Ethics and Education

At CEE, we think a lot about good teaching. This is the second episode in our 2021 Teaching Series. Susan Kennedy is a postdoctoral fellow in philosophy at Harvard University, where she works with the Embedded EthiCS team to integrate ethical reasoning into the computer science curriculum. In this episode, Susan talks about teaching non-canonical texts, using games to teach feminist critiques...

Who do you trust? Are universities trustworthy? Professors? What about students? Philosopher Tony Laden (UIC Chicago) is writing a book about democracy. He sees higher ed as a way to think about trust networks and broader questions about how we talk to each other. Episode transcript Citations (and further reading!): Binder, Amy J., and Kate Wood. Becoming Right: How Campuses Shape Young Conservati...

Principles are your pal. They offer both theory and a diagnosis to help you figure out what the problem is. But on their own, they're not enough. Where do they fit in decision-making? Plus a burning question about relativism. At the NAAPE Conference in 2019, Grace Gecewicz (UW Madison Philosophy undergrad, '20) and Abby Beneke (UW Madison Educational Policy Studies PhD student) interviewed Profess...

This piece features two voices: sociologist Dr. Laura T. Hamilton (UC Merced) and philosopher Dr. Kathryn Joyce (Princeton University). Educational Policy Studies PhD student Abby Beneke (UW-Madison) interviewed Laura when she came to UW in 2019 to give a talk on her book project, Broke: The Racial Consequences of Underfunding Universities , which she co-wrote with Kelly Nielsen. Dr. Hamilton: “Wh...

"Education doesn't always need to start with an answer. It starts, sometimes, with a question." Professor Quentin Wheeler-Bell (Indiana University) discusses one of the driving questions of his work: what is liberatory education? Transcript Produced and edited by Kellen Sharp. Recorded at the NAAPE Conference, October 2019.

It’s late January, which means snowstorms (here in Wisconsin, anyway), the start of the spring semester, and grad school application deadlines. Universities will be making admission decisions over the next few months, and then applicants will decide where to go. But who really knows what they're getting into when they apply to grad school?? This is a timely piece on informed consent and the ethics...

Grace Gecewicz and Madeline Brighouse Glueck interview Jennifer S. Hirsch (Public Health, Columbia University) and Shamus Khan (Sociology, Princeton University) about their book, Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus . This conversation offers a hopeful vision for the future of sex education, preventing sexual assault, and developing an empathetic understandin...

What are the ethical questions behind opting out of state testing? Professor Terri Wilson (University of Colorado Boulder) discusses a case study she co-wrote on opting out of state standardized testing.  Study Guide: Opting Out of State Assessments - with a Structured Academic Controversy activity Audio Transcript Recorded at the American Philosophical Association Central Conference in Denve...

What is a charter school? Philosophy professor (and director of the Center for Ethics and Education) and UW-Madison student (and undergraduate project assistant at the Center) Grace Gecewicz host this episode about a type of school that everyone seems to have an opinion about. Find out who the "strange bedfellows" were that came up with the idea of charter schools and learn to ask the right questi...

What ethical compromises do students make when they seek upward mobility through education? We talk with Professor Jennifer Morton about her new book, Moving Up Without Losing Your Way: The Ethical Costs of Upward Mobility (2019). Morton is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and a senior fellow at the Center for Ethics and Education. Book: Moving U...

We talk with Dr. Anthony Abraham Jack , an assistant professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, about his new book, The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students (2019). Jack’s work examines the often-overlooked diversity of low-income college students. Book: The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students, by Anthony...

Kellen Sharp is a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, majoring in Communication Arts. He is a McNair scholar with aspirations of attending graduate school and earning a PhD in Media and Cultural Studies. Kellen was the Undergraduate Research Scholar at the Center for Ethics and Education in 2019-20, where he co-produced and edited the podcast and helped develop curricular materials. &nb...

Grace Gecewicz is a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a certificate in gender and women’s studies. During her time as an undergraduate, she was also an undergraduate project assistant at the Center for Ethics & Education, where she worked on the podcast and curriculum development. To read Grace's honor's thesis, "...

Professors Lauren Gatti (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) and Paula McAvoy (North Carolina State University) talk about their book project, Just Teacher: Ethical Thinking in the Profession of Teaching . Recorded in-person in February 2019 and over zoom in September 2020. Transcript Produced by Carrie Welsh. Theme music by Podington Bear .

This is a short piece cut from the longer conversation with Professors Lauren Gatti (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) and Paula McAvoy (North Carolina State University) about their book project, Just Teacher: Ethical Thinking in the Profession of Teaching . Here, they talk about the unique challenges the pandemic poses to teachers.  Recorded over zoom in September 2020.  Transcript Produc...

Welcome to the Ethics and Education podcast from the Center for Ethics and Education. We host conversations with philosophers, educators, and researchers about ethical issues in education. This podcast is part of a curricular project that includes free study guides about our episodes. Get in touch; we'd love to hear from you. The Center for Ethics and Education is based at the Wisconsin Center for...