FreshEd

Today we take stock of the first human rights guiding principles for education, known as the Abidjan Principles. Adopted in 2019, these principles provide guidelines for State obligations to provide quality public education and the role of the private sector in education. My guest is Frank Adamson, Assistant Professor at California State University, Sacramento. Together with Sylvain Aubry, Mireill...

Today we look at the way in which dissertations in the early 20th Century produced and governed the emerging field of education and how these new knowledges moved across the world. Our focus is on Teachers College, Colombia University. My guest is Daniel Friedrich, an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Director of the Doctoral Program in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers Col...

Elite schools help reproduce the capitalist class. The sons and daughters of the wealthy go to elite schools to gain networks and receive education that helps maintain their social status in the future. My guest today, Karen Lillie, has looked at this process in an elite school in Switzerland that enrolls children from around the world. She finds that students are in the process of becoming part o...

Today I replay my conversation with Julie Mead from August 2019. We speak about her co-written report with Suzanne Eckes for the National Education Policy Center entitled: How school privatization opens the door for discrimination. In our conversation, we touch on a range of issues related to voucher programs and charter schools. Julie reminds listeners that the dictionary definition of discrimina...

Today we celebrate the life and work of Aziz Choudry, who died suddenly on May 26, 2021 at the age of 54. Aziz was a scholar-activist who fought injustice worldwide. He appeared on FreshEd twice, so to honor his legacy here is his first appearance from February 8, 2016. -- Social movements produce a huge amount of intellectual knowledge. Yet, in many academic circles, this knowledge is overlooked....

Today the journalist, author, and academic, Gary Younge, joins me to talk about race, identity, and education. Our conversation starts with his reflections on the UK Government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, which published its report in March. We then touch on a range of issues from across his career. Gary Younge is a professor of sociology at the University of Manchester. He worked...

Today Daniela Hernández Silva joins me to talk about her FreshEd Flux podcast episode, which aired last week. Spoiler alert: we talk about her Flux episode in depth in today’s show. So, if you haven’t already listened to her flux episode, I recommend you hit pause now before continuing with this episode. In our conversation today, Daniela details how podcasting allowed her to combine her creative...

Today we launch the first episode of Flux, a FreshEd series where graduate students turn their research interests into narrative-based podcasts. In the first episode of Flux, Daniela Hernández Silva takes listeners to a faraway place in the Colombian countryside. Here, reality is transformed. She uses magical realism to create a composite character called Jose. Jose gives voice to the hundreds of...

It’s common to believe that education makes people socially mobility. The more education one receives, the more job prospects one will have. There are whole economic theories that explore the relationship between education, productivity, and earnings. Because of this commonplace assumption, education is believed to reduce inequality. But what if the power we commonly place on education is misplace...

Today we explore the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and its work in education. My guest, Christian Ydesen, looks at the history of the OECD to show how the international organization has shaped-shifted overtime. From this perspective, the OECD is dynamic and includes far more products and viewpoints than its famed PISA examination. Christian Ydesen is a professor at the Dep...

Today we take an inside look at Low Fee Private Schools. With me is Joanna Härmä who has recently published the book Low-Fee Private Schooling and Poverty in Developing Countries (Bloomsbury 2021) Joanna Härmä is a writer and researcher on education and development. She also owns and operates a low fee private school in India. Joanna is a visiting research fellow at the Centre for International Ed...

Today we explore the interconnections between the fields of peace education and human rights education. With me are Maria Hantzopoulos and Monisha Bajaj, authors of the new book Education for Peace and Human Rights: An Introduction (Bloomsbury, 2021). Their book launches a new book series by Bloomsbury Academic on Peace and Human Rights Education, which brings together cutting-edge scholarship fro...

Today we think about the power of ideas and imagine what life might look like after capitalism. With me is Tim Jackson. In his new book, Post Growth: Life after capitalism, Tim shows the limits of the dominant metaphors used to explain our current world and argues for new metaphors to help imagine a sustainable, just, and creative future. Tim Jackson is the director of the center for understanding...

Special Note: Check out FreshEd's new Portuguese-language podcast called Eduquê, which launched today! https://freshedpodcast.com/eduque/ -- Climate change and its effects aren’t some future possibilities waiting to happen unless we take action today. No. The effect of climate change is already occurring. Today. Right now. Around the world, people have been displaced, fell ill, or died because of...

Today we explore the response of the Finnish education system to the Covid-19 pandemic. Unlike many countries with children out of school, the narrative of “learning loss” never emerged. In fact, as Pasi Sahlberg tells me, the opposite happened. Pasi Sahlberg is a professor of education policy at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He’s been a regular on FreshEd for the past fi...

Today we explore the relationship between UNESCO and the World Bank from the 1960s through today. My guest is Maren Elfert. She has recently published in the International Journal of Educational Development an article entitled “The power struggle over education in developing countries: the Case of the UNESCO-World Bank Co-operative program, 1964-1989.” Maren Elfert is a lecturer in education and s...

Today we explore the global education architecture and its failures to ensure quality education. My guest is Girindre Beeharry. In a new article in the International Journal of Educational Development, he calls on the international community to focus on foundational literacy and numeracy and says it is high time for the global education community to hold itself accountable. His article is entitled...

Today we flip the script. Susan Robertson interviews me as part of her weekly Ideas Lab seminar at Cambridge University. We discuss the creation and evolution of FreshEd and what the podcast’s impact has been on higher education. We recorded this interview in front of a live Zoom audience. freshedpodcast.com/brehm -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodca...

Does more schooling always lead to a better life? Is this optimistic view a certainty everyone around the world can expect? My guest today, Fran Vavrus, has recently written a new book that weaves together her 30 years of work in Tanzania with her own biography as an academic, mother, and development practitioner. She details the tension between the certainty and uncertainty inherent in education....

Shadow education is private supplementary tutoring. East Asia is often assumed to be the center of private tutoring. But it’s actually a global phenomenon. Today Mark Bray joins me to talk about shadow education in Africa. Mark Bray is the Director of the Centre for International Research in Supplementary Tutoring (CIRIST) at East China Normal University in Shanghai, and UNESCO Chair in Comparativ...

What does it mean to be both an activist and an academic? With me today are Colette Cann & Eric DeMeulenaere. They have spent their careers wearing both of these hats. They’ve found ways for their activism to create social change in the academy and for their academic pursuits to inform their activism. In their new co-written book titled The Activist Academic: Engaged Scholarship for Resistance, Ho...

Vietnam has been herald as an education superstar. In just a few years, it both increased access to education and improved student learning outcomes. What explains Vietnam’s success, and can other countries learn anything from the Vietnam experience? My guest today is Jonathan London, Associate professor of Global Political Economy at Leiden University. He has a new working paper for RISE, which s...

To kick off the year, Professor Marie Lall joins me today to talk about education reform in Myanmar. Marie Lall has recently published a new, Open-Access book entitled Myanmar’s Education Reforms – a pathway to social justice? I’ve posted a link to the book on our website. Check it out! She is a professor at the UCL Institute of Education and has over 25 years of experience in the region. www.fres...

Special note: New episodes start next week! School students all over the globe have declared a “Climate Emergency.” For some time now, youth have been striking for immediate and effective action to stop global warming and secure the habitability of our planet. Greta Thunberg is perhaps the most recognizable student protesting. You’ve probably seen her moving speech at the United Nations. In the co...

Today we take a critical look at human rights. My guest is Radha D’Souza. Radha has a new book entitled: What’s wrong with rights? Social movements, Law, and Liberal Imaginations. In our conversation we discuss why there has been a proliferation of human rights since the end of World War II and how these rights have actually furthered the interests of the transnational capitalist class. Radha also...