In this Studies Specialization, students become familiar with the research literature on current issues in education in the arts and aesthetics; language, literacy, and culture in education (including writing across the curriculum and multi-cultural education); issues of human values and their expression in literature and media; and education in history, geography, and human culture. Students will take one or sometimes two Area Seminars each term devoted to particular topics in these fields, and develop an individual specialization under the guidance of an adviser and a Studies Committee, through other elective courses and faculty-guided independent study courses.

Students are not expected to specialize in all these areas. Students should have a broad background knowledge of the area in which they plan to specialize and how it fits into the wider curriculum and then gradually specialize further in the area of their own interest, as preparation for dissertation research.

Area Seminars in Arts, Humanities, and Social Studies Education
(3 credits each semester)

This seminar provides opportunity for discussion of contemporary research issues in the fields of arts, humanities, and social studies education. Each semester one or two special topics are selected as the focus of the work of the seminar. Prospective topics include:

AHSS Research Focus Areas

Language, Media, and Culture

How do students gain proficiency in, respond to, communicate and represent knowledge, understanding, and values through multiple symbol systems in school and society? What are the language and literacy demands of the school curriculum and special needs of students who are not fluent in standard English? How do new technologies expand the range of representational options available to students and teachers, and what are the implications for developing critical multimedia literacies? What are the implications of a curriculum focused on esthetic education for teacher preparation and student learning in all subject areas?

The Roles of the Arts, Humanities, and Social Studies Teacher

How do AHSS teachers develop identities and learn professional roles through cultural study, assessment, definition, and transformation, and how does this development of identities and roles contribute to the production of pedagogical and curricular research and reformation?

Cognition and Understanding in AHSS Education

What are the nature and construction of knowledge in AHSS, and what are the effects of pedagogical frames such as situated cognition, metacognition, relational knowledge, self-regulated learning, ways of knowing, and democratic learning in the attainment and refinement of artistic, social, and cultural knowledge, skills, and values?

Contexts of Learning in AHSS Education

What are the historical, cultural, economic, social, geographic, political, technological, and institutional constraints and opportunities for the development of group and cultural identity (language, gender, class, ethnicity), knowledge and use of AHSS and the assessment of AHSS schooling in the 21st century?

Pedagogical Negotiation of Community Expectations

What new state and community expectations will AHSS pedagogy need to negotiate given developing trends for the 21st century, including high-stakes testing and increased credentialing, high-technology developments in cybernetics and artificial intelligence, globalization of political economy, and the transformation of "human nature" through social policy developed from scientifically rationalized research?