Undergraduate Courses

Lisa Rosen  |  T 12:30 – 3:20 PM

How and why do educational outcomes and experiences vary across student populations? What role do schools play in a society’s system of stratification? How do schools both contribute to social mobility and to the reproduction of the prevailing social order? This course examines these questions through the lens of social and cultural theory, engaging current academic debates on the causes and consequences of social inequality in educational outcomes. We will engage these debates by studying foundational and emerging theories and examining empirical research on how social inequalities are reproduced or ameliorated through schools. Through close readings of historical, anthropological and sociological case studies of schooling in the U.S, students will develop an understanding of the structural forces and cultural processes that produce inequality in neighborhoods and schools, how they contribute to unequal opportunities, experiences, and achievement outcomes for students along lines of race/ethnicity, class, gender, and immigration status, and how students themselves navigate and interpret this unequal terrain. We will cover such topics as neighborhood and school segregation; peer culture; social networks; elite schooling; the interaction between home, society and educational institutions; and dynamics of assimilation for students from immigrant communities.

Adam Parrott-Sheffer  |  R 9:30 AM - 12:20 PM

The U.S. preK-12 education landscape is covered in the vestiges of failed or only partially fulfilled efforts to improve our schools. Yet our public schools now educate more people, for more time, in content areas beyond the “3 R’s”, and with better results than at any time in our history as a nation. This course gives students an opportunity to critically examine several promising school-level improvement strategies within the context of larger reform efforts. Students will consider the role that values, beliefs about learning and people, and local context play in the success of school improvement efforts. Additionally, students will consider the factors that are necessary for sustaining the implementation of school improvement strategies. Ultimately, students will leave the course with a deeper understanding of what they believe the purpose of school is, how people and organizations learn and change, and strategies for influencing change in their own careers, regardless of sector. The course includes one field experience for students to consider the impact of reforms on preK-12 education institutions.

Jennifer Etienne  |  T R 12:30 - 1:50 PM

How did American education move from goals of integration to diversity, equity, and inclusion? In this course, we will interrogate Brown v. Board of Education not as an endpoint of segregation, but as a contested legal intervention whose promises were systematically constrained by racial capitalism, institutional resistance, and the durability of white supremacy. Our goal will be to examine the meaning of integration and diversity, equity, and inclusion in contemporary contexts of education. Students will engage both primary sources and important contemporary academic texts to wrestle with the narratives of racial progress and the future of these goals in today’s political context.

Emilia Wenzel  |  T R 3:30 - 4:50 PM 

In this course, we will investigate critical issues within early childhood education. The questions we will engage with throughout the course are: What makes early childhood a pivotal stage of development? How do families, teachers and preschool curricula shape children’s experiences? How do systemic inequalities manifest in early learning environments? We will address these questions by examining early learning contexts through various interdisciplinary lenses including developmental psychology, sociology, public policy and education. The course will examine the state of early childhood education in the US, the role of parents and communities, ways to affirm identity in the early years, the influence of teachers in early learning environments and strategies to support early math and language development. Research, policy and real-world examples will drive learning for this course, enabling us to bridge theory and practice. Throughout the quarter, we will search for academic sources as well as news sources to deeply engage with critical issues within early childhood education.

Idolly Keels  |  M 1:30 - 4:20 PM 

The problems confronting urban schools are bound to the social, economic, and political conditions of the urban environments in which schools reside. Thus, this course will explore social, economic, and political issues, with an emphasis on issues of race and class as they have affected the distribution of equal educational opportunities in urban schools. We will focus on the ways in which family, school, and neighborhood characteristics intersect to shape the divergent outcomes of low- and middle-income children residing with any given neighborhood. Students will tackle an important issue affecting the residents and schools in one Chicago neighborhood. This course is part of the College Course Cluster: Urban Design.

Ariel Kalil | M W 1:30 - 2:50 PM 

The goal of this course is to introduce students to the literature on early child development and explore how an understanding of core developmental concepts can inform social policies. This goal will be addressed through an integrated, multidisciplinary approach. The course will emphasize research on the science of early child development from the prenatal period through school entry. The central debate about the role of early experience in development will provide a unifying strand for the course. Students will be introduced to research in neuroscience, psychology, economics, sociology, and public policy as it bears on questions about “what develops?”, critical periods in development, the nature vs. nurture debate, and the ways in which environmental contexts (e.g., parents, families, peers, schools, institutions, communities) affect early development and developmental trajectories. The first part of the course will introduce students to the major disciplinary streams in the developmental sciences and the enduring and new debates and perspectives within the field. The second part will examine the multiple contexts of early development to understand which aspects of young children’s environments affect their development and how those impacts arise. Throughout the course, we will explore how the principles of early childhood development can guide the design of policies and practices that enhance the healthy development of young children.

Melinh Lai  |  T R 2:00 – 3:20 PM

What is the relationship between physical processes in the brain and body and the processes of thought and consciousness that constitute our mental life? Philosophers and others have puzzled over this question for millennia. Many have concluded it to be intractable. In recent decades, the field of cognitive science–encompassing philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, computer science, linguistics, and other disciplines–has proposed a new form of answer. The driving idea is that the interaction of the mental and the physical may be understood via a third level of analysis: that of the computational. This course offers a critical introduction to the elements of this approach, and surveys some of the alternative models and theories that fall within it. Readings are drawn from a range of historical and contemporary sources in philosophy, psychology, linguistics, and computer science. 

Derek Neal  |  T R 11:00 AM - 12:20 PM

This course explores economic models of the demand for and supply of different forms of schooling. The course examines the markets for primary, secondary, and post-secondary schooling. The course examines numerous public policy questions, such as the role of government in funding or subsidizing education, the design of public accountability systems, the design of systems that deliver publicly funded (and possibly provided) education, and the relationship between education markets and housing markets.

Salikoko Mufwene   |  T R 2:00 - 3:20 PM 

This course can also be taken by students who are not majoring in Linguistics but are interested in learning something about the uniqueness of human language, spoken or signed. It covers a selection from the following topics: What is the position of spoken language in the usually multimodal forms of communication among humans? In what ways does spoken language differ from signed language? What features make spoken and signed language linguistic? What features distinguish linguistic means of communication from animal communication? How do humans communicate with animals? From an evolutionary point of view, how can we account for the fact that spoken language is the dominant mode of communication in all human communities around the world? Why cannot animals really communicate linguistically? What do the terms language "acquisition" and "transmission" really mean? What factors account for differences between "language acquisition" by children and by adults? Are children really perfect language learners? What factors bring about language evolution, including language speciation and the emergence of new language varieties? How did language evolve in mankind? This is a general education course without any prerequisites. It provides a necessary foundation to those working on language at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Marshall Jean  |  T R 3:30 – 4:50 PM 

This course examines the social organization of formal education – how schools are shaped by the social context in which they are situated, and how students’ experiences in turn shape our society. It focuses specifically on schools as the link between macrosociological phenomena (e.g. culture, political systems, segregation, inequality) and the microsociological interactions of individual students and educators. The focus will be on contemporary American education, although lessons from the past and abroad will inform our learning. Prior introductory coursework in sociology will be useful but is not required.

Akram Bakkour  |  T 9:30 - 10:50 AM

This course examines basic questions in learning and memory. We discuss the historical separation and division of these two areas as well as the paradigmatic differences in studying learning and memory. We also discuss basic research methods for investigating learning and memory and survey established and recent research findings, as well as consider several different kinds of models and theories of learning and memory. Topics include skill acquisition, perceptual learning, statistical learning, working memory, implicit memory, semantic vs. episodic memory, and memory disorders.

Ming-Te Wang  |  T 9:30 - 12:20 PM

This course focuses on developmental pathways from middle childhood through adolescence within the context of school, family, community, and culture. Because human development is an applied field, we will be paying special attention to how sociocultural and historical influences affect academic, socioemotional, and identity development in the context of real-world challenges and opportunities faced by adolescents. In addition to learning about developmental and sociocultural theories, students will apply research to policy and practice by creating resources geared toward youth, parents, or those who work with youth. By the end of this course sequence, students should be able to: 1. Describe and apply key theories of middle childhood and adolescent development; 2. Identify developmental opportunities and challenges during middle childhood and adolescence; 3. Discuss the role of identity development in constructing or authoring one's life story; 4. Reframe adolescent risk-taking as a form of creativity and individual expression; 5. Understand how relationships can influence positive youth development; and 6. Translate theory and research into developmentally appropriate and culturally sensitive resources for youth, families, and those who work with youth.