Admission Information:

Applications are not currently being accepted for this program.

Overview:

The Ed.D. in Pedagogy and Philosophy is Montclair State University's first doctoral program and is one of a very few programs in the country that bring the disciplines of pedagogy and philosophy into dynamic interaction. The program builds on the University's nationally recognized programs in teacher preparation and decades of leadership in critical thinking, precollege philosophy education, and inquiry into the public purposes of education. It provides a unique opportunity for those who wish to participate in the highest level of philosophical and empirical scholarship, to apply that scholarship to the work of teacher education, and/or to bring philosophical practices to the classroom.

Program graduates will seek employment in colleges and universities, schools and school districts, state agencies, professional development organizations, and foundations as academic faculty members, researchers, staff developers, education policymakers, and consultants. Graduates from the Ed.D. in Pedagogy and Philosophy pursue careers in the following fields in higher education:

• Philosophy of Education
• Educational Foundations
• Teacher Education

The program has also prepared students for, or advanced their positions in the following careers in precollege education:

• Teaching philosophy in middle schools, high schools and community colleges
• K-12 classroom teaching that employs philosophical methods, addresses philosophy of the school subjects, and/or engages children in philosophical practices

Vision:

"It was my hunch that children were primarily intent on obtaining meaning–this is why they so often condemned school as meaningless–and wanted meanings they could verbalize.... Philosophy might be indispensable for the redesign of education, but to make this happen it would itself have to be redesigned."
- Matthew Lipman

"Conservative education tries to adapt the learners to the world that is given; progressive education tries to make the students unquietly critical, challenging them to understand that the world that is being presented as given is, in fact, a world being made and, for this very reason, can be changed, transformed, reinvented."
- Paulo Freire

The intersection of pedagogy and philosophy is an important domain of scholarship, advocacy and professional practice, for three reasons. First, these disciplines have a reciprocal relationship. Philosophy has always been concerned with what it means to be educated, how belief can be justified and what kinds of education foster civic responsibility and political freedom. In turn, pedagogy has always been a defining philosophical practice and has informed philosophical education and inquiry. Indeed, pedagogical reflection is as central to the work of philosophers as philosophical reflection is to the work of teachers. Second, pedagogy and philosophy are indispensable "foundations" of education: disciplines that question and theorize education's grounding assumptions and practices through the lenses of:

• social and political philosophy
• logic, discourse theory and wisdom studies
• philosophy of childhood and educational psychology
• educational history, policy, and sociology
• cultural studies, critical theory, feminist and gender studies
• curricular design and evaluation

Third, there is a growing awareness of the pedagogical value of various kinds of philosophical practice–logical, dialogical, and contemplative –in K-12 classrooms. More and more U.S. middle and high schools are offering philosophy as an elective and even a required subject, and hundreds of primary schools offer some kind of "Philosophy for Children" program that engages students in exploring the ethical, political, epistemological and other philosophical aspects of the school subjects, and of their own experiences. Many of these classroom approaches were pioneered at the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (IAPC) at MSU.

Many faculty and students in the Ed.D. in Pedagogy and Philosophy belong to one or more national and international professional associations of scholars and practitioners that hold annual conferences and publish proceedings and/or professional journals, including:

• American Association of Colleges of Teacher Educators (AACTE, http://aacte.org)
• American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT; http://philosophyteachers.org)
• American Education Studies Association (AESA, www.educationalstudies.org)
• American Educational Research Association (AERA; www.aera.net)
• American Philosophical Association Committee on Instruction in Pre-College Philosophy (www.apaonline.org/governance/committees/pre-college/index.aspx)
• Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE; http://www.indiana.edu/~appe)
• International Council for Philosophical Inquiry with Children (ICPIC; www.icpic.org)
• Philosophy of Education Society (PES; http://philosophyofeducation.org)
• PLATO: Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization (http://plato-apa.org)
• Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy (SAAP: www.american-philosophy.org)
• Society for the Study of Women Philosophers (SSWP; www.sswp.info)
• Society of Women in Philosophy (SWIP: www.uh.edu/~cfreelan/SWIP/index.html)
• UNESCO (see http://plato-apa.org/pdf/UNESCO%20report%20on%20phil.pdf)

The Doctoral Student Experience:

The Ed.D. in Pedagogy and Philosophy is designed for students of high academic caliber, with strong backgrounds in education and/or philosophy. Students in the program will have opportunities to engage in many kinds of inquiry and practice, including:

• Engage in rigorous coursework with faculty from the departments of Curriculum & Teaching, Educational Foundations, Philosophy & Religion, and Early Childhood, Elementary & Literacy Education
• Teach undergraduate courses such as Ethics, Philosophical Orientation to Education, History of American Education, and Gender Issues in Education
• Assist faculty conducting original empirical and philosophical research
• Train with the IAPC to participate in its philosophy programs in local public schools
• Present their work at regional and national conferences, with the support of faculty advisors
• Submit their work for publication in relevant professional journals, with the support of faculty advisors

Graduates of the program have written dissertations with titles such as:

• Community of Inquiry and the Intersection of Epistemology and Pedagogy: A Grounded Theory Analysis
• Empathetic Pedagogy
• Democracy, Culture, and Education in Ecuador: Philosophical Education as a Means to Promote a Culture of Democracy
• Exploring Pro-social Behavior Through Structured Philosophical Dialogue
• The Role of Paradox in Argumentation and Concept Transformation in Community of Mathematical Inquiry: A Dialectical Analysis

Faculty:

Faculty in the Ed.D. in Pedagogy and Philosophy are among the most prominent people working in their fields nationwide.

Rebecca A. Goldstein is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching. Her research interests include media framing of public education and education policy issues, urban teacher preparation, and teaching and learning in and for democratic societies. She is the editor of the book, Useful Theory: Making Critical Education Practical (2007, Peter Lang). Her most recent article, "Imaging the frame: Media representations of teachers, their unions, NCLB, and education reform" is forthcoming in the journal, Educational Policy. He is the faculty advisor to the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children.

Maughn Gregory is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Foundations. His research interests include philosophy of education, pragmatism, precollege philosophy education and religion and education. Articles by Dr. Gregory have appeared in Educational Theory, Educational Philosophy and Theory, Contemporary Pragmatism, Teaching Philosophy, Theory and Research in Education, and The Journal of Gay and Lesbian Issues in Education.

David Kennedy is a Professor in the Department of Educational Foundations. His research interests include philosophy of childhood, philosophy for children, and utopian studies. He is author of three books, including The Well of Being: Childhood, Subjectivity, and Education (SUNY Press 2006), and of numerous articles, which have appeared in journals such as Educational Theory, Teachers College Record, Journal of Philosophy of Education, and Philosophy Today.

Emily J. Klein is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching. She previously taught high school English in NYC where she developed and implemented interdisciplinary curriculum. She is the author of several articles on high school professional development and building communities of practice, and recently published a book with Teachers College Press entitled Going to Scale with New School Designs: Reinventing High School.

Tyson E. Lewis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Foundations. His research interests include philosophy of education, critical theory, critical pedagogy, and aesthetic philosophy/practice. Articles by Dr. Lewis have appeared in journals such as Educational Theory, Cultural Critique, Theory Culture and Critique, and Theory and Event. He is also the author of several books including Education Out of Bounds: Reimagining Cultural Studies for a Posthuman Age (New York: Palgrave, 2010) and The Aesthetics of Education (London: Continuum, in press).

Cynthia Onore is a Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching and the former Director of the Center of Pedagogy, where she created a number of urban initiatives including the Urban Teaching Academy, a collaborative project with the Newark and Paterson schools designed to recruit, prepare and support teachers for inner city teaching. A former high school English teacher in Newark and New York City, Dr. Onore was also Founding Director of Teacher Education at the New School University and a faculty member at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the City College of New York. She has published numerous articles and two books,including Learning Change, which won the Richard Meade Award for Research in English Education from the National Council of Teachers of English. Her research interests include urban teacher education, professional development for teacher leadership and school change,and collaboration in teacher education.

Jeremy N. Price is the Program Director, and Professor and Chair of the Department of Educational Foundations. His research interests include teacher education for social justice, action research, youth identities and schooling, transformative pedagogies, and educational policy and teaching. He has published widely in leading educational journals such as Journal of Curriculum Studies, Journal of Teacher Education, Curriculum Inquiry, and Curriculum and Teaching. His books include Against the Odds: The Meaning of School and Relationships in the Lives of Six African American Young Men (Greenview Press, 2000).

Dorothy Rogers is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion. She is a member of the Society of Women in Philosophy, the Society for the Study of Women Philosophers, and the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. She is currently exploring the connections between feminism, altruism, and pacifism in political life. She is the author of America's First Women Philosophers: Transplanting Hegel (Continuum, 2005), has published articles in Hypatia, and served as subject area editor for entries on women for the Dictionary of Early American Philosophers and the Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers (Thoemmes, 2005 and 2010).

Eric J. Weiner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Early Childhood, Elementary and Literacy Education. His current research explores the relationship between schooling and the hegemonic imagination; anti-schooling, de-schooling and post-schooling; and the link between critical thought and creative social action. Recent publications by Dr. Weiner include "Time is on Our Side: Rewriting the Space of Imagination" Situations: Project of the Radical Imaginary. Vol. 3:1 (2009), 125-150, and "Critical Thought/Creative Action: Developing A Pedagogy of Transformative Leadership," In C.M. Shields (Ed): Transformative Leadership Reader (New York: Peter Lang, in press).

Mark Weinstein is a Professor in the Department of Educational Foundations. He publishes in philosophy of education, critical thinking, informal logic and argumentation theory in journals that include Educational Theory, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Studies in Philosophy and Education, Educational Philosophy and Theory, Philosophica, Informal Logic, Argumentation and Computing and Philosophy. Edited volumes include, Critical Thinking as an Educational Ideal, Critical Thinking: Implications for Teaching and Teachers and Critical Thinking: Language and Inquiry Across the Disciplines. He previously served as Associate Director of the Institute for Critical Thinking at Montclair State University and Co-Director of the Reasoning Skills Project in NYC.

Program of Study:

Degree Requirements: Students must complete a minimum of 60 credits beyond the master's degree, including five pedagogy courses (15 credits), seven philosophy courses (21 credits), three courses of research (9 credits), and a minimum of 12 credits of dissertation advisement. All work for the doctoral degree must be completed within seven (7) years from the date of the start of the program.

Candidacy for the Degree: The qualifying assessment for candidacy for the Ed.D. in Pedagogy and Philosophy degree will be the development, presentation, and evaluation of a working portfolio that is organized around a set of pedagogical goals selected in consultation with a doctoral advisor. It is designed to be tangible and authentic evidence of the wide range of knowledge, dispositions, and skills that doctoral degree candidates should possess. The portfolio is characterized by a systematic, reflective collection of selected artifacts that constitutes evidence of learning, growth, and mastery in the essential dimensions of the doctoral program. All candidates will be required to present their portfolio for assessment in a forum designed for this purpose. Students whose portfolios meet established criteria will have their records reviewed for advancement to candidacy. Successful candidates will then be able to complete their remaining coursework and the dissertation.

Dissertation: Once candidacy is established, students will be permitted to enroll in the dissertation proposal seminar and form a dissertation committee. The dissertation must be original theoretically-based, applied research that has the potential to contribute knowledge about the process of teaching, learning and schooling. The research must include a focus on one or more of the core dimensions of the program or, the candidate's area of specialization. It should demonstrate mastery of a body of existing literature and theory and its application to an educational problem. The dissertation requirement is intended to provide candidates with the opportunity to explore an important applied issue in a scholarly fashion and investigate the ways teaching and learning may benefit from that exploration.

Course Requirements:

The course requirements listed below apply to those students admitted on or after Fall 2010. Anyone admitted prior to this term should refer to their Analysis of Academic Progress on WESS or see your academic advisor for your official program of study.