2025-2026 Education and Society Minor Courses

EDSO 23005
Education and Social Inequality
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.

CHDV 22699 (EDSO 22699) 
Critical Issues Within the Early Childhood Education Landscape 
Emilia Wenzel
W 10:30 AM – 1:20 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.

CHDV 22580 (EDSO 22580) 
Child Development in the Classroom 
Kate O’Doherty 
T R 12:30 – 1:50 PM
This discussion-based, advanced seminar is designed to investigate how preschool and elementary students think, act, and learn, as well as examine developmentally appropriate practices and culturally responsive teaching in the classroom. This course emphasizes the application of theory and research from the field of psychology to the realm of teaching and learning in contemporary classrooms. Course concepts will be grounded in empirical research and activities geared towards understanding the nuances and complexities of topics such as cognitive development (memory, attention, language), early assessment systems, standardized testing, “mindset”, “grit”, exercise/nutrition, emotion regulation, and more.

CHDV 25120 (EDSO 25120)
Child Development and Public Policy 
Ariel Kalil 
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.

SSAD 48700 (EDSO 28700) 
Adolescent Development in Context
Ming-Te Wang 
T 9:30 AM – 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. 

COGS 26520 (EDSO 20001) 
Mind, Brain and Meaning 
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. 

MAPS 30128 (EDSO 23010)
Sociology of Education
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.