Answer ONE of these questions in no less than five pages (about 1250 words) or more than ten pages (2500 words)

(note that you must discuss at least two of the required readings from the second half of the course to answer any of the questions, as well as any from the first half)
(and do not forget my instructions about formatting)

  1. (Hint: you may use your own experiences as a form of "autoethnography") Take one example of "gendering" (for example, choosing a major in college, or a graduate school, or anything similar), and then discuss the value of emphasizing either unconscious patterns learned in one's early childhood or an ongoing process of education into possibilities and constraints?
     
  2. [same question as #1 but focussing on (dis-)abilities (handicaps, etc.)]
     
  3. (Hint: same as for question 1)Starting with any of the ethnographies you have read, sketch the possible differences in the control of curriculum and pedagogies between what is taught in schools and what is taught by parents and friends
  4. It has been said that schools are the products of an uneasy alliance between intellectuals or philosophers (e.g. Dewey, or Tao Xingzhi) and strong states designing and reforming policies about prescribed pedagogies or curricula. What might what some of the ethnographies you have read suggest about the power and limits of the State to control the overall education people give each other?
     
  5. (Hint: your opinion can only be a starting point. I expect you to make an argument in support of your opinion using several of the ethnographies as examples) Given a major interest of yours relating to educational policy, what might be the use of the kinds of ethnographies we have read?
     
  6. Consider your experiences as you applied to Teachers College, got accepted, and have now experienced what it offers.  In what ways might the process be considered as an "apprenticeship" in the way Lave writes about it?  What aspects of your experience suggest possible limitations in her model?
     

  7. This outline should end with the kind of questions you would investigate: no need to mention any methodology

    Outline a proposal for research that is triggered by some of what you read but appears not to have been investigated so far and should be investigated from a more specifically "educational" point of view.