Program Overview

Overview

The Doctor of Philosophy in Curriculum Studies (PhD) is a graduate program that encompasses investigations into teacher education, the social construction of knowledge, the curriculum as culturally and politically situated, contemporary curriculum and instructional discourses, and the role of curriculum and curricular reform in K-12 and other learning environments. Students learn about issues of planning and development, program implementation and evaluation, and pre-service and in-service teacher education. Inquiry in the field is multi-disciplinary and includes numerous perspectives and orientations such as cultural studies, historical consciousness, post-structuralism, feminism, multicultural education, semiotics, and critical theory.

Program Details

• Faculty: Faculty of Education
• Academic Unit: Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy
• Mode of Delivery: In person at UBC Vancouver
• Program Components: Dissertation
• Tuition (First Year):
  • Domestic: $5,626.02
  • International: $9,883.98
• Median Funding: 50% of students receive $35,293 or more funding per year in the first 4 years, before tuition and fees

Admission Information & Requirements

Check Eligibility

• Minimum Academic Requirements: The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies establishes the minimum admission requirements common to all applicants, usually a minimum overall average in the B+ range (76% at UBC).
• English Language Test: Applicants from a university outside Canada in which English is not the primary language of instruction must provide results of an English language proficiency examination as part of their application.
  • TOEFL: Overall score requirement: 92, with minimum scores of 22 in Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening.
  • IELTS: Overall score requirement: 6.5, with minimum scores of 6.0 in Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening.

Prior Degree, Course, and Other Requirements

• Prior Degree Requirements: A Master's degree with high standing in a relevant educational discipline.
• Document Requirements: A letter of intent describing the focus of the proposed research and a sample of work demonstrating scholarly writing.

Meet Deadlines

• Program Name: Doctor of Philosophy in Curriculum Studies (PhD)
• Intake: September 2026
• Canadian Applicant Deadline: 1 December 2025
• International Applicant Deadline: 1 December 2025

Tuition & Financial Support

Tuition

Financial Support

• Program Funding Packages: From September 2024, all full-time students in UBC-Vancouver PhD programs will be provided with a funding package of at least $24,000 for each of the first four years of their PhD.
• Funding Statistics: Based on the criteria outlined, 30 students within this program were included in this study because they received funding through UBC, with a mean of $40,216 and a median of $35,293.

Career Outcomes

• Graduation Rate: 84% based on 51 students admitted between 2011-2014.
• Average Years to Completion: 6.76 years.
• Sample Employers in Higher Education: University of British Columbia, Royal Roads University, Capilano University, Concordia University, Lakehead University, University of Alberta, University of Wollongong, Mount Saint Vincent University, Columbus State University, Thompson Rivers University.
• Sample Employers Outside Higher Education: BC School District, Alpha Secondary School, Museum of Vancouver, Government of Lesotho, TEC, Community Association for Lasting Success, Da Vinci Science Center, HR MacMillan Space Centre, Wells Fargo, Pythagoras Academy.

Research Supervisors

• Supervision: Students in research-based programs usually require a faculty member to function as their thesis supervisor.
• Instructions regarding thesis supervisor contact for this program: Applicants should browse faculty profiles and indicate in their application who they are interested in working with. No commitment from a supervisor prior to applying is necessary, but contacting faculty members is encouraged.

Sample Thesis Submissions

• "No longer missionary": the Sisters of Saint Ann and Vancouver's Catholic schools in the long 1960s
• Towards Caribbean forms of historical consciousness: heritage, mestizaje, and racial democracy in Puerto Rico
• A curriculum of revelation: Jean-Luc Marion’s saturated phenomena in the classroom
• Understanding curriculum as play: transdisciplinarity, spirituality, and consciousness
• Pilgrimage, reorientation, and reconciliation: teacher inquiry and the curriculum of the self
• Expanding understandings of outdoor play and learning in K-8 elementary schools
• Pablo superstar: public pedagogies in Generation Z’s cultural memory of Escobar and narco-trafficking
• Reimagining citizenship in unification education: the discursive formation of naturalized citizens in a divided Korea
• Unboxing object-based learning: exploring teachers' object-based pedagogies with museum kits in elementary classrooms
• Participatory Planning Pedagogy and curriculum for environmental and sustainability education: a children’s right to the city initiative
• Male understanding of motherhood in Japan: rereading Okonogi Keigo's Ajase complex theory
• Gender normativity in teacher education: a critical participatory action research study with trans and gender nonconforming preservice teachers in Canada
• Understanding reconciliation in the classroom: teachers' responses to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Calls to Action
• Preservice teachers’ experiences of learning study in an elementary mathematics education course: an activity theory-informed phenomenological inquiry
• Teaching from multiple midsts: autonomous secondary ELA teachers negotiating agencies in the context of K-12 curricular revision
• Making–place a/r/tographically: invitations to framing and threading and bridging
• An in-depth exploration of student experiences and perspectives of learning technical writing in undergraduate computer science education
• Walking an a/r/tographic garden: propositions with art education, curriculum theory, and love
• Community music making and learning for the 21st century: autoethnographic stories, touchstones of quality, and positive youth development
• Exploring children’s mathematics learning and self-regulation in robotics
• Art, address, and correspondence: variations on pedagogical presence
• Sense-making in learning mathematics across languages and countries: cases of multilingual students in a weekend Japanese school (hoshuko)
• Exploring students' understandings and perspectives of place: the case of place in a Skagit Valley school
• Teachers' narratives of resisting deprofessionalization
• Understanding children’s object choice and play in an outdoor setting: the embedded learning and meaning of playing with sticks
• The intergenerational transfer of nikkei memory: museums facing the absence of “witness” founders

Related Programs

• Same Specialization:
  • Master of Arts in Curriculum Studies (MA)
  • Master of Education in Curriculum Studies (MEd)
• Same Academic Unit:
  • Master of Arts in Art Education (MA)
  • Master of Arts in Curriculum Studies (MA)
  • Master of Arts in Health, Outdoor and Physical Education (MA)
  • Master of Arts in Home Economics Education (MA)
  • Master of Arts in Mathematics Education (MA)
  • Master of Arts in Media and Technology Studies Education (MA)
  • Master of Arts in Music Education (MA)
  • Master of Arts in Science Education (MA)
  • Master of Arts in Social Studies Education (MA)
  • Master of Education in Art Education (MEd)
  • Master of Education in Curriculum Studies (MEd)
  • Master of Education in Health, Outdoor and Physical Education (MEd)
  • Master of Education in Home Economics Education (MEd)
  • Master of Education in Mathematics Education (MEd)
  • Master of Education in Media and Technology Studies Education (MEd)
  • Master of Education in Music Education (MEd)
  • Master of Education in Science Education (MEd)
  • Master of Education in Social Studies Education (MEd)
  • Master of Museum Education (MMEd)