• My UD
  • UDSIS-Students
  • UDSIS-Staff
  • Sakai
  • E-mail
• People
• Maps
• Find It
• A-Z
  • Z
  • Y
  • X
  • W
  • V
  • U
  • T
  • S
  • R
  • Q
  • P
  • O
  • N
  • M
  • L
  • K
  • J
  • I
  • H
  • G
  • F
  • E
  • D
  • C
  • B
  • A
• UD Home

Sociocultural and Communal Approaches Ph.D. Specialization

The Sociocultural and Community-based Approaches to Research and Education (SCA) specialization views education as contextual, dialogic, and relational. We recognize that learning is shaped by institutions, cultures, communities (including online communities), practices, technology, and histories. We are interested in how teachers, students, families, community members, and the society at large "make sense" of the principles and practices of education in complex and sometimes contradictory ways. We seek to investigate the purposes of education and to create models of equitable quality education.

Our perspective includes, but is not limited to, research done in the area of situated cognition, critical pedagogy, feminist theory, disabilities studies, and so on. It also encompasses humanities-based approaches, such as philosophy and history; sociocultural approaches, and social science approaches grounded in sociology, psychology, and anthropology.

The SCA specialization emphasizes the development of expertise in conducting high-quality research on significant issues in sociocultural and community-centered approaches to education. We also strive to prepare teacher educators who will engage preservice and in-service teachers, educational leaders and policy makers, and families and students in the work of examining and developing educational communities.

Specialization Courses

In addition to the Doctoral Core Courses, the following specialization courses are required of all SCA students:

• EDUC 853: Topics in Culturally Relevant Pedagogies (3 credits)
• EDUC 854: Topics in Equity in Education (3 credits)
• EDUC 855: Topics in Sociocultural Theories of Education (3 credits)
• One additional course in methodology that is consistent with the research approaches of this specialization, approved by the student's advisor. (3 credits)
• EDUC 968: Supervised Research (6 credits)
• EDUC 732: Community Based Practicum (6 credits)

Specialization Area Exam Policy

The Specialization Area Exam in SCA is designed to prepare doctoral students for their dissertation research by developing the specialized area of expertise around the students' research interests. The exam will also help to assess if students are ready for the dissertation research. Although the exam has both formative and summative functions, we view this assessment more as formative, preparing for dissertation research, rather than summative, considering whether the student should stay in the program or not after spending three years in it.

The student's advisor and the student will determine the members of the specialization area exam committee, based on the student's area of interest. The committee will consist of three SCA education faculty members: the student's advisor, one faculty member from the SCA specialization area, and the other committee member can be a faculty member from another specialization (although it is not necessary).

The exam is composed of two parts, a written exam and an oral question-response discussion of the written exam. The format of the written part of the exam includes three components:

1. Writing a personal research statement articulating what the student's research interests are, why they are important for the student and how they are grounded in the student's personal background, history, and deeply felt concerns. Sometimes students have difficulty connecting their primary issues and concerns to the language of research and the prevailing literature in their field of interest. The statement will enable the committee to more effectively assist students in making the connections between their primary issues and concerns to the language of research and the prevailing literature in their field of interest. Additionally, the research statement will help the committee develop the assessing criteria based on the student's research focus developed in this personal research statement. The purpose of this statement is to assist the faculty committee in guiding the student into something that the student really wants to do in his/her dissertation rather than a topic that might be interesting only to the committee and/or only to the field. This statement should guide the student to stay with his/her own "roots," so to speak, during the whole dissertation endeavor. We want the student to discover his/her OWN voice as a researcher.
   
   
2. Developing a critical literature review focused on the student's emerging main research interests as outlined in the personal research statement. The main goal of the review is to develop familiarity and expertise both broadly and critically defined around the student's dissertation (including the dissertation pre-proposal, see below) as the student's career focus for his/her proximal professional future. This literature review should be a collaborative endeavor involving a negotiation between the student and the SAE committee. The following three steps guide the development of the review.
   • Step one: Developing a Topic Paper. In this paper, the student will outline three topics in which the student wants to claim professional expertise broadly and deeply in the field of educational research and one topic on issues of methodology related to doing research about the three topics. The SAE committee can help the student develop these topics. These topics should emerge from the student's personal research statement, be connected to the student's dissertation, and should define how the student wants to position him/herself in the area. The student will discuss the issues, nuances, and controversies relevant to their research topics in theory, research findings, and practice within all three topics. We expect that the student will write one-two paragraphs for each of the three topics the student will define. The student will use key references without trying to be exhaustive in the paper. This topic paper will help the SAE committee to develop questions for the student's literature review (the second step).
   • Step two: Developing a reading list in each of the four topics (with faculty help and guidance).
   • Step three: Writing up the critical literature review in which the student will discuss the state of the field with regard to the important and salient issues defining the topics and methodological issues of doing research (about 40-page double-spaced paper, excluding the references, using APA or other professional styles used in education research). It is expected that this critical literature review will be authored solely by the student with no assistance by the faculty advisor or committee.
3. Dissertation research pre-proposal based on the student's personal research statement and literature review. The pre-proposal should involve the emerging main research question, its importance for the academic and educational fields, and ideas of how the student is going to approach it in a research design. The purpose of the dissertation research pre-proposal is three-fold: 1) to help the student think of the next steps in working on the dissertation; 2) to make the literature review authentic and thus more scholarly; and 3) to help the committee to assess if the student is ready for the next step – writing a dissertation proposal. The length of the pre-proposal can vary but should not exceed five double-spaced pages.

The oral part of the exam will involve committee members reading the written part and developing 2-3 questions based on it. During the oral part of the exam, the student responds to the committee's questions and can ask the committee his or her own questions on the subject of interest or for clarification. The oral part is concluded when the committee exhausts their questions. However, the oral part of the exam should not be longer than 2.5 hours.

The evaluation of the exam is based on the students' successful completion of the written and oral parts. The successful exam satisfies the following criteria that reflect the student's readiness to start working on his/her dissertation:

1. The student has a clear research focus that is grounded in the students' background, importance for the academic field, and importance for educational practice;
2. The student has developed broad and critical expertise in research and practice issues relevant to his/her research focus;
3. The student is knowledgeable about diverse methodologies that are necessary for his/her dissertation research;
4. The student has a clear idea of how to start working on the dissertation proposal;
5. The student demonstrates scholarly writing and oral skills.

The timeline and assessment of the Specialization Area Exam in SCA are as follows:

1. Summer between second and third year in the program:
   • Students develop their SAE committee at the beginning of the summer.
   • Students begin working on their personal statement at the beginning of the summer, and submit their personal statement to their committee by the end of the summer.
2. Fall of third year in the program:
   • By October 1 of the third year in the program, students begin working on the Critical Literature Review and the Dissertation Research Pre-Proposal. It is expected that students will use the knowledge gained from reviewing other researchers' work and writing the literature review to shape their ideas and form the basis for the Pre-Proposal.
   • By December 15 of the third year in the program, students must submit the Literature Review and Pre-proposal to their SAE committee.
3. Winter Session of third year in the program:
   • The SAE committee will review students' Literature Reviews and Pre-Proposals during January, and Oral Defenses will be scheduled for the end of January. No written feedback will be provided to the student at this point in the process.

Based on students' written and oral work, the SAE Exam will result in one of two ratings:

• Pass: For students to pass the SAE, 2 of the 3 faculty members must agree that students have met all five of the criteria listed above. This is deemed "Passing the Specialization Area Examination," and students will not receive any written feedback, but a congratulatory letter is sent to students with a copy sent to the Director's Office. Students may proceed with working on the dissertation research proposal.
• Revise and resubmit: If two of three faculty members do not agree that the student has met all five criteria, the SAE Exam is graded as "Revise and Resubmit". In this case, students are verbally informed of the decision within two days of the oral defense, and the SAE committee members will provide written feedback to students within 10 days of the oral defense. Students then have four weeks to address the concerns that were raised by the faculty. The feedback provided by the faculty will specify which section(s) of the written exam must resubmitted, and whether the oral defense must be repeated. A letter confirming the status of the student's exam outcome is sent to the student with a copy sent to the Director's Office.

When students resubmit their written exam and/or repeat the oral defense, the SAE committee will have 10 days to make a determination of the outcome. Two ratings are possible:

• Pass: If two out of three faculty members agree that the student has successfully satisfied 4 out of 5 of the criteria listed above, this is deemed "Passing the Specialization Area Examination", and students and the Director's Office will be notified by letter from the student's faculty advisor.
• Fail: If the above criteria are not met, the student is judged to have "Failed the Specialization Area Examination." A failure means that the student has failed the specialization area examination and will be withdrawn from the Ph.D. program.

Affiliated Faculty

Faculty affiliated with the SCA specialization area include: