New Books In Education

The Economy Studies project emerged from the worldwide movement to modernise economics education, spurred on by the global financial crisis of 2008, the climate crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. It envisions a wide variety of economics graduates and specialists, equipped with a broad toolkit, enabling them to collectively understand and help tackle the issues the world faces today. Economy Studies: A Guide to Rethinking Economics Education (Amsterdam University Press, 2021) is a practical guide for (re-)designing economics courses and programs. Based on a clear conceptual framework and ten flexible building blocks, this book offers refreshing ideas and practical suggestions to stimulate student engagement and critical thinking across a wide range of courses. Sam de Muijnck is chief economist at the Dutch independent think tank Our New Economy. Earlier, he was the chair of the Future Generations Think Tank, as well as that of the Dutch branch of the international student movement, ‘Rethinking Economics’. He c

Ethnographer and sociologist Joanne Golann spent 18 months observing the day-to-day life of students and teachers in a “no-excuses” charter school. In her book Scripting the Moves, she explores the school’s use of behavioural scripts, including SLANT. Golann investigates the reasoning behind the use of these scripts, their implementation and their impacts on the school community, and questions whether the micro-management shaping every school day serves its stated purpose, namely, to prepare students for college in the future. Exploring ideas about cultural capital, authority, socialisation, leadership and autonomy in the charter school setting, Golann’s study provides a rare glimpse into the internal workings of an educational institution that should be required reading for anyone interested in school reform. Joanne Golann is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Education and an Assistant Professor of Sociology (secondary) at Vanderbilt University. Twitter: @jwgolann, Alice Garner is historian, teache

Over the past few years and especially now— with COVID-19-related lockdowns necessitating that families stay at home—an increasing number of parents have chosen to home-school their children. This choice stems from several reasons: political views and distrust in the education system; anxiety about their children’s safety; or simply as an expression of their right to freedom. In the newest episode of our podcast, Quality Education, Dr. Jameson Brewer, Assistant Professor of Social Foundations of Education at the University of North Georgia and author of ‘Homeschooling: A Guidebook of Practices, Claims, Issues, and Implications’, published by Brill, talks in detail about the changing trends in home-schooling practices. His compelling evidence makes us rethink our perception of formal education and lays bare the reality of educating a child without the support of experts or an educational system. We discuss how COVID-19, and socioeconomic, political, and racial status (among other factors), influence a parent’s

Today I had the pleasure of talking to George Drake, historian, professor emeritus and president emeritus of Grinnell College. George has written a memoir: Seventy Years in Academe. George brought a wealth of experience to the interview. We talked about a lot of things: why he elected to go to Grinnell, his experience as a Rhodes Scholar, how he got his first academic job, how he became president of Grinnell, the challenges he faced as president, and his rich life after he stepped down as president in 1991. George was president when I was at Grinnell, so it was an absolute joy for me to talk to him. Enjoy!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Traditions of Eloquence: The Jesuits and Modern Rhetorical Studies (Fordham UP, 2016) explores the important ways Jesuits have employed rhetoric, the ancient art of persuasion and the current art of communications, from the sixteenth century to the present. Much of the history of how Jesuit traditions contributed to the development of rhetorical theory and pedagogy has been lost, effaced, or dispersed. As a result, those interested in Jesuit education and higher education in the United States, as well as scholars and teachers of rhetoric, are often unaware of this living 450-year-old tradition. Written by highly regarded scholars of rhetoric, composition, education, philosophy, and history, many based at Jesuit colleges and universities, the essays in this volume explore the tradition of Jesuit rhetorical education-that is, constructing "a more usable past" and a viable future for eloquentia perfecta, the Jesuits' chief aim for the liberal arts. Intended to foster eloquence across the curriculum and into the

In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering our Cities (Bold Type Books, 2021) by Dr. Davarian Baldwin examines the political economy of the American university over the twentieth and twentieth-first centuries. He brings a Black Studies lens to interrogate the ways that universities hide behind the notion of administering public goods to protect their tax-exempt status while generating astronomical profits off of the backs of working-class people, graduate student teachers and researchers, and underpaid and contingent faculty. We discuss the securitization and development implications of growing university wealth and how it engenders forms of radicalized plunder, racist policing, gentrification, and exploitation by the 1%. With a focus on this and more, we talk about what it means to live in the shadow of ivory tower. Amanda Joyce Hall is a Ph.D. Candidate in History and African American Studies at Yale University. She is writing an international history on the global movement against So

We are delighted to present All for One and One for All: Public Seminar Series on Mental Health in Academia and Society. All for One and One for All talks will shine the light on and discuss mental health issues in academia across all levels – from students to faculty, as well as in wider society. Seminars are held online once per month on Wednesdays at 5pm CEST/ 11am EST and free for all to attend. Speakers include academics, organisations, and health professionals whose work focuses on mental health. Live Q and A sessions will be held after each talk. For live webinar schedule please visit this website. Follow us on Twitter: @LashuelLab The first conversation is between Dr. Roy Richard Grinker and Dr. Hilal Lashuel, with support from Galina Limorenko. Mental health experts and advocates tell us that "stigma" is the major barrier to mental health care throughout the world. But where did stigma come from? And how can we begin to eradicate it? Dr. Grinker, a cultural anthropologist, specializing in psychologic

In Humanist Reason: A History, an Argument, a Plan (Columbia UP, 2021), Eric Hayot develops the concept of “humanist reason” to understand the nature and purpose of humanist intellectual work and lays out a serious of principles that undergird this core idea. Rather than appealing to familiar ethical or moral rationales for the importance of the humanities, Humanist Reason lays out a new vision that moves beyond traditional disciplines to demonstrate what the humanities can tell us about our world. Eric Hayot is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and Asian Studies at Penn State University, where he is also Director of the Center for Humanities and Information. His books include Chinese Dreams: Pound, Brecht, Tel quell (U of Michigan P), The Hypothetical Mandarin: Sympathy, Modernity, and Chinese Pain (Oxford UP), On Literary Worlds (Oxford UP), The Elements of Academic Style: Writing for the Humanities (Columbia UP), and, most recently, Humanist Reason (Columbia UP), published in 2021. He edite

Amid a string of fall 2021 news reports about past-due exonerations and (white) self-defense that document the limits of racial justice within the U.S. legal system, Pain and Shock in America: Politics, Advocacy, and the Controversial Treatment of People with Disabilities (Brandeis University Press, 2021) becomes an even more relevant and timely book. Dr. Jan Nisbet, who authored the book with contributions from Nancy Weiss, introduces it succinctly: “The story is long, complicated, and filled with questions about society and its ability to care about, protect, and support the most vulnerable citizens. It is a story that calls into question the degree to which people who do not have disabilities can separate themselves from those who do, allowing painful interventions that they themselves would not likely tolerate” (2021, p. 8). If justice is central to evaluations of the social policies and public institutions charged with administering it, disability–as core issue theorized in philosophies of justice–must b

With radical changes being engineered in society, education systems everywhere need to match up. As part of our podcast, Humanities Matter, the all-new series, Quality Education, looks at ways to improve these systems. Higher education has traditionally been viewed as a privilege affordable to only specific strata of society, mainly higher income groups. However, this trend is now changing, with governments and institutes actively trying to make higher education accessible to all. In this episode, we chat with Dr. Budd Hall, from the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria, Canada, and Dr. Rajesh Tandon, the Founder-President of the Society for Participatory Research in Asia, a global research and training centre based in New Delhi, India. Dr. Hall and Dr. Tandon are both UNESCO co-chairs in community-based research and social responsibility in higher education. Drawing insights from their book, “Socially Responsible Higher Education: International Perspectives on Knowledge Democracy”, publish

We speak with Elizabeth Kiss about the design and launch of the very successful SUMMIT initiative that led Agnes Scott College to be recognized as “the most innovative liberal arts college” in the U.S. SUMMIT features four distinctive elements that are a part of every Agnes Scott undergrad’s education: a global immersive experience, leadership, a personal Board of Advisors, and a digital portfolio. The initiative has played a crucial role in growing enrollment and stabilizing the finances of the College. Kiss left Agnes Scott in 2018 to become the head of the Rhodes Trust. She describes the exciting ways in which the Rhodes Trust has been transformed since she was a scholar herself in the 1980s. David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Jeff Guhin joins us today to talk about his book Agents of God: Boundaries and Authority in Muslim and Christian Schools (Oxford University Press, 2020). Jeff, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at UCLA, shares with us how his experiences with religious schooling shaped his interests in education, culture and religion. Agents of God is the culmination of Jeff’s dissertation work while he was a doctoral student in Sociology at Yale University, a thoughtful comparative ethnography of Muslim and Conservative Protestant high schools. In today’s conversation we explore the nuances of religious education, how people negotiate boundaries and the agentification of institutions. We also discuss the politics of national identity and the role of schools in this nationalization. Jeff also touches on his experiences with mental health and how he works to navigate those within academia and in the process of writing this book. This book provides a compelling lens for how to understand the forces of Science, Scripture and P

We are delighted to present All for One and One for All: Public Seminar Series on Mental Health in Academia and Society. All for One and One for All talks will shine the light on and discuss mental health issues in academia across all levels – from students to faculty, as well as in wider society. Seminars are held online once per month on Wednesdays at 5pm CEST/ 11am EST and free for all to attend. Speakers include academics, organisations, and health professionals whose work focuses on mental health. Live Q and A sessions will be held after each talk. For live webinar schedule please visit this website. Follow us on Twitter: @LashuelLab The first conversation is between Dr. Roy Richard Grinker and Dr. Hilal Lashuel, with support from Galina Limorenko. Mental health experts and advocates tell us that "stigma" is the major barrier to mental health care throughout the world. But where did stigma come from? And how can we begin to eradicate it? Dr. Grinker, a cultural anthropologist, specializing in psychologic

Comedian Robin Ince quickly abandoned science at school, bored by a fog of dull lessons and intimidated by the barrage of equations. But, twenty years later, he fell in love and he now presents one of the world's most popular science podcasts. Every year he meets hundreds of the world's greatest thinkers. In this erudite and witty book, Robin reveals why scientific wonder isn't just for the professionals. Filled with interviews featuring astronauts, comedians, teachers, quantum physicists, neuroscientists and more - as well as charting Robin's own journey with science - The Importance of Being Interested: Adventures in Scientific Curiosity (Atlantic Books, 2021) explores why many wrongly think of the discipline as distant and difficult. From the glorious appeal of the stars above to why scientific curiosity can encourage much needed intellectual humility, this optimistic and profound book will leave you filled with a thirst for intellectual adventure. John Weston teaches academic communication at Tampere Univ

Of the dozens of juicy questions for future inquiry that Dr. Michelle Nario-Redmond provides at the end of Ableism: The Causes and Consequences of Disability Prejudice (Published by Wiley in 2021), the following stands out the most to me, in my various group-membership roles: How do we build common ground between disadvantaged groups for effective cross-impairment coalitions? Though it seemed impossible for this question to feel any more urgent after over a year and a half of COVID-19 and the parallel prominence of social movements to make Black Lives Matter, a recent article by my latest author crush unpacking a profoundly intersectional moment in the meme culture of what we should be calling (thanks to Neal Stephenson’s 30-year old book) Metaverse 1.0 – AKA social media, especially those platforms now owned by the maybe-monopoly formerly known as Facebook – reminded me again of the immense possibilities of disability as a political identity (see Annamma & Morrison, 2018, particularly the footnotes for more

Under Bill Carroll’s leadership, Benedictine University, in Lisle Illinois became the fastest growing university in the U.S. from 2000-12. Carroll describes how Benedictine was able to expand from 1400 to over 10,000 students and become one of the most diverse universities in the US by “adding multiple legs to the table”, with each leg being a new type of student served through a new program. These innovative initiatives include: 5 j.v. campuses in China and 3 in Vietnam, branch US campuses in Mesa, AZ and Springfield, IL, online and senior learning programs, outreach to different ethnic and religious groups, and free educational offerings and partnerships for first responders and displaced workers. He also shares his insights on the future of higher education from his unique perspective leading Hunter Global Education, that is working to foster educational partnerships between US and Asian colleges and universities. David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Vis

Listen to this interview of Mike Palmquist, Professor of English (with a focus on rhetoric and composition) and also University Distinguished Teaching Scholar. We have a conversation. Mike Palmquist : "We tend to think, 'Oh, writing. Just learn how to put your sentences together. Learn how to develop a nice paragraph. Learn the rules of grammar.' And somehow that's supposed to transfer magically into another discipline. But in fact, the kinds of debate and discourse and discussion and reporting and inquiry that go on in a particular discipline are highly conditioned by the knowledge they share, by the things they think are important — by the conversations, in a sense, that are going on in that discipline. You really have to learn it. Otherwise, you'll just be writing about stuff but won't quite know how to connect it to what everybody else is researching and publishing on." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.sup

Father Steve Katsouros, founder and CEO of the Come To Believe Network, shares the inspirational story of the founding of Arrupe College at Loyola University Chicago which has been recognized as a national model for increasing the college graduation rates for low-income students of color. Arrupe operates as a two-year, liberal arts college within the University that has been able to quadruple the national graduation rate for high-need students to obtain an associate’s degree by integrating a set of best practices: a year-round cohort, intensive faculty advising, wraparound support services and building a strong sense of community. Fr. Katsouros left Arrupe last year to found the Come to Believe Network that is now seeking to replicate the Arrupe model nationally with partner universities. He is also the author of Come to Believe: How Jesuits Are Reinventing Education (Again) (Orbis, 2017). David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Sup

"How To Be Wrong" is a podcast series hosted by John J. Kaag, Professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and John W. Traphagan, Professor of Religious Studies and in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations at the University of Texas at Austin. The series explores mistakes, errors, and the importance of embracing intellectual humility in a world that seems increasingly dominated by dualistic an uncritically oppositional thinking, argument, and debate. We talk with scholars, artists, authors, and others about their ideas and stories related to things that have gone wrong and ask them to discuss the ways this has influenced their lives and work and influenced their ideas about certainty and humility. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

At the New Books Network, we love university presses. So we're happy to tell you about University Press Week, the annual celebration of UPs and their important work. Today I talked to Lisa Bayer, the director of the University of Georgia Press and the president of the Association of University Presses. We discuss a lot of things--open access, business models, libraries, peer review, careers in UP publishing--all knit together by a theme, that being how UPs keep up with everything that is going on, scholarly-communications-wise. Enjoy.  Marshall Poe is the founder and editor of the New Books Network. He can be reached at marshallpoe@newbooksnetwork.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education