Doctorate of Education in Critical Pedagogy

The Doctor of Education in Critical Pedagogy program is a 66 semester-credit course of study. Graduates of the program will move into positions of leadership within educational communities as teachers, directors of curriculum and instruction, unit training leaders and senior administrators; or as college or university professors of curriculum and instruction, educational foundations, teacher education or educational leadership. This doctoral program operates on a “closed-cohort” model; small groups of students move through the four-year program together. A doctoral dissertation project is integrated into the third and fourth years.

Ed.D. in Critical Pedagogy Program Outcomes

The program encompasses four areas in which participants will engage in activities designed to develop a number of specific skills:

1). Action Research

Participants will become skilled action researchers by being able to:

• Conduct classroom research to understand the dynamics of classroom interactions
• Understand, design, and implement formal and informal assessment strategies to evaluate and ensure the continuous intellectual, social, and psychological development of learners.
• Become critical and knowledgeable readers of quantitative and qualitative research literature
• Understand the nature, methods, and problems of different research traditions so that they can carry out quantitative and qualitative studies.

2). Authentic Leadership

Participants will become effective, authentic leaders by being able to:

• Model a critically reflective stance towards their own practice.
• Build open communication systems that demonstrate collaborative decision-making.
• Create an organizational and intellectual climate in which students and colleagues are continuously exposed to new methods and innovative curricular ideas.
• Propose staff development programs and guidelines for supervision which treat colleagues respectfully as moral equals.
• Recognize and incorporate the diversity of student and staff backgrounds as a central theme of effective education.

3). Inclusive Curricula Innovation

Participants will become exemplary curriculum developers by being able to:

• Build curricula that are responsive to and grounded in learners’ experiences, needs, and concerns. Such curricula will use students’ experiences as the starting point to lead them into rigorous engagement with theory, philosophy and research.
• Develop instructional flexibility so that teachers can make informed choices that will match methods with desired educational outcomes.
• Use technology to create inclusive and comprehensive delivery systems.
• Create innovative learning activities that address the diversity of cultures, learning styles, and personalities present in classrooms.

4). Comprehensive Assessment

• Demonstrate competence in assessing the quality, creativity and value of curriculum design, in evaluating the effective implementation of curriculum, and judging students' intellectual development.
• Design and implement multiple assessment strategies that are appropriate for the culturally diverse classrooms and that measure accurately stated learning outcomes

Governance Council

A governance council guides the doctoral faculty on how the Ed.D. program might be improved so that its graduates have the greatest positive impact on their communities. The governance council meets with the Program Director on a semester basis to co-create needed changes, to create opportunities for individualized learning for students, and to design future program-related events.

Admission to Doctor of Education in Critical Pedagogy

The Doctor of Education in Critical Pedagogy program admits 26 students into each cohort. These students enter the program each summer in even-numbered years. Contact the Curriculum and Instruction Department soe_candi@stthomas.edu for deadline information and application forms.

The following is a list of admission criteria by which candidates will be evaluated. Absence of any of these conditions will not necessarily exclude an applicant from being considered for admission:

1. Three or more years of experience as an educator
2. A master’s-level degree or its equivalent in education or a related field
3. Current involvement in some aspect of education
4. Academic abilities consistent with doctoral-level study, including the ability to:
   • Communicate clearly in verbal and written form
   • Identify and research assumptions in teaching, theory and scholarship
   • Build arguments grounded in evidence
   • Evaluate scholarly research and argument;
   • Work cooperatively with peers in a cohort program

Admission Process

Initial Application

Applicants must submit:

1. An initial application form and fee ($50)
2. A current professional résumé
3. Two letters of recommendation
4. One official copy each of all undergraduate and graduate transcripts, sent to Curriculum and Instruction Department, University of St. Thomas, Mail #MOH 217, 1000 LaSalle Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55403-2009
5. An autobiographical statement outlining how the applicant’s experiences qualify him or her for admission
6. An example of academic work demonstrating competency at the doctoral level (e.g., articles, master’s thesis, handbook, district projects)

Writing Sample

Candidates selected to participate in this phase will receive writing assignments related to the themes of the program. After the writing samples are reviewed by the department’s admissions committee, candidates will be invited to campus for interviews.

Interview

After reviewal of the writing samples, candidates will be invited on campus for a series of interview sessions. Students will spend approximately two days on campus at the University of St. Thomas in a number of exercises and interviews, and also will include introductions of faculty, question-and-answer sessions concerning the program’s operation, group exercises that parallel the activities of the actual program, and individual interviews of applicants conducted by teams of faculty.

Core Beliefs

1. The critical pedagogy program exemplifies, in its philosophy and operation, a commitment to a collaborative, inclusive process. Participants, in consultation with faculty, will be asked to engage in constant critical conversation on how the program can provide the best possible educational experience for all involved.
2. The program treats students as colleagues who bring valuable experience and knowledge to the classroom and have the ability and responsibility to actively participate in shaping the program’s curriculum.
3. The program develops scholar-practitioners who will take action and make differences in their institutions and communities.
4. The program demonstrates its commitment to an inclusive, collaborative process by building a diverse student population and faculty. We are committed to building a community in which at least one-third of students and faculty are people of color.

Program Features and Requirements

The Doctor of Education in Critical Pedagogy degree will be conferred after satisfactory completion of 66 semester credits, including a successful presentation of the doctoral dissertation, which is integrated into the Ed.D. curriculum.

The Importance of Practice

The chief difference between an Ed.D. and a Ph.D. degree is the varying significance these two degrees place on the practice of education. A Ph.D. program in education focuses on preparing students as researchers to conduct studies that add to the existing body of knowledge. An Ed.D. program focuses on developing sophisticated scholar-practitioners who exemplify excellence in their researched, reflective practice.

As an Ed.D. degree program, the critical pedagogy program focuses equally on the understanding and critical analysis of practice and theory. The program is based on the belief that all practice has a theoretical dimension and that all theory springs from questions identified through practice.

The Cohort Model

The critical pedagogy doctoral program operates according to a closed-cohort model, admitting 26 students once every two years. The cohort model builds a true learning community in which students come to know each others’ strengths, learn from each others’ experiences and ideas, learn to work collaboratively, give each other emotional support and practical advice and develop a sense of responsibility for the total experience.

In addition, the cohort model allows faculty to assign reading and study prior to students starting each course so that classroom contact time can be devoted to the probing of issues and to the development of higher-order, critical-thinking skills.

Advising Procedures

One of the advantages of a cohort program is that all students move through the program together, so that much advising regarding registration and university requirements can be done simultaneously with the whole cohort. Another is that the cohort becomes a learning community in which students learn from each other, come to see each other as mentors, provide emotional support and intellectual critique to each other and engage in a continuous creation and re-creation of curricula and formats. Both faculty and students will be used as advisory resources.

The Weekend Residency

The doctoral program meets as a weekend college. Students attend classes for four weekends in the fall and four weekends in the spring. Students also attend a two-week residential session each summer.

The Doctoral Dissertation Project

Students integrate the doctoral dissertation project into the third and fourth years of their studies. Instead of completing coursework and then being asked to develop individual dissertation projects, students start to generate their project ideas in CIED 923: Research Methods of Inquiry and Analysis, taken during the second summer session. The coursework that follows in years two and three and in the dissertation clinics, which comprises Year Four, provide ample opportunity for students to conduct and complete their dissertation projects.

Teaching Approaches

Because students in the program are expected to work cooperatively, faculty model their own commitment to this process by team-teaching doctoral courses. Instructional methods encompass a range of pedagogic possibilities, including lecture, discussion, simulations and role play, independent study, team projects, peer teaching and computer-assisted networking. The program includes faculty from within the School of Education, the greater

St. Thomas community and visiting scholars. The program makes full use of technology, including videoconferencing, bulletin boards, e-mail and listservs.

Program Advisory Council and Assembly

A program advisory council (consisting of practitioners, students and other interested persons) guides the doctoral faculty on how the Ed.D. program might be improved so that its graduates have the greatest positive impact on their communities. In addition to the program advisory council, a program assembly, comprised of all of the students and faculty in the program, discusses ways in which the program can be made as responsive as possible to participants’ concerns.

Profile of Doctoral Students

Students are drawn from all educational sectors, with the majority working as teachers in a range of public and private elementary and secondary schools, community colleges, four-year colleges, universities and nonprofit organizations that have an educational dimension to their activities.

The Curriculum Structure

• Years one and two of the doctoral program provide students with a solid grounding in the theory, research and practice of critical pedagogy.
• In Year Three, students do preliminary work on doctoral dissertations.
• Year Four is focused solely on the collection, analysis and presentation of the doctoral dissertation.

During the final two years of the program, students are enrolled in a series of courses focused on the planning, implementation and evaluation of the dissertation. Since each student’s needs are different in this regard, students are allowed to take these courses for one, two or three credits. This allows students the opportunity to take up to 9 credits of their program as electives, while ensuring consistency of attendance and conversation among cohort members (since all students attend every weekend and summer session).

Questions About Critical Pedagogy

Members of the doctoral learning community use these questions to orient their inquiries across the curriculum:

• What practices are central to effective critical pedagogy?
• How can we evaluate our success as critical educators?
• How can the theory and practice of critical pedagogy question and address inequities of race, class and gender?
• To what extent does critical pedagogy vary across different contexts of race, class, gender and culture?
• To what extent does theoretical work in critical pedagogy reflect a commitment to its core practices?
• What are the contradictions and inconsistencies of critical pedagogy?
• What are the major ethical issues and dilemmas raised by the practice of critical pedagogy?
• How do we as educators learn to investigate and change our practice to make it consistent with principles of critical pedagogy?

Crossing Traditional Boundaries of Knowledge

Each semester, students take two courses; however, these are not to be treated as separate or disconnected pieces of curriculum. Instead, whenever possible, teaching is structured around the points of connection, clusters of interest and common themes that cross curricula for the two courses. Before each semester, faculty teaching the two courses will meet to look for intersections between their curricula and structure teaching activities around them.

Integrating Theory and Practice

The curriculum is designed to strike a balance between theory and practice throughout the program.

During the first two years, each semester contains two courses that divide themselves very broadly between a theoretical and practical concentration. Even in the overtly “theoretical” courses the examination of practice and the review of theory through the lens of practical experience will be paramount. Likewise, even in overtly “practical” courses theory will be used as an important lens through which to view, critique, and reframe practice.

Dissertation Project

The program emphasizes the importance of students improving their practice and making a difference in their institutions and communities. The term “dissertation” implies, to many, a piece of pure research, or an effort at theory generation, that will be shared only with other academics. The point of the dissertation in this doctoral program is for students to share their work with other students, their colleagues and communities. In their doctoral projects, students are encouraged to build theory, develop materials, implement innovations and improve practices.

Students are given the widest possible scope, consistent with standards of academic integrity and scholarly inquiry, to work on projects that will make a real change in the communities that they serve.

The cohort structure provides opportunities for forming inquiry teams of students working on projects of common interest. Each student is still responsible for documenting and presenting his or her own research. Students are encouraged, however, to work cooperatively, learn from each other’s ideas and build on each other’s efforts.

Course of Study

Year 1

Summer Residency
CIED 901 Introduction to Critical Pedagogy--3 cr.

Fall Semester
CIED 902 Theoretical Foundations of Critical Pedagogy--6 cr.

Spring Semester
CIED 903 Educators as Learners: Constructing Pedagogic and Curricular Knowledge--3 cr.
CIED 904 Social Construction of Curriculum, Policy and Practice--3 cr.

Year 2

Summer Residency
CIED 923 Research Methods of Inquiry and Analysis-- 6 cr.

Fall Semester
CIED 906 History of Critical Education--3 cr.
CIED 911 Narratives of Critical Commitment and Practice-- 3 cr.

Spring Semester
CIED 905 Gender, Feminism, Sexuality--6 cr.

Year 3

Summer Residency
CIED 907 Social Movements in Critical Education--3 cr.

Fall Semester
CIED 908 Multiculturalism, Diversity and Anti-Racist Practice--6 cr.

Spring Semester
CIED 910 Advanced Readings Seminar--3cr.
CIED 920 Planning the Doctoral Dissertation--3 cr.

Year 4

Summer Residency
CIED 930 Dissertation Clinic I--6 cr.

Fall Semester
CIED 931 Dissertation Clinic II--6 cr.

Spring Semester
CIED 932 Dissertation Clinic III and Capstone Presentation--6 cr.

Total: 66 credits