Social Theory and Practice

"What the hell is that?" is the usual follow-up question when I tell them my other major. Social Theory and Practice offers some really interesting social science classes, blending sociology, economics, and philosophy and also grants the opportunity for a self-designed senior project/thesis.

Today I spoke to my advisor about my potential project. Here is the email I sent him:

" I would like to do my senior project in something involving education reform. Through examining a history of pedagogical thought, alternative educational models, and the cultural and economic byproducts of our current education system, I would like to take a stab of what the underlying paradigms in education—what students should learn and how should they learn it—could and should look like in the twenty first century. Education is an incredibly broad topic, and I expect to alter my path often as I begin the following research:

- The Schools our children deserve by Alfie Kohn

- Instead of Education by John Holt

- Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School by S.R Kahn.

- Summerhill School: A New View of Childhood by A.S. Neill

- Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

- Compulsory Mis-Education, and the Community of Scholars by Paul Goodman

- Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey

- The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch

- Education and Social Change: Contours in the History of American Schooling by John Rury

- The Making of Americans: Democracy and our schools by E.D. Hirsch

- The End of Education by Neil Postman

- The Element by Ken Robinson (as well as all the research under the “The Learning Revolution” Facebook group created subsequent to his TED talk).

- A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink

- The Race between Education and Technology by Claudia Goldin and Larry Katz.

- Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol"

I'm curious to hear if you have any book recommendations or thoughts for me. Let me know.