Fall 2012
(Course Descriptions Below)
U ED. 70001 - Urban Ed Core Colloquium
GC: T, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. 6496, 1 credit, Prof. Garcia, [18949]
U ED. 70400 - Pedagogy and Urban Classroom
GC: T, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. 5383, 3 credits, Prof. Anyon, [18950]
U ED. 70600 - Intro to Research in Urban Ed
GC: R, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. 5417, 3 credits, Prof. Picciano, [18951]
U ED. 72200 - Research Seminar in Science/Math/Tech Ed
GC: R, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. 3212, 3 credits, Prof. Bayne, [18953]
U ED. 71100 - Intercultural Encounters: Immigrant Communities, Schools, and the Social Imagination
GC: R, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. 3209, 3 credits, Prof. Korn-Burstyn, [18952]
U ED. 73100 - Theory and Methods in Critical Educational Research
GC: W, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. 4419, 3 credits, Prof. Anyon, [18954]
U ED. 75100 - Educating Educators
GC: T, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. 8202, 3 credits, Prof. Michelli, [18962]
U ED. 75100 – Globalization of Education: Power, Language and Culture
GC: R, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. 3305, 3 credits, Prof. Spring, [18958]
U ED. 75100 - History of CUNY
GC: W, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. 3212, 3 credits, Profs. Brier/Picciano, [18955]
U ED. 75100 - Qualitative Research Methods
GC: W, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. 3309, 3 credits, Prof. Luttrell, [18957]
U ED. 75100 - Studying Urban Schools
GC: M, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. 3306, 3 credits, Prof. Semel, [18961]
U ED. 75100 - Methodologies and Methods for Research on Teaching and Learning and Learning to Teach
GC: M, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. 3308, 3 credits, Prof. Tobin, [18960]
U ED. 75100 - Unpacking the (Ab)Normal Child
GC: T, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. 3212, 3 credits, Prof. Connor, [18956]
Fall 2012 Course Descriptions
U ED. 71100 - Intercultural Encounters: Immigrant Communities, Schools, and the Social Imagination
GC: R, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. Korn-Burstyn, [18952]
In this seminar we will explore the perspectives of immigrant families residing in New York City on education and schooling, and examine how families negotiate relations with schools. The interaction between immigrant families and schools provides fertile ground for a meeting of social imaginations - the familial and the pedagogic - providing ground for shared purpose and for clarifying barriers to genuine engagement. In this seminar, we will identify and study causes of potential tension and conflict as well as opportunities for engagement between families and schools. We will explore the often vast gaps between immigrant families’ cultures of origin and the cultures of urban schools, while pointing to the ways in which schools can develop relationships of trust with families.
Researchers (Christenson & Carlson, 2005; Harry, 2008; Roopnarine, Krishnakumar, Metindogan & Evans, 2006) often cite the need to improve relations between diverse/immigrant families and schools in order to address minority children’s academic performance gap and social adjustment. In this seminar, we will consider the ways in which parental ethnocultural beliefs and approaches to childrearing and education are significant to patterns of enculturation of immigrant communities and their children. We will take up the role of school in educating citizens for democracy, and consider the possibilities that inhere in change – for both individuals and for society.
U ED. 73100 - Theory and Methods in Critical Educational Research
GC: W, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. Anyon, [18954]
This course provides a foundation for student planning of critical educational research. The course has two simultaneous strands of student activity. First is reading and discussion of several classic texts that help students lay theoretical and methodological foundations for their study. These readings provide ways to think about how to develop the literature critiques for, frame theoretically, and design research projects.
The second strand of activity is the personal reading in the various bodies of work that undergird each student's specific research topic. Weekly presentations by students of their reading, thinking, and/or writing are required. See instructor before registering for this course.
U ED. 75100 - Educating Educators
GC: T, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. Michelli, [18962]
This program seminar is a study of policy, practice, and research regarding how educators are prepared in the United States with special focus on urban education. Students engage in discussion and research around critical questions central to the field including the influence of federal policy, the connection between research and policy, and the rise of alternate pathways to teaching. Class sessions will include, where possible, discussions with leaders in teacher education such as policy makers, researchers, administrators and faculty in teacher education as well as candidates in teacher education programs from a several settings. Many graduates of the Ph.D. program in Urban Education have entered careers as teacher educators. This seminar is designed to give students an "insider view" of the issues surrounding the profession.
U ED. 75100 – Globalization of Education: Power, Language and Culture
GC: R, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. Spring, [18958]
Today education is globalized with most nations sharing a similar education structure and the goal of linking schooling to economic development. The United States school system is nested in this globalized system. For instance, national universities are now global in reach with many opening branch campuses in other countries. China has launched a program of cultural imperialism with the goal of spreading instruction in Mandarin and Chinese culture into the world’s classrooms. Educational businesses are now global, such as publishing and testing, educational technology, and for-profit schools and tutoring services. Testing is international in scope. Professional organizations are global with scholars flowing back and forth across national borders.
The globalization of education raises some important issues that will be examined in this seminar. Who or what organizations exert power over this globalized educational system? In this context, we will discuss the major players, including the World Economic Forum, OECD, the United Nations, the World Bank and others. What happens to local cultures and languages in this process of globalization? Will globalization create a world culture and language at the expense of local languages and cultures? Required essays will reflect the interests of each student.
U ED. 75100 - History of CUNY
GC: W, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Profs. Brier/Picciano, [18955]
The City University of New York (CUNY) is the largest urban public university in the United States, enrolling more than 500,000 matriculating students and adult and continuing education students in its 24 colleges and schools. CUNY traces its roots to the opening of the Free Academy (later The City College) in 1847, with the stated mission of “educating the children of the whole people.” New York’s municipal college system grew steadily with the addition of Hunter College in 1870 and Queens and Brooklyn colleges in the 1930s. It wasn’t until 1961 that the City University of New York was formally established.
This research seminar examines this great university’s unique history and contribution to New York City and the world. In addition to CUNY’s early years, the seminar will review the system’s colleges, people and policies over the past half century, including the fight over open admissions in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the impact of the city’s fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s, the battle over remediation in the 1990s, and contemporary issues related to state and city fiscal support, faculty governance, tuition increases and the rise of a strong central administration.
Any student interested in the evolution of urban higher education will find this seminar an invaluable source of information and discussion. The seminar leaders--one a U.S. social historian; the other an educational policy expert--between them have more than 70 years of experience working in this “people’s university.”
U ED. 75100 - Qualitative Research Methods
GC: W, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. Luttrell, [18957]
This course focuses on the elements of qualitative research design as a vehicle to introduce students to different traditions, approaches and epistemologies that characterize qualitative research within the field of education. The course is designed to deepen your thinking about your research goals, topic, questions, and approach to social analysis. It focuses on the following topics: formulating researchable questions; considering different strategies for data collection, analysis and the representation of findings; understanding and wrestling with ethical considerations; and formulating strategies to ensure reliability, validity, and credibility.
U ED. 75100 - Studying Urban Schools
GC: M, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. Semel, [18961]
This course examines the history of different types of urban schools, including public, independent, Catholic and their different types of pedagogic practices, traditional and progressive. Through a number of school histories, students will analyze the ways in which urban schools have changed over time and how, despite significant social, political and educational change, there has been significant constancy. The course will examine a number of themes, including issues of race. social class, ethnicity and gender, differences in place (urban schools as different?), differences in types of schools (i.e. public vs. private), differences in curriculum and pedagogy (i.e. traditional and progressive), the role of particular schools in educational reform, constancy and change in urban schooling, and methods for writing school histories.
U ED. 75100 - Methodologies and Methods for Research on Teaching and Learning and Learning to Teach
GC: M, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. Tobin, [18960]
The course develops methodology and methods grounded in sociocultural theory that is applicable to research in various settings in which urban education occurs. Within a multi-theoretical framework we review various forms of participant observation that are applicable to meso- and micro-level analyses, and examine complementary methods for analyzing social artifacts, including video and audio files. We address the quality of research in terms of established criteria that probe the extent to which what is learned is viable and applicable to broader contexts. The methods we explore include: conversation analysis; prosody analysis; analysis of facial action; emotions, emotional energy and emotional climate; proxemics, kinesics, and gaze; and the incorporation of research on physiological factors associated with social constructs such as a participation and emotional expression (e.g., breathing patterns, heart rate). The potential for using a variety of hardware and software is explored, including ways of gathering data transmitted via Bluetooth technology (e.g., data transmitted from audience response clickers, oximeters, etc.). We will focus on analytical approaches to making sense of qualitative and quantitative data resources, including the ways in which central tendencies and spread/difference are interpreted.
Recognizing the complexity of macro and global structures and ways in which they saturate social life and what can be learned from research in the social sciences we will examine how leading researchers in New York City, including colleagues in the Graduate Center, take account of macro and global structures and their research. Theoretical standpoints associated with the aggregation of what is learned from multilevel research will be considered. All participants will engage in a research project and incorporate fresh perspectives through personal studies of what is happening in multilevel research.
U ED. 75100 - Unpacking the (Ab)Normal Child
GC: T, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. Connor, [18956]
The word “normal” gives rise to a series of questions: What constitutes normalcy within current education systems and who decides? Where did the concept of normalcy originate? How has it shifted and morphed over time, and why? In what ways does normalcy serve as an ideology reinforced by synonymous concepts of “average,” “typical,” “standard,” “regular” students? Conversely, how do unexamined notions of normalcy create “abnormal,” “atypical,” “below standard,” and “special” students? Using an interdisciplinary frame and drawing theoretical insights from Disability Studies, Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory, and Feminist Theory, this class will explore these and other questions. Students will also examine the structure of schools and the composition of classrooms in relation to a variety of interconnected contemporary issues, such as inclusive education versus special education, the widespread enforcement of standardized curricula, policies such as Response to Intervention and No Child Left Behind. Implications for theory, research, practice, and policy will be explored in relation to how we understand the “mold” of normalcy into which all children are expected to fit.