The Education Studies major allows students to investigate the compelling and demanding world of education and the unique relationship among education, politics, and society in both historical and contemporary contexts, domestic and international. What defines an educated person? What does education have to do with power? How does the place and purpose of education vary across the globe? How do race and ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, religion, citizenship status, and (dis)ability inform how education is conceived and experienced?
The program is grounded in the view that the study of education as a cultural process is crucial to understanding a wide range of social phenomena such as state and identity formation, citizenship, human rights, economic and political transformation, violence and war, media, globalization, immigration, and social movements. The major’s courses engage these topics and take up notions of teaching and learning across a range of sites including schools, international development programs, the workplace, community organizations, government agencies, families, and neighborhoods. Determined to stretch interdisciplinary boundaries, the program invites students to explore education from a variety of theoretical and empirical perspectives—anthropological, sociological, historical, psychological, and political—and to examine the interplay between broader social processes and their local and international realities. The curriculum places particular emphasis on the cultivation of strong analytical abilities to investigate emergent issues in education, assisting students to develop a critical global sensibility, and to promote justice and equality through passionate and reflexive social action.
Students majoring in Education Studies are central to the civic engagement mission of Eugene Lang College. Located in New York City, the study of education occurs in one of nation’s largest, most dynamic, and historic public school districts and in one of the world’s most demographically diverse cities. By participating in internship programs through the Institute for Urban Education and a variety of civic engagement courses, students may work directly with schools, community-based organizations, prisons, nutrition and literacy campaigns, museums, and unionization efforts. Combined with an on-going interdisciplinary lecture series that brings together national scholars and thought leaders, these offerings enable Education Studies students to engage in civic life and social activism and to produce knowledge at the nexus of theory and practice. Students also have the opportunity to participate in study abroad programs that extend a critical eye toward transnational contexts and to explore how education becomes linked with technologies of imperialism and development.
Upon graduation, students who complete the major in Education Studies are well positioned to pursue careers in public service; certification programs to teach in public schools; to undertake graduate study in fields such as international relations/education, urban education, policy and reform, sociology, anthropology, social work, and public health; or to work in nontraditional educational, cultural, or nonprofit institutions, community and youth development organizations.
Rebuilding Public Education in the New New Orleans blog.
Please note: Students are advised to refer to the current applicable program catalog for degree completion requirements and to confirm their progress in satisfying those requirements with their advisors.
