3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

The course examines the role played by culture, race, language, and class in creating the conditions that lead to structured inequality of educational outcomes in urban areas. Through a diverse set of readings, students will consider questions such as: What is the role of a state-sponsored, public education in a multicultural democracy? Should all students receive the same education, both in terms of curriculum and pedagogy? Why might some students resist efforts to educate them? Does education reproduce social divisions or provide a way for the most talented to rise in society? Through an exploration of these and related questions, the class addresses the relationship between the concepts of race, language and culture; the controversy over efforts to take language into account in the teaching of some students; “multicultural” approaches to education; pedagogical interventions meant to (a) reach “culturally diverse” learners, and (b) create culturally diverse learners; and the role of education in a pluralistic, democratic society.