Learning, Diversity, and Urban Studies (M.Ed.)

The Learning, Diversity, and Urban Studies program offers highly individualized preparation for students who seek advanced graduate preparation for studying urban learning settings. Our curriculum for the Learning, Diversity, and Urban Studies program is structured around three central themes:

• Learning focuses on designing learning environments that draw on research on how people learn and ways designers can capitalize on diversity to enhance learning.
• Diversity builds knowledge about the nature and definition of diversity and how it affects groups, systems, and scholarly inquiry.
• Urban Studies explores the complex interactions among individuals, groups, and the various systems that make up the contexts of inner-city schools, metropolitan regions, and neighborhoods.

You can expect to understand educational practice in urban settings more richly and more responsibly through this program. You’ll be prepared to practice this renewed understanding in settings such as social service agencies, media organizations, or public schools—or in academic and policy settings by pursuing research.

Because the hallmark of this program is its individualized nature, there is a great deal of variability from student to student in the knowledge and coursework pursued around key learning goals, as described below:

Understand Issues of Equity and Justice
Socially just educators embrace student diversity, create inclusive educational opportunities, and continually strive to achieve equity and social justice in their educational settings and communities.

Understand Learners and Learning Communities
You'll learn to understand continuously evolving communities that have distinctive histories, cultures, discourses, language practices, and funds of knowledge as strengths. Socially just educators learn to engage with families and other community members through positive, informative, and supportive practices.

These interactions enable educators to learn from and engage with communities to address the continuing challenges of social justice, equity, and environmental sustainability.

Understand Issues Related to Learning
Promote critical consciousness of complex sociopolitical contexts, institutional and structural inequities in schools and communities and of how our cultural backgrounds and identities affect our engagement in justice and equity work.

Recognize that students’ ideas develop out of the context of their physical, social, and cultural experiences in the world. These ideas are the foundation on which learning happens and are resources for future learning.

Understand Relationships among Theory, Research, and Practice
Understand that theory, research, and practice inform one another. Thoughtful use of relevant theory and research should inform practice, and participation in research should be viewed as a productive activity that facilitates their learning and advances the profession.

Specializations

There is a unique opportunity to develop a specialization that suits your research interest and needs. Possible concentrations include:

• Poverty and Intervention
• Language, Literacy, and Culture
• English as a Second Language (ESL)
• Race and Culture
• Learning in Community and Nonprofit Settings
• Queer Pedagogy and Practice
• General Education: Math, English, Social Studies, and Science
• STEM

While in the program, you will also have many opportunities take to part in community events and engage with influencers and leading experts in diversity and urban studies issues. Some examples of past engagement include participating in TEDx Vanderbilt, presenting at the Critical Race Studies in Education National Conference, and collaborating with high-profile speakers through the Peabody College Dean’s Diversity Lecture Series.