School of education
Encyclopedia
In the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, a school of education (or college of education; ed school) is a division within a university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...

 that is devoted to scholarship in the field of education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

, which is an interdisciplinary branch of the social sciences encompassing sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

, linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

, economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

, political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...

, public policy
Public policy
Public policy as government action is generally the principled guide to action taken by the administrative or executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. In general, the foundation is the pertinent national and...

, history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

, and others, all applied to the topic of elementary
Elementary school
An elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...

, secondary
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

, and post-secondary
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...

 education. The U.S. has 1,206 schools, colleges
and departments of education and they exist in 78% of all universities and colleges. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 176,572 individuals were conferred masters’ degrees in education by degree-granting institutions in the United States in 2006-2007. The number of master’s degrees conferred has grown immensely since the 1990s and accounts for one of the discipline areas that awards the highest number of master’s degrees in the United States.

In the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, following the recommendation in the 1963 Robbins Report
Robbins Report
The Robbins Report was commissioned by the British government and published in 1963. The Committee met from 1961 to 1963...

into higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...

, teacher training colleges were renamed colleges of education in the UK. For information about academic divisions devoted to this field outside of the United States and Canada, see Postgraduate Training in Education
Postgraduate Training in Education
Postgraduate training in education may refer to:* Postgraduate Certificate in Education * Postgraduate Diploma in Education* Postgraduate education* Postgraduate diploma* School of education...

.

Types of programs

Typically, a school of education offers research
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...

-based programs leading to Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 (M.A.), Master of Education
Master of Education
The Master of Education is a postgraduate academic master's degree awarded by universities in a large number of countries. This degree in education often includes the following majors: curriculum and instruction, counseling, and administration. It is often conferred for educators advancing in...

 (M.Ed.), Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 (Ph.D.), Doctor of Education
Doctor of Education
The Doctor of Education or Doctor in Education degree , in Latin, Doctor Educationis, is a research-oriented professional doctorate that prepares the student for academic, administrative, clinical, or research positions in educational, civil, and private organizations.-Differences between an Ed.D...

 (Ed.D.) or Educational Specialist
Educational Specialist
The Education Specialist, also referred to as Educational Specialist, Specialist in Education, or Ed.S., is an advanced academic degree in the U.S...

 (Ed.S.) degrees, as well as professional teacher-education programs leading to Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 (M.A.), Master of Education
Master of Education
The Master of Education is a postgraduate academic master's degree awarded by universities in a large number of countries. This degree in education often includes the following majors: curriculum and instruction, counseling, and administration. It is often conferred for educators advancing in...

 (M.Ed.), or Master of Arts in Teaching
Master of Arts in Teaching
The Master of Arts in Teaching degree is generally a pre-service degree that usually requires a minimum of 30 semester hours beyond the Bachelor's degree. While the program often requires education classes in order to meet state licensure requirements, it emphasizes advanced course work in a...

 (M.A.T.) degrees. Schools of education also offer teacher certification or licensure programs to undergraduate students. Generally schools of education have graduate programs related to teacher preparation, curriculum and instruction (or curriculum and teaching), public policy and education, and educational administration. In addition, some schools of education offer programs in school counseling and counseling psychology
Counseling psychology
Counseling psychology is a psychological specialty that encompasses research and applied work in several broad domains: counseling process and outcome; supervision and training; career development and counseling; and prevention and health...

.

Common areas of interest

Schools of education have several areas of interest in both their research and practice. The first is teacher education, curriculum, and instruction. With their historical roots in the 19th century normal school
Normal school
A normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. Its purpose is to establish teaching standards or norms, hence its name...

, they train the vast majority of teachers. A second area of interest is educational administration. As the main institution for the training of principals and superintendents, there is a focus on the administration of schools and school districts. A final area of interest is education policy and reform. Many graduates of schools of education become involved in education policy. As such, issues such as equity, teacher quality, and education assessment have become focuses of many schools of education. The issue of equitable access to education particularly is common, specifically focusing on low-income, minority
Minority group
A minority is a sociological group within a demographic. The demographic could be based on many factors from ethnicity, gender, wealth, power, etc. The term extends to numerous situations, and civilizations within history, despite the misnomer of minorities associated with a numerical statistic...

, and immigrant communities, is central to many areas of research within the Education field.

Notable schools of education in the United States

The annual rankings of U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...

placed the following schools of education in the top twenty of all graduate education institutions in the United States for 2010. They follow in order:

1. Vanderbilt University (Peabody College)
Peabody College
Peabody College of Education and Human Development was founded in 1875 when the University of Nashville, located in Nashville, Tennessee, split into two separate educational institutions...



2. Teachers College, Columbia University
Teachers College, Columbia University
Teachers College, Columbia University is a graduate school of education located in New York City, New York...



3. Harvard University
Harvard Graduate School of Education
The Harvard Graduate School of Education is one of the graduate schools of Harvard University, and is one of the top schools of education in the United States. It was founded in 1920, the same year it invented the Ed.D...



3. Stanford University
Stanford University School of Education
The Stanford University School of Education , is one of the seven schools of Stanford University. It is the second-oldest school of education in the United States, after NYU...



5. University of Oregon
University of Oregon
-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...



6. Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University School of Education
The Johns Hopkins School of Education is one of the nine academic divisions of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. The largest provider of master’s degrees in education throughout the state of Maryland, it is known for its emphasis on flexible learning formats that encourage...



6. University of California at Los Angeles
UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies
The Graduate School of Education and Information Studies is one of the professional graduate schools at the University of California, Los Angeles...



8. Northwestern University
Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy
Established in 1926, the School of Education and Social Policy or SESP is the smallest of the eight undergraduate and graduate institutions at Northwestern University...



9. University of Wisconsin-Madison

10. University of California at Berkeley

10. University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...



10. University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...



11. Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University

12. Northwest Missouri State University Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Northwest Missouri State University
Northwest Missouri State University is a state university in Maryville, Missouri. Founded in 1905 as a teachers college, it offers both undergraduate and graduate programs. The campus, based on the design for Forest Park at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, is the official Missouri State Arboretum....


Notable scholars within schools of education

  • Benjamin Bloom
    Benjamin Bloom
    Benjamin Samuel Bloom was an American educational psychologist who made contributions to the classification of educational objectives and to the theory of mastery-learning...

  • Jerome Bruner
    Jerome Bruner
    Jerome Seymour Bruner is an American psychologist who has contributed to cognitive psychology and cognitive learning theory in educational psychology, as well as to history and to the general philosophy of education. Bruner is currently a senior research fellow at the New York University School...

  • George Counts
    George Counts
    George Sylvester Counts was an American educator and influential education theorist.An early proponent of the progressive education movement of John Dewey, Counts became its leading critic affiliated with the school of Social Reconstructionism in education. Counts is credited for influencing...

  • Linda Darling-Hammond
    Linda Darling-Hammond
    Linda Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at the Stanford University School of Education, where she launched the , the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute, and the . Darling-Hammond is author or editor of more than a dozen books and more than 300 articles on...

  • John Dewey
    John Dewey
    John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...

  • Paulo Freire
    Paulo Freire
    Paulo Reglus Neves Freire was a Brazilian educator and influential theorist of critical pedagogy.-Biography:...

  • Nicholas Gage
    Nicholas Gage
    Nicholas Gage is a Greek American author and investigative journalist. Today he and his wife, Joan, live in North Grafton, Massachusetts...

  • Howard Gardner
    Howard Gardner
    Howard Earl Gardner is an American developmental psychologist who is a professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education at Harvard University, Senior Director of Harvard Project Zero and author of over twenty books translated into thirty languages. Since 1995, he has...

  • Henry Giroux
    Henry Giroux
    Henry Giroux, born September 18, 1943, in Providence, Rhode Island, is an American cultural critic. One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media studies,...

  • Gloria Ladson-Billings
    Gloria Ladson-Billings
    Gloria J. Ladson-Billings is an American pedagogical theorist and teacher educator on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education. Ladson-Billings addresses the issues of educational incongruity in teaching African American children in the 21st Century within her book The...

  • Peter McLaren
    Peter McLaren
    Peter McLaren is a Professor in the Division of Urban Schooling, the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles . He is the author and editor of forty-five books and hundreds of scholarly articles and chapters...

  • Deborah Meier
    Deborah Meier
    Deborah Meier is an American educator often considered the founder of the modern small schools movement. After spending several years as a kindergarten teacher in Chicago, Philadelphia and then New York City, in 1974, Meier became the founder and director of the alternative Central Park East...

  • Nel Noddings
    Nel Noddings
    Nel Noddings is an American feminist, educationalist, and philosopher best known for her work in philosophy of education, educational theory, and ethics of care.-Biography:...

  • Diane Ravitch
    Diane Ravitch
    Diane Silvers Ravitch is an historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Previously, she was a U.S...

  • Lee Shulman
    Lee Shulman
    Lee S. Shulman is an educational psychologist who has made notable contributions to the study of teacher education, assessment of teaching, and education in the fields of medicine, science and mathematics...


Criticism

Traditionalist scholars have been critical of the status quo within most schools of education. Prominent figures contributing to this school of thought include E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Diane Ravitch
Diane Ravitch
Diane Silvers Ravitch is an historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Previously, she was a U.S...

, Chester Finn, and Lynne Cheney
Lynne Cheney
Lynne Ann Cheney is the wife of former United States Vice President Dick Cheney and served as the Second Lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009...

. Common assertions made by these critics include that the typical school of education has a Left-wing political bias, favoring Socialist philosophies such as Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy
Critical pedagogy
Critical pedagogy is a philosophy of education described by Henry Giroux as an "educational movement, guided by passion and principle, to help students develop consciousness of freedom, recognize authoritarian tendencies, and connect knowledge to power and the ability to take constructive...

 and the "Teaching for Social Justice
Teaching for social justice
Teaching for social justice is an educational philosophy designed to promote socioeconomic equality in the learning environment and instill these values in students. Educators may employ social justice instruction to promote unity on campus, as well as mitigate boundaries to the general curriculum...

" movement, and are of lower academic standards and include "Mickey Mouse" courses. They also argue that many schools of education are academically, professionally, and socially inhospitable toward students whose political views do not conform to the predominant Left-leaning ideology and that the field's interest in educational equity sometimes crosses over the line between academic research and political activism.

See also

  • Teacher education
    Teacher education
    Teacher education refers to the policies and procedures designed to equip prospective teachers with the knowledge, attitudes, behaviors and skills they require to perform their tasks effectively in the classroom, school and wider community....

  • Student teacher
    Student teacher
    A student teacher is a college or graduate student who is teaching under the supervision of a certified teacher in order to qualify for a degree in education...

  • Certified teacher
    Certified teacher
    A certified teacher is a teacher who has earned credentials from an authoritative source, such as the government, a higher education institution or a private source. These certifications allow teachers to teach in schools which require authorization in general, as well as allowing educators to...

  • Alternative teaching certification
    Alternative teaching certification
    Alternative teacher certification is a process by which a person is awarded a teaching license even though that person has not completed a traditional teacher certification program. In the US, traditional teacher certification is earned through completing a bachelor's or master’s degree in...

  • Postgraduate Certificate in Education
    Postgraduate Certificate in Education
    The Postgraduate Certificate in Education is a one-year course in England, Wales and Northern Ireland for undergraduate degree holders that allows them to train to be a teacher....

     (United Kingdom
    United Kingdom
    The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

    )
  • Postgraduate Diploma in Education
    Postgraduate Diploma in Education
    The Postgraduate Diploma in Education , also known as a Graduate Diploma of Education , is a one-year postgraduate course in several places like Australia, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland, Hong Kong and Singapore for existing bachelor's degree holders leading to become a qualified teacher.The...

  • Postgraduate education
    Postgraduate education
    Postgraduate education involves learning and studying for degrees or other qualifications for which a first or Bachelor's degree generally is required, and is normally considered to be part of higher education...

  • Postgraduate diploma
    Postgraduate diploma
    A postgraduate diploma is a postgraduate qualification awarded typically after a bachelor's degree. It can be contrasted with a graduate diploma...

  • Education Specialist
  • Teacher training college
    Teacher training college
    A teacher training college is a college of higher education that specialises in training students to be teachers.Many universities offer similar facilities, a number of which acquired their provision by taking over a teacher training college or by a teacher training college evolving into a...

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