PhD in Community Research and Action at Vanderbilt University

The graduate program in community research and action is an interdisciplinary program combining community psychology, urban sociology, human geography, applied anthropology, and human and community development. It trains action-researchers committed to promoting social justice in rigorous theoretical analysis and research methods to prepare them for careers in academia, research, and public policy. The Ph.D. degree includes (a) a core set of courses covering inequality, diversity and social justice, community intervention and change, community inquiry (social research methods), public policy and advocacy, and organizational theory and change; (b) advanced research methodology covering quantitative, qualitative, and critical methods, action research, field research, and program evaluation; and (c) minor concentrations that are designed individually, drawing from Human and Organizational Development Department courses (in community organizing and development, community health, human development and prevention science) and from other departments and specializations within Peabody College (e.g., quantitative methods, urban education) and throughout the university (e.g., anthropology, divinity, gender and sexuality studies, global health, political science, sociology). Planning is done with the major professor and approved by the student's committee. Students receive practical training and experience in teaching, grant-writing and applied research, and program or policy work in collaboration with nonacademic partners. Students entering without a relevant master's degree or with a nonempirical master's must complete an empirical study or thesis (and receive the master of science in CRA as part of the Ph.D. program).