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Areas of Emphasis in EPS
Master's and Doctoral degrees in Educational Policy Studies are offered with emphasis in the follwoing areas:
- Global Studies in Education (GSE)
- History of Education
- Philosophy of Education
- Social and Cultural Studies of Education (SCS)
Global Studies in Education (GSE)
The Global Studies in Education (GSE) division is built upon the tradition of the Comparative and International Education program at Illinois. It includes faculty and students interested in examining the changing forms of global interconnectivity and interdependence and their implications for thinking about and researching educational policy and governance; the media and popular cultures; the politics of social identities; postcolonialism in education; gender, class and racial inequalities; the political economy of knowledge production and management; development and education; and issues concerning the new global ecologies of learning. The Faculty associated with the division have conducted research in most regions of the world, and have also written extensively on theories of globalization; postcoloniality; identity and the politics of representation; culture and education and the emerging role of international and non-government organizations in the development and evaluation of educational policies. They organize major international conferences; publish widely; consult with governments and non-government organizations; and edit various journals including Policy Futures in Education, Educational Philosophy and Theory; and E-Learning.
The GSE division offers an on-campus graduate program (MA and PhD) and an on-line Masters program in Educational Policy Studies with a concentration on Global Studies in Education. The details of GSE on-line can be found on gse.ed.uiuc.edu Many of the senior doctoral on-campus students in GSE work as teaching assistants on the on-line program, and have developed an open source website of teaching and research resources on Globalization and Education. They also publish a BLOG on global studies in education. In addition to careers in teaching and research, GSE graduates have also gone on to find employment as college administrators and as policy analysts in national educational bureaucracies, development agencies, international organizations and transnational corporations.
GSE division enjoys extensive networks across the globe, and has participated actively in the World Education Network’s project on Constructing Knowledge Spaces; A UNESCO funded project The Asia-Pacific Programme of Educational Innovation for Development (APEID) describing recent shifts in educational policies in the Asia-Pacific; And a whole range of other international projects. It has organized summer study tours to Brazil (2005) and Granada Spain (2006), and is planning a study tour of South Africa. The division has strong links with most of the area studies centers at the University of Illinois, and other units concerned with teaching and researching international issues.
History of Education
The history of education program is designed primarily for, but not limited to, students to specialize in the history of American education, and its complex and multicultural dimensions. The Department offers a sequence of courses in the History of Education, including History of Western European Education, History of Asian American Education, Educational Movements in the Twentieth Century, Historical Foundations of American Educational Thought, and Methods and Techniques of Historical Research. Under the rubric of Seminars for Advanced Students of Education, the history of education program offers specialized research seminars in a range of areas, including minority and women's educational history. The History Department also offers a large number of courses that are relevant to our program. Students in the History of Education Program, in consultation with their advisors, regularly take history courses in Oral History, African American History, Quantitative Techniques for Historians, and Historiography. The history of education program aims to provide students with rigorous methodological and theoretical training in historical research, resulting in an understanding of the origins and development of American education within the context of American social and intellectual history. Students are prepared mainly for careers as teachers and researchers. However, the history of education program also supports the preparation of students in other programs by providing a historical context for a fuller understanding of policy, philosophical, and contemporary social issues.
Graduates from our program have gone to secure tenure-track faculty positions in places such as Stanford University, University of Iowa, Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and here at the University of Illinois, among others. We are one of few graduate programs in the country to offer a specialty in the history of education, and beginning in 2006, EPS will be the home of the History of Education Quarterly, the major journal in the history of education.
Philosophy of Education
The Philosophy of Education Division is an internationally recognized leader in the field of philosophy of education. It includes faculty and students with diverse philosophical interests and orientations: ethics and education; philosophy and educational research; gender studies in education; John Dewey and Progressivism; social and political theories in education; technology and education; the media and popular culture; art and aesthetic education; religious educational policy; global studies in education; and philosophy of language and education. The faculty have published widely across many areas of educational policy and practice.
While most students in this Division choose the Philosophy of Education specialization, other interdisciplinary specializations with a philosophical emphasis are possible. Some are listed below; others can be designed on an individual basis.
Graduates from the Philosophy of Education Division fill leading faculty positions in universities around the world. Several prestigious journals in the field, including Educational Theory, Educational Philosophy and Theory, and the Journal of Aesthetic Education, as well as the Philosophy of Education SocietyYearbook, are published here.
Social and Cultural Studies of Education
The purpose of the Division of Social and Cultural Studies of Education in the department of Educational Policy Studies is three fold: (1) to provide a first-rate instructional and research program for graduate students;(2) to provide for future educational scholars and researchers a broad and complex understanding of the ways in which larger political, economic, and social forces shape the structure and content of schooling, as well as the roles and functions of educators, administrators and policy makers; and (3) to engage in critical scholarly inquiry about the relationship between schools and society in order to contribute to efforts by local, state and national agencies, as well as community groups to develop insights into and formulate appropriate policies to resolve contemporary educational problems.
Through an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates the knowledge, research and literatures of sociology, political science, anthropology and cultural studies, the division faculty provides for the College of Education a multidisciplinary focus on the social context of educational policy and practice, particularly in terms of questions of social justice, within formal and informal contexts of teaching and learning. In addition, faculty members from the Division of Social and Cultural Studies in Education offer courses and mentorship to graduate students in education with particular research interests in the areas of sociology of education, policy studies and difference, cultural studies of education, and gender and women’s studies of education.
Graduate students in The Division of Social and Cultural Studies of Education are generally preparing for professions as university teaching, scholarly research and writing, educational organizational consulting, educational public policy analysis, and other private and public professional posts which require critical expertise and knowledge directly related to teaching, learning and educational policies and practices.