Minors: Urban Education

The minor in urban education addresses one of the most important aspects of education in the United States . To improve American education system of our country we must strengthen educational reform in urban areas. Urban education focuses on culture, economics, politics, as well as teaching, learning, and curriculum from a historical and contemporary perspective.

EDD 8490: Culture of Urban Schools
This course will analyze group relations, acculturation, and educational policy from different theoretical perspectives as they relate to the transmission of culture in educational settings especially in terms of values, roles, and the implication for equality of education opportunities and social status. The impact of globalization on urban social and political life, the changing nature of community and social relations within cities and suburbs and the evolving patterns of intergovernmental cooperation and conflict within metropolitan regions will be analyzed. Students will study the formation of social identities in the history of education, specifically race, class, gender, ethnicity, and religion, and the relationship of identity formation to current issues in education.

EDD 8491: Economics of Urban Education
This course will focus on the theories and principles of the economics of education; the economy in urban settings; and models, practices, and theories for developing partnerships between schools, universities, community based groups and agencies, and neighborhoods. The focus will be upon the analysis and underpinnings of the community and regional economic structure and development. Students will study administrative policies and planning related to the economics of urban education.

EDD 8492: Educational Policy and the Politics of Urban Education
This course will focus on theories and empirical research about the social structure and political dynamics of urban areas. Students will study educational policies and politics and subsequent implementation as the intended and unintended consequences of many processes: ideological, social, judicial, scientific, economic, and ethical. Within the context of each issue, potential policy alternatives will be identified and actual policy and implementation decisions studied.

EDD 8493: Historical Context of Contemporary Urban Schools
This course would utilize the leading thinkers and milestones as the basis for an analysis of urban development and urban life. Students would explore the emergence and transformation of urban educational institutions-public and private, inclusive and selective, fee-paying and free, religious and secular-out of the dynamic interplay of individual, group, and larger scale intellectual, social, political, and economic factors. The history of the impact of federal, state, local goverment policies, changing economic conditions, and judicial decisions that have shaped urban education in the post-Brown era in America on these relationships will be discussed.

EDD 8494: Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum in Urban Contexts
This course will examine the relationships through which knowledge is constructed and communicated in urban schools. It will focus on pedagogy as a set of relationships among teachers and students mediated by culture, history, learning theories, assumptions about childhood and adulthood, and assumptions about knowledge and ignorance as they relate to urban education.