The interdisciplinary minor in Education, Inquiry, and Justice (EDIJ) recognizes the many ways the examination of education is alive and well at Georgetown in scholarship and in student service in the community. Through this rigorous program, students explore the complexities of education in the US with faculty across the curriculum who put education at the center of their research and teaching. The minor also is a collaborative effort between faculty and departments in Georgetown College and co-curricular programs at the Center for Social Justice, through which much of the important work in DC classrooms is organized. This focus on education is nourished deeply by Georgetown’s Jesuit tradition, which from its very beginnings has looked to education as a critical means to promote justice. The minor in Education, Inquiry, and Justice offers a chance to engage students in the study of education in collaborative and innovative ways.
The minor promotes the notion that education is not just a technical process of transmission or delivery, but a dynamic endeavor that plays an essential role in the development of the whole person—the intellectual, artistic, physical, affective, moral, social, and political capacities that make us human. Grounded in this conception of education, the minor adopts an interdisciplinary approach to core questions about the nature of education and human well-being. What is the purpose of education in a diverse democracy? How does change take place in educational systems? What are the implications of democracy for schooling? What does it mean to know and what is worth knowing? How does one learn, and what affects the learning process? Examination of these issues and more requires a variety of disciplinary approaches, so the minor builds on courses in philosophy, psychology, government, sociology, linguistics, and others.
Declaring EDIJ as a Minor
To declare the minor, students should complete the declaration form available on the EDIJ website (https://edij.georgetown.edu/). The declaration form is open at the beginning of each spring semester. Please direct questions to edij@georgetown.edu.
Requirements for the Minor
Six courses (19 credits) are required to complete the minor. There are two anchor courses: EDIJ 3200 (CBL) EDIJ Gateway Course: Intro to Urban Education (fall only) and EDIJ 4970: EDIJ Capstone Course (spring semester for seniors only). Although enrollment is not restricted, students are encouraged to take EDIJ 3200
in the fall of their freshman or sophomore year.
Four other course categories that comprise the EDIJ curriculum. Students take one course from each category. Some are offered by EDIJ; others are chosen from a broad range of disciplines. The purpose of this course distribution is to provide a comprehensive, interdisciplinary study of education as a tool for justice in our diverse democracy.
Learning and Human Development: These courses examine how humans learn generally and within specific contexts/communities and are typically offered in Psychology, Cognitive Science, Linguistics, and Biology.
Education Core: These courses provide a foundational exploration of the challenges, (in)equities, and (in)justices in US public education. These courses tend to be broad in nature and may engage students in skill building or develop students’ knowledge of foundational disciplinary concepts in adjacent disciplines. Examples include Philosophy of Education or Sociology of Education.
Justice and Education: These courses examine issues of power, oppression, and resistance in education within specific contexts. For example, Choice, Chance, and Power is a deep analysis of neoliberal approaches to choice in public education, exploring policy, advocacy, implementation, and implications of vouchers, charter schools, public discourses on competition, privatization, and choice.
Praxis: These courses foster students’ community-engaged learning and help them bridge theory to practice. Typically, students serve within or on behalf of educational organizations (i.e., schools, advocacy organizations, policy organizations, non-profit organizations) 25-30 hours per semester outside of class meeting times in conjunction with an aligned course. Students’ community-engaged work helps them contextualize and complicate course content. Examples include Educating the Whole Child and Education, Advocacy, and Equity.
Course List
| Code |
Title |
Credits |
| EDIJ 3200 | Gateway Sem in Urban Education (fall semester only) | 4 |
| EDIJ 4970 | Educ/Inquiry/Justice Capstone (spring semester only, seniors only) | 3 |
| 3 |
| Philosophy of Education | |
| Education and Society | |
| 3 |
| Urban Inequality | |
| Global Education | |
| 3 |
| How Langs are Learned | |
| Early Childhood Education | |
| 3 |
| Children with Disabilities (w/ CBL) | |
| Education, Equity, & Advocacy | |
| Total Credits | 19 |
Students can count one course taken elsewhere (abroad or through transfer credit) to fulfill one of these course categories with approval of the course syllabus from the EDIJ Director.
The course titles listed are examples of past courses and do not constitute an exhaustive list. Courses can change each semester, and course content may change in ways that no longer align with the minor’s goals. The EDIJ website contains the most up-to-date information about program requirements and opportunities, and students are encouraged to visit the EDIJ website (https://edij.georgetown.edu/) and email edij@georgetown.edu for more information.
