The Division of Social Science and Comparative Education (SSCE) is concerned with issues of social, cultural, historical, and comparative/international contexts of education. The Division is multidisciplinary and brings various methodologies and vocabularies--discourse analysis, agency, representation and structure--as well as classical approaches to the study of education. The faculty of the Division encompasses numerous perspectives and orientations including postmodernism, feminism, ethnic studies, critical theory, critical race theory, and cultural studies. The Division shares its commitment to theory with an equal commitment to empirical research, policy, and practice. That is, our concern with theory does not preclude but rather implies a concern with policy and practice as well, both in terms of formal education (e.g. classroom research), informal education (e.g. mass media research and representation) and nonformal education (e.g. participatory action research, popular education).

The Division has defined four areas of inquiry. These four areas of sub-specialization, are: 1) philosophical/historical studies in education, 2) cultural studies in education, 3) race and ethnic studies in education, and 4) comparative/international studies in education.

Academic preparation in the SSCE Division is designed to prepare students (a) to teach and conduct research in philosophical/historical, cultural, race, ethnic, gender, and comparative/international studies in education, (b) to act as specialists for U.S. and overseas programs, non-governmental agencies, and multilateral and bilateral technical assistance agencies, (c) to engage in philosophical, historical, critical theoretical, cross-cultural, comparative, and social science analysis of educational issues in the United States and in other areas of the world, (d) to provide resource assistance for institutions and programs concerned with cultural studies, media technology, critical pedagogy, and multicultural, ethnic and cross-cultural education.

The SSCE Division offers both the Masters and Ph.D. degree in the following sub-specializations.

The program in Philosophical/Historical Studies in Education trains students in classical philosophy of education, the problems in contemporary philosophy of education, and more specialized topics in the philosophy of education such as aesthetic education, moral education, multicultural education, science and education, as well as the history and historiography of education.

The program seeks students interested in pursuing research into the role education played in the past in the good life and the good society as well as in normative questions concerning what education is and should be today. We are also interested in contemporary issues in education situated in historical and comparative context, such as the impact of postmodernism, feminism, multicultural, and critical race theories on education; the new methodologies emerging from these perspectives and the emerging technologies which suggest both perils and promises for a potentially progressive reconstruction of education.

The program in Cultural Studies in Education develops critical media pedagogies. It focuses on critical approaches to representations of gender, race, class, and sexual preference in education and culture; and the new literacies necessary to critical analyze and interpret media culture, cyberculture, and multimedia culture.

More specifically, the program focuses on the critical analysis of media culture as a form of cultural pedagogy. Cultural Studies has emerged as a form of counterpedagogy that analyzes and dissects the production and the products of media culture. The program will investigate current trends in Cultural Studies through examination of different methods of cultural interpretation, seminal texts in Cultural Studies, and practical criticism engaging popular artifacts of media culture. Emphasis will be on developing critical media literacy.

The program in Race and Ethnic Studies in Education is an interdisciplinary program of educational research, practice, and policy that focuses on racial and ethnic minorities in the United States and abroad. The program explores the relationships between educational practices and structures (i.e. the social and cultural context) and the production and reproduction of racial, ethnic, gender, and class inequalities and conflicts. The program recognizes that educational institutions are among the most significant arenas in which these topics can be explored.

The Race and Ethnic Studies in Education program will focus on such areas as:

1. Analyzing existing and developing theoretical frameworks to examine the educational experiences of racial and ethnic minorities.
2. Analyzing existing and developing methodologies for conducting educational research in racial and ethnic minority settings.
3. Examining the interaction between theory, methods, and practice in racial and ethnic minority educational settings.
4. Training for leadership in setting the educational research and policy agenda for racial and ethnic minorities.

The Comparative/International Education program trains students in various facets of comparative, international, and cross-cultural education studies. Its general aims are: First, to train specialists in comparative/international education. Second, to train specialists in the development of comparative/international education theories as well as research in field settings. Third, to promote and foster understanding of how educational policies and programs impact on social and economic development. Fourth, to focus on issues of equity and justice in a global context. Fifth, to train students for leadership roles in government and non-government agencies.

Structurally, the specialization follows the pattern of the general UCLA campus, in that its specialists operate within an area studies structure. That is, comparative education specialists give attention to specific geographic regions of the world, though their research is also of a broader nature.

Comparative education relies on a social science foundation. Its specialists are identified with the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, political science, economics, and history. Students are recruited from these backgrounds, though other fields, such as applied linguistics, are relevant to the field.