Vanderbilt University, MEd, Learning, Diversity, and Urban Studies

Learning, Diversity, and Urban Studies (LDUS) is 31-hour program that provides you with the knowledge and the research skills to boost your success in education or related fields. Students in the LDUS program enroll in a yearlong seminar (Seminar I and II) that has been designed to build programmatic synergy and coherence among the central content strands of the program (learning, diversity, and urban studies) as well as to provide the intellectual grounding for the program’s integration of theory and action through praxis, the notion that when one acts thoughtfully in the world, one alters the world -- creating a changed reality that requires new interpretation, new response and new learning. You will engage, as Paulo Freire suggests, in “reflection and action aimed at structures to be transformed.” To build programmatic coherence, you will address some of the big ideas and issues regarding the intersection(s) of learning, diversity, and urban studies. In particular, we will consider how issues related to urban diversities (race, gender, class, religion, culture, language, sexual identity) influence what happens in urban social contexts.