Program Goals
The Master of Arts in Bilingual/Bicultural Studies may be either a part-time degree program or a full-time program (nine credits per semester or more) for educators and other professionals who work with the ever-growing Latino population of the Philadelphia area and the nation.
The overall goals and objectives of the program are as follows:
- To provide extensive bilingual and bicultural instruction for nurses, hospital employees, social workers, business professionals, court employees, police officers, human resources professionals, and others.
- To develop, for advanced language students, the capabilities of using vocabulary that is pertinent to a particular Hispanic culture to allow circumstantial language usage.
- To assure that students are exposed to a variety of Hispanic cultures on a first-hand basis through community service.
- To develop an application and understanding of diverse cultural backgrounds and to relate/contrast these cultures, particularly, in terms of the dominant culture in the USA.
- To acquire a solid historical perspective of various Hispanic groups in the USA with an emphasis on special relationships and conflicts among Hispanic groups themselves and in co-existence with the dominant Anglo culture.
- To acquire an understanding of the roles played by race, ethnicity, language, culture, social stratification, family, class structure, and social mobility among Hispanic groups and in contrast to those played by Anglo society.
