Doctoral Specialization in Teacher Education

The Interdepartmental Doctoral Specialization in Teacher Education, housed in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching, offers doctoral students from across the College the opportunity to prepare themselves to be critical agents in the transformation of teacher education.

The education of future teachers committed to and capable of teaching for inquiry, democracy, and equity is a pressing need, in the United States and elsewhere—yet rarely is the education of future teacher educators the priority it deserves to be. The Doctoral Specialization in Teacher Education makes the journey of becoming a teacher educator visible and deliberate, flexible, and intentional. Students in the Specialization study history, purposes, and theories of teacher education; they practice teacher education and study common and unusual pedagogies of teacher education; they explore core problems and challenges of the field; throughout, they conduct inquiries into teacher education, they critically examine the accomplishments and shortcomings of research in the field with particular attention to the questions that are asked and those that are seldom or never asked, to the perspectives and voices that dominate and those that are too often absent, and they participate in the design of small and larger scale studies.

Formally speaking, the Specialization comprises four required courses and a selective; less formal, but just as important, is the development of an inter-disciplinary professional community of students and faculty intrigued by and committed to the practice and scholarship of teacher education.

Contact Information for Doctoral Specialization

Program Director: Dirck Roosevelt

Contact Person: Mark Owen