Critical Social Inquiry 0288 - Another Kind of Public Ed

While American schools tend to reproduce the status quo, they can also serve as sites of possibility, in which students and teachers work to redress inequalities and power imbalances. Students in the class will analyze the complex and conflicting social, political and economic conditions from which educational policies and practices emerge. The organization of the readings, discussions and class projects will explore how discourses of race, ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality enliven contradictory framings of public education as both a site of hope as well as a site of conflict, tension and oppression. By addressing debates around educational funding, racism, homophobia, school (de)segregation, language and culture, community-school relationships, the meaning of democratic education, the regulation of bodies in school spaces, significant and on-going attention will given to how education discourses have been, and continue to be, constructed through the working of power in relationship to knowledge.

Power, Community and Social Justice Multiple Cultural Perspectives Writing and Research Students are expected to spend at least six to eight hours a week of preparation and work outside of class time.