Literacy education MA / PhD

To ensure the success of all of our C&I MA and PhD current students, enhance the student experience for future graduate students, and based upon changing federal education guidelines and available funding, the Department of Curriculum & Instruction is pausing admissions on this program for one calendar year. No students will be admitted to start this program in the Fall 2027-Spring 2028 academic year. Admissions processes will resume in Fall 2027 to admit students for Fall 2028. All updated admissions information will be available by September 2027.

The pause of admissions only applies to the MA and/or PhD program on this page. This does not affect the admissions and enrollment procedures for other programs such as the Curriculum & Instruction's MEd programs or certificates. Those programs will continue to admit and enroll students without pause. 

We are a politically committed program, with particular emphasis on literacy and teaching practices that contribute to racial and climate justice. Our faculty investigate:

• the power of children's literature and media to help build climate literacy and accelerate a transition to an ecological civilization
• culturally and linguistically responsive early literacy assessment and instruction
• the creation of multimedia stories that participate in social justice and climate literacy through embodied learning, youth participatory action research, and visual literacy 
• processes of racialization in K-12 school and classroom environments to foster anti-racist teaching
• literature, performance, and the arts that center the perspectives of those most affected by environmental injustice and that advance inclusive environmental literacy and place-based education 
• methods by which educators and youth can resist and heal from racial trauma 
• the preparation and ongoing development of future teachers who are committed to radical transformation of educational spaces and enacting anti-racist/anti-oppressive pedagogies 
• the promise and problems of progressive and critical writing pedagogies 
• how white people learn to be white 

We are committed to working with students to support them as they search for the answers that they and their communities need. As a faculty, we do not claim to know all of the answers and we encourage students to engage in a variety of perspectives and methods in their study of literacy education. Graduates are prepared to assume leadership roles in local, national, and international organizations, as well as assume faculty positions in literacy education and teacher education.