phd in education nyc

Earn an Online Doctorate in Education from NYU

Innovative change in your organization starts here. expand your leadership skills and create new solutions to persistent challenges with your edd in leadership and innovation..

NYU Steinhardt’s EdD in Leadership and Innovation is more than an educational leadership degree program. It’s a cohort of professionals, faculty, and distinguished cross-sectoral leaders interested in education and learning. Collectively, they understand that by working together, they can effect sustainable and scalable change through education leadership jobs in their organizations.

This Doctorate in Education serves a diverse range of experienced professionals. Rooted in a rigorous academic experience and shared passion, the advanced degree is designed for cross-sector leaders who are motivated to create change in education and learning.

Students accepted into the program bring with them real-world challenges. They are encouraged to question and explore, to take risks and succeed, to push and innovate.

This is a unique educational leadership degree that addresses the needs of working professionals with a rigorous online doctorate in education program that can be completed in as few as 24 months.

We [leaders] need to know how to speak to each other in a common language. Our EdD in Leadership and Innovation creates the space where we can find a common language as we work across sectors to solve problems. Dr. Noel S. Anderson Founding Faculty

Solving problems means challenging preconceptions.

Transformative change can result when you allow your point of view to be questioned. So, one of the best ways to develop knowledge, skills, new approaches, and solutions is to work with others — people across all sectors who will challenge you with differing perspectives.

We bring together students and instructors from inside and outside the scope of traditional education to push you to think differently and to ask tough questions.

When you intentionally gather people from different personal and professional backgrounds to collaborate, something powerful occurs: change happens. It’s how to build new processes, solutions, policies, and powerful new tools — and how to create visionary leaders.

We believe leaders are learners, and that education is essential to great leadership.

The NYU EdD is a rigorous online doctorate degree program that combines the discipline of a top-tier university with an innovative approach to education and leadership. We offer accessibility through enhanced technology and the personal connection of face-to-face instruction.

We examine the most important issues leaders in education and learning face today and discover solutions that make change possible for tomorrow. We apply an academic lens to myriad sectors so students graduate from the doctoral program in education with the core competencies for impactful director and executive-level career options.

The research, analysis, writing, and critical thinking involved in students’ strategic design and implementation of a change management project are assets that students will bring to current and future employers.

Sociology of Education (PhD)

Program description.

This multidisciplinary PhD program in Sociology of Education prepares graduates to analyze educational problems and issues and social change using the theoretical tools and research methods of sociology. Students are expected to become thoroughly familiar with primary perspectives, theories, and questions of the discipline of sociology and the field of sociology of education. Candidacy, dissertation proposal, and dissertation are required. The Sociology of Education PhD program is 48 credits for students who matriculate with an MA and 65 credits for students who matriculate with a baccalaureate degree only.

The program prepares professors of educational sociology for schools and colleges of education or for universities with specializations in the area of sociology as it applies to education and researchers who can conduct basic and applied research in various public and private institutions in order to advance both the practice of education and the study of sociology.

Admission to graduate programs in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development requires the following minimum components:

Statement of Purpose
Letters of Recommendation
Transcripts
Proficiency in English

See NYU Steinhardt's Graduate Admissions website for additional information on school-wide admission. Some programs may require additional components for admissions.

See How to Apply for admission requirements and instruction specific to this program.

Program Requirements

Comprehensive examination, dissertation proposal, dissertation and final oral examination, additional program requirements.

After completing most of their coursework, and generally by the fall of their third year, students take an oral comprehensive examination. The exam consists of an oral examination in two areas: a list of core books and articles that our program considers to be foundational to the field of Sociology of Education and a list of readings, both theoretical and empirical, in an area of the student's specialization.

Once a student has passed the comprehensive exam, they advance to candidacy. At this point, they focus on preparing a dissertation proposal, which is approved by the student's dissertation committee and then by two outside readers during an oral dissertation proposal defense. Generally, the proposal is written and reviewed by the end of the third year of full-time doctoral study.

During this stage the candidate will collect and analyze the data required for the dissertation, complete the writing of the dissertation, and have a final oral examination. This stage ordinarily takes one to two years when attendance is full-time.

Sample Plan of Study

Following completion of the required coursework for the PhD, students are expected to maintain active status at New York University by enrolling in a research/writing course or a Maintain Matriculation ( MAINT-GE 4747 ) course. All non-course requirements must be fulfilled prior to degree conferral, although the specific timing of completion may vary from student-to-student.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the program, graduates will:

Display an expertise in an area of specialization in the sociology of education through the production of a high-quality MA thesis.
Think critically, undertake systematic investigations and research, and communicate effectively orally and in writing to academic and non-academic audiences.
Ask research questions and formulate problems using a broad range of theoretical and methodological tools.
Demonstrate knowledge of the larger social and cultural contexts that shape educational institutions and human learning.