The Cultural Foundations Program offers a Ph.D. degree in several areas of interest to teachers, educators in various settings, as well as other professionals and citizens interested in educational issues affecting the nation.
Students in our Ph.D. program tend to fall into 5 categories:
- Those who wish to become professors of foundations of education;
- Those who are currently P-K-12 teachers and wish to continue teaching, but want more foundational knowledge to support their teaching;
- Those who wish to hold high-level positions in other areas of higher education, K-12 schooling, or other educational policy-making settings
- Those who wish to make a career change from another kind of setting to an educational setting, or who wish to change from their current professional responsibilities in a community setting and assume new educational responsibilities in that setting
- Those who have a strong desire to create an educational niche for themselves in a variety of settings through work as a boundary-spanner whose expertise involves well-developed skills of educational analysis, problem-solving, and resource identification and use.
Ph.D. Programs in Cultural Foundations require a set of core courses and an individually-designed major program based on the career goals of the student.
Core courses in the Ph.D. program are:
- EDUC 75510 - Statistics for Educational Services
- EDUC 85515 - Quantitative Research Designs and Application
- EDUC 85516 - Qualitative Research Designs and Application
- EDUC 85518 - Advanced Qualitative Research
OR
- Another advanced research course as approved by the student's committee
- EDPF 89581 - Pro-Seminar in Cultural Foundations (to be taken within the first two semesters of coursework
- EDPF 80090 - Doctoral Residency Seminar (to be taken within the last two semesters of coursework)
The major program in Cultural Foundations for the Ph.D. is composed of a minimum of 39 hours of coursework in the Foundations, supplemented as needed by coursework in other departments of the College or in one of the parent disciplines of the Foundations in Arts and Sciences. Students may also take up to 12 hours of electives.
Advice and counsel from a student's advisor is critical in developing the student's major program. In addition, all Foundations faculty are ready and willing to assist students in developing their major.
