FreshEd

Today we are going to do something slightly different. Over the past six months, I’ve asked FreshEd guests how they approach writing, reading, research, and supervision. Listening back to the responses, I realized there is no one way to do any of this! There isn’t a “right way” to do higher education. What I hope is that by compiling these voices here, we can start to appreciate the diversity with...

Today we explore race and the criminalization of failure in the United States. With me is Sean Drake. Sean Drake is an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs at Syracuse University, and Senior Research Associate at the Maxwell Center for Policy Research. His new book is Academic Apartheid: Race and the Criminalization of Failure in an American Suburb...

Today FreshEd teams up with the Swedish podcast Bakom Bokhyllan to explore science communication. Cecilia Burman, Gia Destoun, and Will Brehm discuss the benefits and challenges of communicating science to a public audience. By teaming up, FreshEd and Bakom Bokhyllan offer an example of the impact podcasts can have in higher education. Cecilia Burman is a communication officer at Stockholm Univers...

Today we discuss the climate crisis, why it’s a difficult knowledge for humans to grasp, and how art can help us transform approaches to teaching about it. My guest is Audrey Bryan. Audrey Bryan is an associate professor of Sociology in the School of Human Development at Dublin City University. Her new article is Pedagogy of the Implicated: advancing a social ecology of responsibility framework to...

Today Matthew Thomas fills in for Will Brehm. Some of you might recognize his voice. Matthew's been a guest a few times on the FreshEd over the years. Now it’s his turn to interview Will, which he did as part of an event organized last week at the University of Sydney. In their conversation today, Matthew and Will explore the issue of regional identity in Southeast Asia’s Mekong region. Together w...

Today we explore the issue of whiteness and how it is learned in and beyond schools in Australia. My guests are Arathi Sriprakash, Sophie Rudolph and Jessica Gerrard. They have written the new book, Learning Whiteness: Education and the settler Colonial State, which was published by Pluto Press. Arathi Sriprakash is a Professor of Education at the University of Bristol. Sophie Rudolph is a Senior...

How can we define comparative education? That question has long vexed scholars in the field. My guest today is Angela Little, who has spent her entire career in comparative education and has wrestled with this very question. Angela argues that it is best to define the field through shared action rather than agreed-upon definitions and talks about the challenges of being an academic-slash-practitio...

With the leaked Supreme Court ruling that would effectively overturn Roe v. Wade, I thought it would be good to revisit an old episode that explored various constitutional issues vis-a-vis schools. Do constitutional rights stop at the schoolhouse gate? Are American students, in other words, granted the freedom and protections outlined in the US constitution? These questions doesn’t have easy answe...

Today we look at education in Ukraine during times of war. With me is Anatoly Oleksiyenko, who was born and raised in Soviet Ukraine and is a leading scholar in post-Soviet higher education systems. Anatoly Oleksiyenko is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong. He is also the director of the Comparative Education Research Centre. His latest article is Ukr...

Everyone knows covid-19 disrupted education in countless ways. But what we don’t have is cross-national data that clearly measures these disruptions. That is until now. The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) and UENSCO conducted a joint study called the Responses to Educational Disruption Survey or REDS for short. REDS was developed and implemented quickl...

It's spring break for Will's university in London, so we are re-airing one of our favourite episodes from 2020. See you next week! Today we take a critical look at numbers. Think about it: numbers are everywhere in education, from grades to impact scores to rankings. My guests today, Nelli Piattoeva and Rebecca Boden, have recently co-edited a special issue for the journal International Studies in...

Today Sarah Dryden-Peterson, a regular on FreshEd, joins me to talk about her new book Right Where We Belong: How Refugee Teachers and Students are Changing the Future of Education. Her book is the product of her 15 years of working with and researching refugee education around the world. Sarah Dryden-Peterson is Associate Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is the founder a...

Today we explore the ways in which economic thinking came to dominate in public policy. With me is Beth Popp Berman, who has recently written the new book Thinking like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in US Public Policy. Beth Popp Berman is an Associate Professor of Organizational Studies at the University of Michigan. www.freshedpodcast.com/popp-berman -- Get in touch! Twitter: @F...

Today we take stock of Covid-19 and education two years after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. Although we are still living through the pandemic, this anniversary is a good opportunity for reflection. What worked? What didn’t? Will there be lasting changes in education because of Covid-19? With me to discuss the second anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic is David Edwards, Genera...

Today we talk about transitional justice, the role of truth telling in historical memory, and how education can help or hinder the process. With me is Natasha Robinson who has written a new book chapter entitled “Developing Historical Consciousness for Social Cohesion: How South African Students Learn to Construct the Relationship Between Past and Present.” Natasha Robinson is a Postdoctoral resea...

Today we explore the collective memory in Ghana of the transatlantic slave trade. With me is PhD student Phyllis Kyei Mensah. Phyllis Kyei Mensah is a doctoral candidate in Educational Leadership, Culture, and Curriculum at Miami University in Ohio. She also works on FreshEd as the Resource list manager. Her new article is “Collective memory and the transatlantic slave trade: Remembering education...

Today we explore the role of financiers in US higher education. My guest is Charlie Eaton. Charlie Eaton is assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Merced. His new book is Bankers in the Ivory Tower: The troubling rise of financiers in US Higher Education. www.freshedpodcast.com/eaton -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.c...

In 2020, Chilean citizens voted for their national constitution to be re-written. This was the culmination of mass protests the year before. Now a Constitutional Convention is actively re-writing a new constitution, which will be put to the public for an up or down vote later this year. With me to talk about the ways in which education is being reimagined in the new constitution is Carlos Navia Ca...

Today we explore how teachers navigate their practice in challenging circumstances. My guest is Chris Sowton. Chris works in the field of English Language Teaching and international Education and has conducted teacher training and educational research in many countries, including Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Nigeria, Nepal, India, Somaliland and Indonesia. He’s interested in the small-p politics of...

Today we look at China’s foreign policy, especially in relation to its international development and education efforts. With me is Elizabeth Economy, who has recently published the book The World According to China. Elizabeth Economy is Senior Advisor for China to the US Secretary of Commerce. She is on leave from her position as Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. www.fr...

Welcome to our first episode of 2022. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been a bit quiet. But we’ve been hard at work producing the next round of Flux episodes (they’re going to be awesome!), developing a new podcast (more details on that later!), and figuring out how to engage you, our listeners, in more ways. We are thrilled to be back and are looking forward to our sixth year! One of our goals thi...

FreshEd is taking a break during the month of January. While we are away, we'll re-play some of our favourite episodes. Special Note: We need your support to keep us ad-free in 2022. If you have the means to do so, please consider donating to FreshEd by visiting freshedpodcast.com/donate. Today we look at conditional cash transfers as a global phenomenon of educational development. My guest is Mic...

FreshEd is taking a break during the month of January. While we are away, we'll re-play some of our favourite episodes. Special Note: We need your support to keep us ad-free in 2022. If you have the means to do so, please consider donating to FreshEd by visiting freshedpodcast.com/donate. Today we look at the lessons that can be learned from radical histories. My guests are Aziz Choudry and Salim...

FreshEd is taking a break for the next few weeks. While we are away, we'll re-play some of our favourite episodes. Special Note: We need your support to keep us ad-free in 2022. If you have the means to do so, please consider donating to FreshEd by visiting freshedpodcast.com/donate. -- Today we take stock of public education in the United States after the 2020 election. With me are Jack Schneider...

FreshEd is taking a break for the next few weeks. While we are away, we'll re-play some of our favourite episodes. Special Note: We need your support to keep us ad-free in 2022. If you have the means to do so, please consider donating to FreshEd by visiting freshedpodcast.com/donate. Today I talk with Rebecca Tarlau about her new book, Occupying Schools, Occupying Land, which was published last ye...