The Sociopolitical Studies of Education (SPSE) cluster advances education research that is epistemically, theoretically and methodologically diverse and grounded in rigorous analyses of power. The SPSE cluster casts education research as an interdisciplinary and mixed methodological enterprise that explains and redresses social inequality in schools and society. SPSE research explores public education as a site of democracy-making, social and political critique, individual and communal learning, and a space for imagining and realizing just futures.
Key Intellectual Areas
Faculty in the cluster reflect a diversity of disciplinary traditions, including political science, critical public policy analysis, learning sciences, sociology, curriculum studies, literacy, the humanities, and STEM education. Collectively, their work draws on feminist and womanist, critical race, sociocultural, political, and critical theories to generate new knowledge, and to define new lines of inquiry in public education.
Graduate students trained in this cluster are expected to develop interdisciplinary expertise; meaningfully theorize racial and other forms of social inequality and resistance; gain fluency in multiple epistemologies of research; understand the historical, sociocultural, policy, ideological, and political contexts of education; and, engage with qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, and other methodological traditions. Students will thus develop deep and rigorous understandings of the interconnections between theories and empirical studies of learning; theories and empirical analyses of the role of the state, government, governance, power, and ideology, and the historical foundations across these domains.
Graduate students trained in this cluster are expected to develop interdisciplinary expertise; meaningfully theorize racial and other forms of social inequality and resistance; gain fluency in multiple epistemologies of research; understand the historical, sociocultural, policy, ideological, and political contexts of education; and, engage with qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, and other methodological traditions. Students will thus develop deep and rigorous understandings of the interconnections between theories and empirical studies of learning; theories and empirical analyses of the role of the state, government, governance, power, and ideology, and the historical foundations across these domains.
Student Learning and Experience
The cluster anticipates a combination of social and intellectual activities through which students will deepen their connections to research and to one another, as researchers. This would include fall and spring social gatherings; arranging for student-faculty meet-ups to attend talks on campus and in the community; promoting collaboration among BSE students and faculty with campus-wide student and faculty centers and institutes; inviting guest speakers or hosting faculty-student brown bag discussions (pending availability of cluster funds); and, possible shared research group arrangements. These activities are in addition to the aforementioned schedule of individual, group, and cluster-wide advising and student reviews (e.g., annual review).
Each faculty member has advised students before, and the majority have chaired successful dissertation and M.A. committees. We also anticipate opportunities to pair advanced students with new students, as several SPSE faculty have experience organizing intergenerational teams of students across undergraduate, master’s and doctoral levels.
This cluster houses within-BSE and campus-level administrative leaders—past, present, and future—which we take to be a strength of the collective, and a sign of our broader impact as intellectuals and leaders in public education. If/when colleagues pursue such leadership opportunities, we are prepared to support them by working strategically and collectively to prevent disruptions in course offerings, and provide continuity of community for SPSE students.
As for the BSE overall, we anticipate this cluster will come to represent the leading edge of sociopolitical scholarship and practice in the field of education as a multigenerational research collective committed to more just futures. Faculty intend to continue, and potentially cross-pollinate current efforts to cultivate the professional development of their students vis-a-vis conferences, fellowships, grants, and teaching opportunities.
Each faculty member has advised students before, and the majority have chaired successful dissertation and M.A. committees. We also anticipate opportunities to pair advanced students with new students, as several SPSE faculty have experience organizing intergenerational teams of students across undergraduate, master’s and doctoral levels.
This cluster houses within-BSE and campus-level administrative leaders—past, present, and future—which we take to be a strength of the collective, and a sign of our broader impact as intellectuals and leaders in public education. If/when colleagues pursue such leadership opportunities, we are prepared to support them by working strategically and collectively to prevent disruptions in course offerings, and provide continuity of community for SPSE students.
As for the BSE overall, we anticipate this cluster will come to represent the leading edge of sociopolitical scholarship and practice in the field of education as a multigenerational research collective committed to more just futures. Faculty intend to continue, and potentially cross-pollinate current efforts to cultivate the professional development of their students vis-a-vis conferences, fellowships, grants, and teaching opportunities.