Program Overview

The Cultural Studies and Social Thought in Education (CSSTE) Ph.D. option is a rigorous, flexible, and individually-tailored course of study that focuses on the issues of culture and power in the contemporary and historical contexts of education. Cultural studies includes popular culture and media, social justice, environment, ethics, aesthetics, race, ethnicity, gender, and social class, which are applied to a range of educational sub-fields that include literacy, educational leadership, teacher leadership, school reform, curriculum theory, higher education, science, art, special education, and bilingual/ELL (English Language Learners). The overall goal of the faculty is to articulate a cohesive and supportive community of educational scholarship and practice. While coursework is important, we work to establish a strong program of mentorship in which doctoral candidates are mentored into the world of research, knowledge generation and dissemination, and pedagogical and social action. We are committed to the idea that our scholarly endeavors stimulate positive change in schools and the communities and society those schools serve. Education, whether it takes place in the formal settings of schools and museums or the informal contexts of home and the movie theater, is defined by its cultural context. Cultural studies take these cultural contexts as the essential starting point to build research projects and define teaching practices.