FreshEd

Ever since the 1983 Nation at Risk report, America has seemingly gone through one educational reform after another. Have these reforms worked? My guest today, Paul Reville, thinks the reforms have correctly focused on the goals of excellence and equity but have not addressed the systemic problems impacting schools. Paul Reville is the founding director of the Education Redesign Lab at the Harvard....

When I was in school, I did anything – and everything! – to get out of a test. Seriously. Ask my parents, who I drove nuts. I often refused to go to school on test days or simply pretended I was sick to get out of class just as the exam was being handed out. Tests made me nervous and I hated the idea that one number could forever define my intelligence. Today, more and more students are refusing t...

Across the globe, millions of people have been displaced from their homes. How does the international community respond to this humanitarian crisis? What is the role of education? My guest today is Sarah Dryden-Peterson. She leads a research program that focuses on the connections between education and community development, specifically the role that education plays in building peaceful and parti...

Today we look at the history and tensions of international education. My guest is Paul Tarc, an Associate professor at Western University. Paul sees certain tensions as inherent in the very idea of international education. As universities around the world embrace internationalism in an era of limited state funding, some wonder whether those idealists intentions have been clouded by hopes of increa...

This is the last episode in our four-part series leading up to the CIES 2017 Symposium. In the past three episodes, we have talked about decolonizing knowledge and innovating comparative and international education primarily from within the USA. But what does decolonization look like in other countries? Today we focus on Pakistan. My guest is Shenila Khoja-Moolji. She researches and writes about t...

The CIES 2017 Symposium aims to explore new frontiers in Comparative Education. Today, I speak with Peter Demerath about some of the exciting work being done in ethnographic research. We discuss many ideas from indigenous knowledge to grounded grit. Peter even talks about the challenges researching the same community for over two decades, as well as the value such studies can have. Peter Demerath...

Today we look inside an example of destabilizing knowledge hierarchies inside an American university. With me is Patricia Parker. Patricia helped set up the Graduate Certificate in Participatory Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The graduate certificate reveals the paradoxes of challenging dominant forms of knowledge inside one of the very sites, the university, responsi...

Today we kick off a four-part series called FreshEd x Symposium. During the lead-up to the 2017 Symposium, four speakers will join FreshEd to whet your appetite for the conversations and debate that will take place in Washington DC. This year’s symposium asks us to consider about how comparative and international education phenomena are studied and wade through the possibility that our field has c...

Global citizenship education is an idea you’ve probably heard about.  It’s fairly straightforward as an abstract concept. Much attention on global citizenship education today is to ensure that certain values are taught in school despite the ever-growing demands on students from subjects like Science, Math, and Language. But how can global citizenship education be measured? What tools exist to inco...

Today we look at sexuality education. In some countries, scholars who advocate for a secular worldview have constructed a progressive sexuality education that embraces science at the exclusion of religion.  With me is Mary Lou Rasmussen. In her monograph, Progressive Sexuality Education: The Conceits of Secularism (Routledge, 2015), which was just released in paperback, Mary Lou carefully explores...

Today we talk about war and children in Japan. My guest is Sabine Frühstück, a Professor of Modern Japanese Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she also directs the East Asia Center. She has published a new book called Playing War: Children and the Paradoxes of Modern Militarism in Japan. It is a cultural history of the naturalized connections between childhood a...

The FreshEd team is on summer holidays. We’ll return with new shows next week. In the meantime, we are going to play re-runs of some of our favorite shows. Today, we hear from Monisha Bajaj. If you value the show as an educational resource, consider supporting the show with a monthly donation. www.freshedpodcast.com/support

The FreshEd team is on summer holidays. We’ll return with new shows starting September 11. In the meantime, we are going to play re-runs of some of our favorite shows. Today, we hear from Steve Klees. Before I head off, I want to ask for your help. Would you be able to support FreshEd with a donation of $5? Please consider donating by visiting www.freshedpodcast.com/support

The FreshEd team is on summer holidays. We’ll return with new shows starting September 11. In the meantime, we are going to play re-runs of some of our favorite shows. Today, we hear from Arathi Sriprakash. Before I head off, I want to ask for your help. Would you be able to support FreshEd with a donation of $5? Please consider donating by visiting www.freshedpodcast.com/support

The FreshEd team is going on summer holidays. We’ll return with new shows starting September 11. In the meantime, we are going to play re-runs of some of our favorite shows. Today, we hear from Raewyn Connell, a Professor Emerita at the University of Sydney. She has been an advisor to United Nations initiatives on gender equality and peacemaking, and, in 2010, the Australian Sociological Associati...

Is America addicted to education reform? My guest today, John Merrow, says it’s time for America to enter a 12-step program to fix its K-12 public education system. John argues that the countless reforms he’s reported on for over four-decades have addressed the symptoms of the problems facing American education and not the root causes. John Merrow began his career in 1974 on National Public Radio...

Today we look at entrepreneurship education in Tanzania. You might be asking yourself, “Hey, didn’t FreshEd recently discuss entrepreneurship education in Rwanda?” You’re right. We did. Obviously, the idea of entrepreneurship education is a global phenomenon, found in many different countries. As such, we need to understand what it is in each local context, who is promoting, how it is spreading, a...

How is education studied around the world? Are there different knowledge traditions to the study of education? Have there been changes over time? And what has been the impact of globalization? My guests today, John Furlong and Geoff Whitty, have embarked on a collaborative research project that sought to understand how the study of education was configured in different countries. The project has r...

What are the hard questions in education today? My guest is Pasi Sahlberg. When he was teaching at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, he edited a book with his students on some of the biggest and hardest questions facing education today. In our conversation, Pasi speaks about the class, the book, and the importance of writing op-eds. He even offers some advice for US Education Secretary Bet...

Textbooks are perhaps the most recognizable part of school systems. You go to school; you learn from a textbook. But what’s inside that textbook your reading? Who wrote it? How are controversial issues dealt with? And how have textbooks changed over time and compare across country? My guest today, Jim Williams, has edited or co-edited three volumes on textbooks. The many chapters across the volume...

Today we talk about intercultural competencies. These are the attitudes, skills, and knowledge that enable people to see from different perspectives, helping us get along together as humans. These competencies seem particularly relevant in our current political climate. My guest is Darla Deardorff. She has spent the past decade thinking about intercultural competencies. What are? Can scholars agre...

Have you ever thought about how polarized some debates in education are? Think about it. Whole language versus phonics. Direct versus indirect instruction. Public versus private schools. My guest today, Professor Yong Zhao, says that these polarized debates result, in part, from research studies that only look at effects – or side effects – of educational interventions. Rarely do studies acknowled...

We hear about educational privatization a lot these days. My Twitter feed is filled with countless stories about how Betsy DeVos is going to privatize education in America or how Bridge International has privatized education in some African countries. Even the first three episodes of FreshEd way back in 2015 looked at how privatization has gone global. But do you really know how it’s happening, ho...

How did American universities end up being seen as the best in the world? My guest today, David Labaree, argues it was the very decentralized and autonomous structure of the higher education system that allowed universities to develop an entrepreneurial ethos that drove American higher education to become the best. Today, America’s universities and colleges produce the most scholarship, earn the m...

Today: global citizenship education. What is global citizenship education and how is it practiced? And what is the relationship between national citizenship and global citizenship? Are they compatible? My guest today is Miri Yemini, an Honorary Visiting Lecturer at the Institute of Education at University College London and a Lecturer in the School of Education at Tel Aviv University She has recen...