Culture and teaching - Ph.D.
While some Ph.D. students enrolled in CaT choose to develop specialization around particular subject matters, others may choose to focus on issues common across disciplinary boundaries. Students draw on interdisciplinary perspectives and engage in a variety of research methods to more deeply understand notions of being in the world, conflict, pluralism and unity, and praxis and action as they relate to educational endeavors, as well as explore ways to improve practice, assessment, leadership, and community engagement.
Students enrolled in other tracks within the Department of Curriculum and Instruction may also choose to pursue a supporting program in CaT. CaT prepares students for positions not only as faculty members in higher education, but also for leadership roles in local, national, and international communities.
Faculty
Timothy J. Lensmire
Tim’s teaching, research, and writing are animated by commitments
to and hopes for radical democracy. His past research focused
on the teaching of writing in schools. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin
and John Dewey, among others, he criticized and reconstructed
traditional and progressive conceptions of the teacher's role,
student voice, and community in the writing classroom. His current
research and writing are grounded in critical white studies
and focused on an ethnographic interview study he completed
recently in a small rural community. The goal of this work is
to build descriptions of, and theoretical insights about, the
racial identities of white people, as part of a larger pedagogical
and political project concerned with race and social change.
Bic Ngo
Bic’s research examines how and why schools and classrooms advantage
some groups over others, as well as the ways schools and classrooms
are critical sites for social and cultural transformation. She
employs ethnographic methodology and engages critical, cultural
and feminist theories to explore the implications of globalization
and immigration for teaching, learning and curriculum. Her work
has explored issues of culture and inequality in the education
of Hmong American and Lao American students and families. Currently,
her research seeks to explicate the impact of culture change
on Hmong students' education, and the implications for how we
theorize immigrant identity and anti-oppressive education.
Mistilina Sato
Misty’s research seeks to better understand the ways in which
teachers, as people and as professionals, engage in processes
of developing their practice, leadership, personal and professional
identities, and their collegial relationships and communities.
The theoretical lens she brings to her research is one of practical
reasoning. Practical reasoning recognizes the intellectual process
of taking everyday action through a process of deliberation,
foregrounds the local and timely nature of action, and emphasizes
the personal identity of the teacher. Recent studies have focused
on teacher leadership and the teacher change process, specifically
in the context of science education, National Board Certification,
and everyday or formative assessment integrated in the teachers’
instructional practice.
Thom Swiss
Thom’s writing and teaching focus on interdisciplinary subjects,
particularly the cultural studies of education. Cultural studies
in education—a collection of interdisciplinary texts, theories,
and practices—can help educators understand many of the things
done in the field of education, starting with the ideological
production of "education" as a concept. Thom teaches across
disciplinary and genre boundaries (digital media, popular music,
literature, cultural journalism, and the discourses of
education) and encourages his graduate students to read
materials from a range of fields and perspectives. Like others
in the Culture and Teaching track, Thom is dedicated to issues
pertaining to equity and social justice in both research and
teaching. He joined the faculty in 2006 and chairs C&I’s
Diversity Committee.
Student profiles
Read additional student profiles on the Culture and Teaching blog
Jill Leet-Otley
“I am currently in my third year and am delighted with the intellectual curiosity and rigor of my colleagues and professors.”
“This is an excellent opportunity for me to learn first hand the ins and outs of doing cutting edge qualitative research and will certainly inform the research that I do in the future.”
I am a part time doctoral student, balancing my studies with my rich family life in Rochester, MN. While I lived in North Carolina and Massachusetts, I taught students with learning disabilities and emotional and behavioral problems in both public and private school. I am currently in my third year and am delighted with the intellectual curiosity and rigor of my colleagues and professors. Although many people seem to think graduate school must be a chore to be endured, I consider it a privilege.
My undergraduate experience was instrumental in shaping how I view the world, how I think, and even how I am compelled to act. The religion major at Williams College was an interdisciplinary program integrating post-modern theories with the studies of religion, philosophy, race, gender, and culture. We read everything from Derrida to Kristeva to Hegel to Foucault. It is a natural progression for me then to be enrolled in the Culture and Teaching track at the University of Minnesota.
Currently, I am interested in critical race theory and critical white studies, and am heavily influenced and inspired by the scholarship of Dr. Bic Ngo and my adviser, Dr. Tim Lensmire. I am beginning to realize that race, as I previously had envisioned it, is even more problematic than most white people are willing to admit. How we go about thinking of Other or difference (or as Derrida would say – differance) and teaching that in the 21st century will, I think, be fundamental to how we solve some of the inequities in our society and around the globe.
I am currently working with Dr. Ngo in which I have the opportunity to do some hands-on research transcribing interviews, observing in the field, collecting artifacts, and coding and analyzing data. My work is part of her ethnographic study on Hmong culture and culture change in a St. Paul high school. This is an excellent opportunity for me to learn first hand the ins and outs of doing cutting edge qualitative research and will certainly inform the research that I do in the future.
Course requirements
Students will be expected to be registered full time (for at least 6 units per semester) for at least one year, early in their studies. The degree requires at least 78 graduate credits, as follows.
Required coursework for the Ph.D. in education, curriculum
and instruction.
Track: culture and teaching
Major requirements: A minimum of 24 credits as specified below.
- Curriculum and instruction core courses
- CI 8131—Critical Examination of Curriculum in Context (3 cr)
- CI 8132—Teaching Theory and Research (3 cr)
- CI 8133—Research Methods in Curriculum and Instruction (3 cr)
- Track-specific requirements: minimum
of 15 credits
- CI 8159—Culture and Teaching Colloquium (to be taken twice for a total of 6 cr.)
- Minimum of 9 elective credits chosen in consultation with adviser
Research methodology: minimum of 12 credits as specified below.
- Required courses in quantitative methodology
(minimum of 6 credits)
- EPSY 5261 & 5262 or EPSY 8261 & 8262 (consult adviser)
- Required courses in qualitative methodology
(minimum of 6 credits)
- List of other research methods courses (to be selected with consultation by the adviser)
Educational foundations: minimum of 6 credits.
- In consultation with adviser(s), students choose courses in at least two of five areas: cultural, historical, philosophical, psychological, or sociological foundations.
- List of educational foundations courses
Minor or supporting program: minimum of 12 credits.
- All coursework in the supporting program is to be selected with consultation by the adviser(s).
Pre-thesis and thesis credits: A minimum of 24 semester thesis credits.
Total: A minimum of 78 semester credits.
Revised March 2010
