CSSE Research Projects

There are two different ways to meet the capstone requirement for a Master's of Arts degree from the Graduate School of Education: (1) students can write a thesis, or (2) pass an oral examination administered by a panel of faculty associated with the Cultural Studies of Sport in Education concentration. Most students choose to write a thesis, since this option provides students with the opportunities to hone their academic writing skills, to create a lasting body of work that they can point to after completing the program, and to investigate a particular series of research questions that they find most interesting. Students will learn the skills necessary to write a cogent and critical thesis throughout EDUC 294, the year-long thesis seminar.

Students have produced a broad and fascinating collection of research projects throughout the tenure of the CSSE concentration, as demonstrated by this small sampling of thesis titles:

• Comparing self-theories of implicit ability and achievement-motivation between the academic and athletic domains of middle school students
• Socialization, sponsorship, and physicality: Women's ice hockey as a challenge to male hegemony in sport
• Barriers to academic success for junior college transfer student athletes
• Athletics and academics: Can they co-exist? The dilemma of African American high school student athletes
• Possibilities for critical and multicultural pedagogy in an "elite" English classroom
• Physical aggression in female athletes: A qualitative study of community college water polo players
• The true effect of Title IX at U.C. Berkeley
• The female sports fan: A qualitative study