while the minor requires 18 hours of advanced study in an area of concentration. The Educational Studies major and minor do not lead to teacher certification.
Students in the Educational Studies program apply the perspectives and methods of a number of disciplines to questions about educational institutions, educational processes, and the social and cultural factors that affect them. The program provides an entry point into the study of the multidimensional field of education, analysis, the individual and the collective. Psychology, for example, focuses on individual change and growth. Applied linguistics, sociology, anthropology, and political science focus on societal and institutional transformation and stasis. History and philosophy straddle both individual and collective, through examining individual lives and lines of thought and patterns of large change and consistency.
By becoming familiar with both streams in educational research and writing, students in Educational Studies are expected to develop such basic inquiry skills as problem formulation, selection of perspectives to guide inquiry, basic analytic methods, design of empirical research, and the analysis and interpretation of results, as well as critical understanding of how educational institutions function, individuals grow and change, and social groups are shaped by educational processes. These tools should help students to develop the ability to integrate and apply systematic knowledge in order to guide personal action and professional development, and to understand and possibly transform social and institutional policy.
The Educational Studies program is appropriate for social science majors who want to enhance their understanding of the application of systematic knowledge to questions of social educational policy; for students who plan careers in fields where they might deal with issues related to individuals and educational institutions; and for students interested in a broad introduction to educational issues they have confronted as students as well as those they will confront as citizens and parents.
Many occupations - ranging from social worker to psychologist to physician - include a concern for education. Students interested in such education-related occupations should consider the possibility of an Educational Studies major or minor. Upon graduating, many of our alumni become teachers, advisors, advocates, and researchers and work in K-12 education, non-profits, policy organizations, and higher education. Additionally, our graduates go on to complete graduate or professional programs in educational policy, educational research, psychology, sociology, social work, medicine, and law.
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