Final Project Option I: REFORM PLAN (230 points)

1. EDF 501 Final Project Options Dr. Fregeau

3. Final Project Option I: REFORM PLAN(230 points)

5. Identify a sociology related problem in your school, district, workplace or community. Investigate the sociological issues (i.e. gender, race, religion, social class) of the problem and then design an implementable and culturally sensitive plan to resolve it. Project proposals must be approved before work may begin. Students are encouraged to work in groups or individually. The following are three sample focuses your project might take:

7. 1: Applied Sociology of Schools Project

8. Using Banks' Figure 1.5 (handout) and/or NCSS guidelines checklist (packet) as a guide study your school's social system from a sociological/cultural perspective to identify problems to investigate and reform.

10. 2:Applied Multicultural Curricular Reform

11. Using a checklist adapted from the NCSS guidelines checklist (packet), examine curriculum used in your classroom, department and/or school. Identify and select sociological problem/focus (i.e. gender bias) in the curriculum to investigate and reform.

13. 3:Community based Project (for non-education students)

14. Identify a specific community institution (workplace, city government, a business, etc.) which perpetuates social inequity/injustices. Using Bank’s, Figure 1.3 and the course outline as guides, do an evaluation of sociological/cultural areas (gender, sexual orientation, etc.) where inequity exists. Choose to investigate and reform one or more of these sociological/cultural areas which effect educational outcomes.

16. You may select 1, 2, or 3or invent your own focus. You will select and submit for approval a focus to study and explanation of how you will study it (Proposal). When you have received approval you will collect two categories of information: from scholarly sources (Literature Review) and from field sources i.e. interviews (i.e. with school personnel, parents, students), observations, and/or review of documents (i.e. student records, text books, curriculum guides) (Data Report). You will then compare literature and field information and create an implementable and culturally sensitive plan to resolve the problem/address the issue (Final Report).

19. 1) Proposal (20 points)

21. In your proposal (2-3 pages):

23. a) identify the project focus/topic,

25. b) preliminary research (i.e. informal poll on sociological problems at school),

27. c) a summary of how you will complete your field research (include tentative interview questions, who you

28. might interview, what types of documents you might review, observations you might do), and

30. d) include permission from the appropriate authorities if applicable.

32. e) list education-related, topic-related scholarly articles in a preliminary bibliography,

34. Consultations on proposed projects will be on or before Week 3 when you will receive feedback and approval to proceed. DUE: Week 3 or 4

35. 2) Literature Review (50 points)

37. Your (3 pages/person) Literature Review will contain background information from a minimum of four (4) recent empirical sources, at least 2 must be from scholarlybooks/journals (see handout for specifics) specifically concerning the selected culture and education issues of that culture. These articles will NOT be summarized, nor will they be critiqued: rather, the ideas from various articles will be integrated into a background of information pertaining to your project. You will use information from these articles to guide your field research and to help design your interview questions, observation guidelines and for categories of documents for which to search. In your Final Report you will use the information from these scholarly articles to analyze (compare and contrast with) your field data from your interviews, observations and field documents and as a basis for the recommendations and conclusions you make in your final report. Your opinion and/or analysis of the articles is irrelevant in the literature review and should not be included. Authors must be correctly cited (APA/MLA/Chicago) in the text of your review and a bibliography must be attached. Two of the articles may be from your Discussion Leader topic. DUE: Week 6 or 7.

41. 3) Data Report (50 points)

43. In your Data Report document, interview and observation data will be detailed and summarized into a coherent, concise report. Data will be organized into sections according to issues that emerge as you examine the data. Your analysis/opinion in NOT in this paper. You will not submit raw data (i.e. surveys, interview transcriptions). DUE Week 10 or Week 11.

47. 4)Final Report (90 points)

49. In your Final Report (4-5 pages text per person):