Curriculum and Social Inquiry
Doctoral Program
The Curriculum and Social Inquiry doctoral program is designed to prepare high level scholarpractitioners for curriculum leadership positions in schools and other educational communities. The program emphasizes engagement in processes of critical reflection about issues of curriculum in relation to the school community and society. Curriculum is viewed not simply as taking place within classrooms and schools, but as connected to larger social, cultural, political and historical contexts. Processes of critical reflection are characterized by problem-finding and questioning, valuing of personal experience, intellectual engagement with complex and fluid conceptual frameworks, and a sense of teaching and curriculum as political struggle.
Issues of content and teaching flow from essential curriculum questions: What knowledge is of most value? How is knowledge personally and socially constructed? In the distribution of knowledge, whose interests are being served? The CSI program regards curriculum in its broadest sense, as the constructing of a learning environment, with activities ranging from teaching to political activity. Understanding curriculum in this way requires a consideration of its theoretical, practical, explicit, implicit and received dimensions. Attention is given to both content-specific and interdisciplinary aspects of curriculum and teaching.
This program serves the needs of those people who are interested in influencing teachers, schools and other educational communities. Students are encouraged to see their work as combining theory and practice, and themselves as activists, effecting change within the school and beyond.
PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS
Each doctoral student is required to take doctoral core courses and research and dissertation courses. These required courses and their semester hour commitments are listed below. This common core represents areas of knowledge that the graduate faculty considers essential for all doctoral candidates in education. In addition to the core and research requirements, students will complete two types of course requirements specific to the program: The Curriculum and Social Inquiry core, and a minor area of concentration.
| DOCTORAL COURSE REQUIREMENTS | SEMESTER HOURS (SH) |
| Doctoral Core | 6 |
Research, Dissertation | 21 |
| Curriculum and Social Inquiry Core | 21 |
| Minor Concentration | 15 |
| Total Degree Requirements | 63 |
| DOCTORAL CORE |
| CCD610a | Doctoral Core Seminar I (2) |
| CCD610b | Doctoral Core Seminar II (2) |
| CCD610c | Doctoral Core Seminar III (2) |
| RESEARCH DISSERTATION (Prerequisite: ESR502 or equivalent) |
| ESR610 | Paradigms of Research: Alternative Ways of Knowing (2) |
| ESR612 | Empirical/Analytic Research I (3) |
| ESR614 | Interpretive and Critical Research I (3) |
| ESR616 | Empirical/Analytic Research II (3) |
| OR |
| ESR618 | Interpretive and Critical Research II (3) |
| ESR604 | Dissertation Proposal Seminar (2) (Prerequisites: ESR610, ESR612, and ESR614) |
| CCD699 | Dissertation (8) |
| CURRICULUM AND SOCIAL INQUIRY CORE |
| CSI600 | Curriculum Theory: Historical, Philosophical, and Political Issues (3) |
| CSI601 | Cultures of Schools and Communities (3) |
| CSI602 | Curriculum Theory: Contemporary Issues and Practice (3) |
| CSI603 | Curriculum Planning, Organization and Evaluation (3) |
| CSI605 | Professional Development and School Change (3) |
| CSI693 | Curriculum Seminar (6) |
All of the courses in the 21-semester-hour Curriculum and Social Inquiry core, with the exception of Curriculum Seminar, include a one-semester-hour field application designed to bridge theory and practice.
MINOR CONCENTRATION
Each student is to choose at least one minor from areas which may include the following: Administration and Supervision, Early Childhood Education, Educational Psychology, Technology in Education, Community College Learning and Instruction, Reading and Language, Special Education, Disability Studies, and Superintendent Endorsement.
COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION
The Curriculum and Social Inquiry doctoral program refers to the comprehensive examination as the Qualifying Exam. It is taken after completion of the doctoral, research and program core classes (with the exception of the last research course and the dissertation proposal seminar). The Qualifying Exam is to be passed by the student prior to formal work on the dissertation and advancement to candidacy for the Ed.D. degree.
Patrick Roberts, PhD, Associate Professor
PROBERTS@NL.EDU
847/905-2767
National-Louis University is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, 30 N. LaSalle St. Chicago, IL 60602, 1-800-621-7440. National College of Education at National-Louis University is accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE).
