Contact Kristen
Mail Code CSI
Kristen Luschen
Franklin Patterson Hall 210
413.559.5357
Kristen Luschen
Five College Professor of Education Studies
Kristen Luschen, Five College professor of education studies, received her B.A. and M.A. in sociology from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She received her doctorate in cultural foundations of education and a certificate of advanced study in women's studies from Syracuse University.
Her research and teaching explores how cultural conceptions of youth shape school culture and policy and the experiences of young people in them. Professor Luschen's research has examined how adult female educators working within the umbrella of pregnancy prevention services at an urban school district struggled to provide access to services and sexuality education for all young people in their district.
Her current research examines how local educators in small schools struggle to meet the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act. Professor Luschen and her students have created a documentary, The Cost of Accountability: Teaching under the No Child Left Behind Act, which explores the experiences of these educators. She teaches courses in sociology of education, qualitative and feminist methodology, gender studies, and cultural studies of education.
Recent and Upcoming Courses
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Public education is one of the most contested institutions in American society, shaped by competing political, social, and economic forces. This course invites students to examine the evolving project of public education while developing the analytic tools needed to assess contemporary educational policy. Through readings and discussions, we will explore what it means to be educated in the United States and consider how various processes and policies have expanded or restricted access to educational opportunity and equity. Throughout the semester, we will interrogate the relationship between education, national identity, and belonging, asking why public education has come to represent both the promise of democracy and a source of enduring conflict. The course is both reading- and writing-intensive, and students are expected to engage actively in small-group work and whole-class discussions. Keywords:education, sociology, power, race, school
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Higher education institutions have long operated within structures and norms that position professors as experts and students as learners. In response, educators influenced by critical perspectives have sought to empower 'student voice' in the academy as a radical and transformative intervention. How can we understand these efforts in a post-truth, neoliberal education context in which notions of expertise are increasingly unsettled? We will examine case studies of SaP programs across U.S. and Australian colleges and universities to consider how socio-political and institutional contexts influence the creation and shape of these initiatives. At the relational level of partnership, we will explore the complexities of power-sharing between faculty and students, especially in the context of evolving attacks on the academy, and how positionality (with regard to race, gender, first gen college, etc) influences the lived experience of partnership Keywords:education, higher education, policy, teaching