Early Childhood & Childhood Education, Ph.D.
NYU Steinhardt's Department of Teaching and Learning welcomes applications from individuals seeking a rigorous doctoral program in Early Childhood and Childhood Education. Its focus is the preparation of researchers and educators dedicated to improving children's access to equitable opportunities for learning from birth through elementary school.
The doctoral program, which leads to a Ph.D., requires a minimum of 60 points beyond the master’s degree. The program is designed for people seeking leadership roles such as serving on a college or university faculty, as an educational researcher, or as a curriculum specialist. Extensive individual mentoring is available by our skilled faculty representing many dimensions of early childhood and childhood education.
Points are distributed among courses in the foundations, cognate areas, research, specialization, and dissertation research and preparation. The program is flexible and highly individualized, providing specialties in such related areas as teacher education, curriculum development, child development, innovations in schooling, and specific content areas such as literacy, numeracy, and social studies. Extensive faculty mentoring is a distinctive feature of the doctoral program.
A World-Class Facility for Research
NYU Steinhardt offers a world-class facility for conducting educational research. Factors that distinguish its doctoral programs are:
- Faculty conduct research in a wide variety of educational settings, providing doctoral students with a wide range of potential sites for research activities
- Faculty use a wide range of qualitative and quantitative methodologies
- Faculty serve as doctoral advisors across discipline and program areas
- Programs are designed to foster community among the students and promote greater interaction with research faculty
- Programs are designed to prepare students for all aspects of research process including development and design of research proposals, implementation of a research agenda and dissemination of finding
- NYU Steinhardt's location is one of the most ethnically diverse and cosmopolitan in the world
Faculty Research Interests
Teaching and Learning Early Childhood and Childhood Faculty. Faculty interests and research center on the following key themes in teaching and learning for children from birth through the primary grades:
- Human and child development
- Social contexts of learning
- The influence of culture on teaching and learning
- Multiple ways of knowing
- Families as partners in children's schooling
- The uses of evaluation and assessment in teaching and learning
- The impact of language and literacy development on children's learning
- Curriculum development
Faculty participate in grants and studies that provide students with opportunities to establish their own research agenda.
Degree Requirements
All doctoral students must complete both Steinhardt-wide and area specific requirements for a total of 60 points prior to the dissertation.
Steinhardt-wide requirements are as follows:
- Pro-Seminar, to be taken in the first semester (3 pts)
- Two cognate courses, to be selected by the doctoral student with approval of the advisor; must be taken in an area outside of the student's concentration that are supportive to the student's research (6 pts)
- Two Foundations courses (6 pts)
- Five research methodology courses, two of which (one quantitative and one qualitative) must be taken in the first year (15 pts)
- One specialized methodology course to support the student's area of
- research (see p. 5 of Steinhardt handbook) (3 pts)
- Doctoral Dissertation Seminar (3 pts)
Early Childhood and Childhood Education specific requirements are as follows:
- Four seminars, two of which must be taken in the first year (12 pts)
- Child Development in Early Childhood or Childhood
- Advanced Studies of Theories of Learning in Early Childhood and Childhood
- Advanced Study of Literacy Development, Teaching, and Learning in Childhood and Childhood Education
- Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood and Childhood Education
Advising
Each doctoral student is assigned a faculty advisor in the doctoral student's chosen area of specialization. This advisor serves as an interim academic advisor until the doctoral student selects a doctoral dissertation advisor.
Admissions
All prospective students must meet or provide the following criteria for consideration of admission:
- M.A. or M.S. degree, preferably in education or a related field
- 3.5 grade point average in masters program
- Official transcripts from all previous degree granting institutions
- Graduate Record Exam (GRE)
- Statement of Purpose
- Writing sample that shows evidence of capacity for research (e.g., literature review, data collection, data analysis)
- 3 recommendations (2 academic, 1 work related)