EDUC 018. Critical Perspectives

In this course, students strengthen their critical reading, writing, and thinking skills by examining a selected theme for the semester. The course is designed to support the development of critical analysis and reflection in a workshop format, as students read, write, talk, and think together doing projects of significance to learners and institutions, such as schools, and in the interest of civic engagement, engaged scholarship, and social justice. The course will draw upon historical, socio-political, research, and theoretical frameworks to explore questions of engagement, stasis, reform, and change. This course may or may not include fieldwork.

In the Spring 2025 course, Critical Perspectives: Child & Young Adult Literature, we reflect upon and strengthen our critical thinking, reading, writing, and oral and visual expression while exploring essential questions about the use of young people’s literature in schooling and society. We will explore the following questions and more:

• What are the key issues in C&YA literature in schools & society?

• What is C&YA literature for? What is or should its role be in learning and curriculum? In society?

• How could C&YA literature’s history of representations, misrepresentations, and omissions be rectified?

• What are the uses of reading and re-reading?

• Who chooses literature and strategies for using literature in schools?

• What is or should be the roles of librarians, teachers, parents, education leaders, politicians, and young people in choosing and using literature?

• How can we conceptualize C&YA literature for decoding, comprehending, responding, analysis, cultural transmission, social justice and cultural change?

We will read and engage with a variety of C&YA texts. We will grapple with these questions using pedagogical, historical, socio-political, and theoretical frameworks. We will work to be self-reflective as we become generative problem identifiers and solvers. As the Spring 2025 Educational Studies’ “Critical Perspectives” course, we will also reflect on criticality and its role in our identities and practices.

The upcoming Spring 2026 EDUC 018 course will focus on “Critical Perspectives: Teaching in Higher Education”.

Prerequisite: EDUC 014: Pedagogy and Power, or permission from the instructor.
Social sciences.
1 credit.
Eligible for ESCH.
Spring 2025. Anderson.
Spring 2026. Allard.
Spring 2027. Staff.

Access the class schedule to search for sections.