MEd, Educational Foundations

This program leads to a Master of Education in Educational Foundations with a specialization in Global Perspectives on Educational Policy and Practice. This program is designed to prepare individuals in a range of positions to meaningfully incorporate global perspectives into their professional practice—including classroom teachers, school leaders, school system administrators, higher education practitioners and administrators, athletics coaches, study abroad facilitators, community leaders, education analysts, researchers, and professionals working in non-profit or non-governmental organizations. This unique master’s program examines how the interaction of global and local forces related to culture, technology, economics, and politics affects education policy and practice in a multitude of ways from early childhood education through advanced graduate studies. As the interaction and effects of global-local forces continue to manifest and evolve, the insights gained are not only essential for professionals across every level of education but also across geographic regions, from the United States to the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

Globalization presents challenges and opportunities by making the world more economically interconnected, by facilitating the dissemination of ideas and knowledge, by encouraging the movement of peoples, by creating new political bodies that create education policies at the supranational level, and by placing new pressures on local communities and national economic systems—all of which has major implications for education. A key feature of this master’s is that it goes beyond a focus on understanding these dimensions of globalization to also provide program participants with tools, frameworks, lessons, and strategies that can be adapted to numerous educational and organizational contexts. There are valuable resources embedded in this program that can help you improve your practice—and the practices of your organization—whether you are a classroom teacher, a school leader, a higher education professional, a school system administrator, or any of the other professional positions mentioned above. The courses in this program will focus on topical issues that are common to all educational systems and are appropriate for education professionals in diverse geographical locations. As indicated by the course titles further below, the courses focus, among other things, on how to understand the effects of globalization on education; how to analyze and improve education policy (and organizational policy more generally); drawing lessons from the educational policies and practices of a range of countries; critically understanding multiculturalism and diversity; analyzing education from a “systems” perspective that emphasizes the interaction, complexity, and dialectical feedback loops that characterize the relationship between system components and the system as a whole; and examining the strategies and responses of teachers, principals, higher education professionals, organizational leaders, and communities when it comes to how they “internationalize” their curricula, leadership, and programmatic activities.

Because this program focuses on policy dynamics, educational practice, and organizational responses to contemporary contextual challenges, it is ideal for students and professionals working in a range of institutional or community contexts. This is furthermore the case because the cumulative project for this program is designed in conjunction with feedback from the student’s advisor. In other words, the final project responds to the student’s interests. Through this project, students are encouraged to draw on the content, resources, and lessons from their classes as they deepen their understanding of key issues, acquire new skills, or create resources (e.g., curriculum units, program evaluations, service projects, etc.) that will serve them after the completion of the program. See here for more about the various forms that the final project can take.

Join a vibrant community of exceptional scholars and professionals from continental North America, Hawai‛i, and Asia to explore the world of educational policy and practice through a lens that connects the local and global. The online program features a mix of innovative strategies for engagement that include both synchronous and asynchronous participation. Classes will entail live video sessions. Other forms of engagement are discussion boards, student presentations, group discussions, virtual posters, and group work, as well as traditional academic papers. As noted, the two-year (22 months) program leads to the production of a cumulative project, for which students work closely with a faculty person during the second year. 

To learn more about some of the students who have completed this program in the past, see here and here.

Information session recording: Please click here to access the recording of an information session detailing our degree programs.

Note: This program will welcome its next cohort in Fall 2024.