Students study images found in popular films. Images of education presented in films are analyzed from a variety of perspectives for their representations of such phenomena as school work, knowing, knowledge, and education. Meanings of postmodernism and implications for curriculum are explored. Students examine the offered curriculum and the experienced curriculum through such lenses as diversity, aesthetics, politics, and hermeneutics. It is intended that students expand their understanding of postmodernity in general and gain deeper insight into its presence in their personal and professional lives.
Students examine the sociocultural relationship between gender and education in U.S. society.
Study focuses on how schools teach about gender and the ways females and males respond to differing learning contexts. Students examine contemporary feminist, postcolonial, queer, and critical race theories in the context of educational practices. Attention is given to the relations of everyday actions and the construction of subjectivity. Students study problems facing culturally different children. Concepts, problem-solving procedures, and attitudes that aid constructive interaction between culturally different teachers and learners are explored.