About Theory & Policy Studies in Education

The Department of Theory and Policy Studies in Education is the 6th largest graduate department at the University of Toronto and represents the convergence of several discrete professional and social science discipline-based programs, linked by their common strong commitment to the social foundational aspects of education. The department consists of three Ontario Council on Graduate Studies (OCGS) approved graduate programs: Educational Administration; Higher Education, and History and Philosophy of Education. The department also contributes to collaborative graduate programs in Educational Policy, Comparative, International and Development Education, Women's Studies, and Urban Education.

The department houses three Research Chairs: a TPS Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Educational Leadership; an Ontario Research Chair (ORC) in Postsecondary Policy and Measurement, and the endowed Davis Chair in Community College Leadership. It is also the base for two research centres: the International Centre for Educational Change and the Centre on Leadership and Diversity.

The academic staff consists of scholars with strong international reputations in their fields as well as a number of highly regarded educational system leaders and builders.

TPS students represent a range of professional backgrounds, primarily but not exclusively in the educational sector, and most have as their professional goals; practitioner, academic, and policy making/administrative careers. Students come from many countries as well as from surrounding school districts: recent students, for example, are from Brazil, Kenya, Namibia, China, Iran, India, Pakistan, the US, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Nunavut and Newfoundland.

Graduates to date include academics in a number of US and Canadian universities as well as those occupying senior administrative positions such as superintendent, research officers and curriculum assessment officers in school districts.