Language, Culture, and Education

*Taught Online*   In this course, we examine past and current theories and research about differential educational achievement in US schools, including: (1) theories that focus on the characteristics of people (e.g., their psychological characteristics, their internal traits, their essential qualities); (2) theories that focus on the characteristics of groups and settings, (e. g., ethnic group culture, language, school culture); and (3) theories that examine how cultural processes mediate political-economic constraints and human action. Course discussion will focus on understanding the ways in which language and/or culture are conceptualized in these positions and their educational consequences, especially for racialized students from historically marginalized communities in the US.