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Curriculum Studies, Ph.D.

degree requirements

A minimum of 96 semester hours of graduate work beyond the baccalaureate or 64 semester hours beyond the masters degree is required for a doctoral degree. The plan of study for each student is prepared in consultation with, and must be approved by, the faculty advisor assigned in the student's area of specialization. All students are required to complete the core curriculum, appropriate work in the areas of specialization, a research project, and a doctoral dissertation. Each of these requirements is spelled out below.

A. Core Curriculum (16 semester hours)

The core curriculum introduces students to issues in the conduct of educational research and begins the process of building methodological skills. The courses are:

1. ED 500 --Philosophical Foundations of Educational Inquiry
2. ED 501 --Data & Interpretation in Educational Inquiry
3. ED 502 --Essentials of Qualitative Inquiry in Education
4. ED 503/EPSY 503 --Essentials of Quantitative Inquiry in Education (Students may register under the ED or EPSY rubric.)

B. Area of Concentration (24 semester hours if student has a Master's, 56 without)

Each student is expected to specialize in particular aspects of curriculum studies (e.g., curriculum theory, curriculum history, teacher education, curriculum development or design, mathematics education, science education, bilingual education, school improvement, critical curriculum studies, curriculum and pedagogy, focus on issues of race or class or gender, or other specializations worked out with the advisor).

Two courses are required, CI 574, Foundations of Curriculum Studies (4 hours), and CI 500, Proseminar in Curriculum and Instruction (1 hour, graded S-U). The remaining courses should be taken with consultation from your advisor.

There are a wide variety of graduate courses offered in the College of Education that encompass each of the areas of study. While students may take courses exclusively in the College of Education, we encourage you to take courses in other departments of the university, such as Anthropology, English, History, Philosophy, Psychology, Public Policy, Sociology, and Women's' Studies.

Such courses can help you develop conceptual and methodological tools for use in the study of an educational issue. These outside courses can count toward the degree, although they cannot constitute more than a third of a student's total course hours in the area of specialization. Students should also be apprised that they can take courses toward their degree at member universities of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC). This includes all Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago. Students pay UIC tuition rates for courses taken at theses institutions. Such courses must be arranged through consultation with a UIC faculty advisor and appropriate personnel at the cooperating institution.

C. Research Project (8 semester hours)

All students in the doctoral program work on a research project in collaboration with a faculty member or a team of faculty members and students. Projects will focus on actual research problems in the student's area of concentration. Each student will make a formal presentation, oral and/or written, of the project findings. Students are encouraged to use this work as a basis for a manuscript to be submitted for a scholarly conference presentation or a publication.

D. Preliminary Examination

The preliminary examination is taken upon completion of all required course work. It consists of two parts. The comprehensive written portion is based on the student's course work. The oral portion is based upon the student's written dissertation proposal and is presented to a faculty committee.

E. Dissertation (16 semester hours)

A dissertation based on original research is required and must be defended before a faculty committee. The research must employ a theoretical framework and make use of methods of inquiry appropriate to the problem being investigated. In sum, a student's distribution of semester hour credits required for the doctoral degree will be as follows (these are minimum hours; many students take more hours than the minimum):