Freshed

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 Department of Culture and Learning, Aalborg University in Denmark. He’s recently co-edited (with Tore Sorensen and Susan Robertson) a special issue of Globalisation, Societies and Education called “Re-reading the OECD’s roles in education: the becoming of a global governing complex." https://freshedpodcast.com/christian-ydesen/ -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

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 Education at the University of Sussex and a teaching fellow at the University of Edinburgh. https://freshedpodcast.com/harma -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

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 from scholars and practitioners in the field. It will provide a cross-section of scholarly research as well as conceptual perspectives on the challenges and possibilities of implementing both peace and human rights education in diverse global sites. Maria Hantzopoulos is an Associate Professor of Education at Vassar College and Monisha Bajaj is Professor of International and Multicultural Education at the University of San Francisco. Discount Code: 30% off with code EDU21 https://freshedpodcast.com/Hantzopoulos-Bajaj -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support

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 of Sustainable prosperity and professor of sustainable development at the university of Surrey. https://freshedpodcast.com/jackson -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

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 the globe’s changing climate. These effects are uneven: Some countries and classes of people are more affected by global warming than others. Still, the United Nations estimates that catastrophic consequences from climate change are only a decade away. That’s the year 2029. [Editor's note: The IPCC report is from 2018 and gave a 12-year prediction, so it should read 2030, not 2029.] What is the role of education policy in an era of detrimental climate change? My guest today is Marcia McKenzie, a professor in the Department of Educational Foundations at the University of Saskatchewan and director of the Sustainabi

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 five years. His latest books include Finnish Lessons 3.0: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland (2021), and In Teachers We Trust: The Finnish way to world-class schools, which was co-authored with Tim Walker (2021). Today we discuss these books in relation to the pandemic. freshedpodcast.com/sahlberg-2 -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

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 society in the school of education, communication and society at King’s College London. freshedpodcast.com/elfert -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

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 "The pathway to progress on SDG 4 requires the global education architecture to focus on foundational learning and to hold ourselves accountable for achieving it." Girindre Beeharry is a senior advisor on Global Education at the Gates Foundation. He advises on the foundation’s efforts to support partners that focus on improving foundational literacy and numeracy in sub-Saharan Africa and India , having initiated and led the program for four years. freshedpodcast.com/beeharry -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

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@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

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. Fran Vavrus is a Professor of Comparative and International Development Education at the University of Minnesota. Her new book is Schooling as Uncertainty: An ethnographic memoir in comparative education. freshedpodcast.com/vavrus‎ -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

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 Comparative Education at the University of Hong Kong. His latest book is Shadow Education in Africa: Private Supplementary Tutoring and its Policy Implications. freshedpodcast.com/markbray-2/ ‎ -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

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, Hope and Social Change, they present their own journeys as a guide for merging activism and academia. Colette Cann is an Associate Dean and Professor in International and Multicultural Education in the School of Education at University of San Francisco. Eric DeMeulenaere is an Associate Professor in Clark University’s Education Department. https://freshedpodcast.com/cann-demeulenaere/ ‎ -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

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 stands for Research on Improving Systems of Education, entitled “Outlier Vietnam and the Problem of Embeddedness: Contributions to a critique of the political economy of learning.” In our conversation, he details the history of Vietnam, its system of decentralization, and the process of household co-payments to education. www.freshedpodcast.com/london -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

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.freshedpodcast.com/lall -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate

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 context where students skip school to protest, what role do teachers play? More broadly, what is the role of education in times of climate crisis? One group of university professors and activists have thought deeply about these questions. They have recently launched a “Call to Action” for educators, asking signatories to transform their pedagogies and curricula, realign research agendas, and reformulate policy frameworks – all in line with the climate crisis and other environmental challenges. In short, signatories are asked to voice their concerns any way they can in their professional work in and outside the class

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 discusses education as a human right and the challenge it has for social movements and unions such as education international. Radha D’Souza teaches law at the University of Westminster, London. www.freshedpodcast.com/radhadsouza/ -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com

On Wednesday, the Trump presidency comes to an end. To look back at the past four years, we are going to replay this episode with Julian Vasquez Heilig. In this episode, we explore the schooling received by children affected by the Trump administration’s immigration policy of family separation. This was one of the most sinister policies of the Trump era, one in which the incoming Biden administration promises to reverse in the first days in office. Julian Vasquez Heilig is the Dean of the College of Education at the University of Kentucky. When I spoke with him, he was a professor of educational leadership and policy studies at California State University Sacramento. Julian writes a blog entitled “Cloaking Inequity”. In the post discussed in this episode, he reported on a Texas-based detention center forcing children to use an online, for-profit charter school. www.freshedpodcast.com/heilig -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com

In the aftermath of the riots in America, I thought it would be timely to replay my conversation with Cynthia Miller-Idriss. Our conversation focused on her book, The Extreme Gone Mainstream, which looks at far right youth subculture in Germany. Many of the insights she reveals about extremist groups in Germany can be applied to the groups that stormed the Capitol building in America. Cynthia Miller-Idriss is Associate Professor of Education and Sociology at American University. Her book "Extreme goes Mainstream?: the Commercialization of Far Right Youth Subculture in Germany was published by Princeton University Press. https://freshedpodcast.com/cynthiamilleridriss/ -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com

Many students move across national borders to attend university. Although the number of these globally mobile students is small compared to the total number of students enrolled in higher education, there numbers are increasing. But the patterns are changing, with more regional and south-south mobility. The role of scholarships in promoting these new patterns of student mobility is gaining attention by researchers and development aid alike. My guests today, Joan Dassin and Aryn Baxter, have recently contributed to a new edited collection entitled International Scholarships in Higher Education: Pathways to Social Change, which was edited by Joan Dassin, Robin March, and Matt Mawer. Joan Dassin is a Professor of International Education and Development and Director of the Masters Program in Sustainable International Development at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. Aryn Baxter is an Assistant Professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and Director of the Masterc

Note: FreshEd is on holidays. Since the pandemic continues to rage worldwide, I wanted to re-air an interview from March. Much of what Yaneer Bar-Yam mentioned then is still true today, 9 months later. -- Blaise Pascal, the 17th Century French mathematician and physicist, once wrote “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” As people and governments around the world are wondering whether or not to self-isolate to stop the spread of covid-19, Pascal’s adage has become more pertinent than ever. As we grapple with our new world, I wanted to bring you a special episode of FreshEd. With me is Yaneer Bar-Yam, a physicist, systems scientist, and founding president of the New England Complex Systems Institute. Yaneer has spearheaded endcoronavirus.org, which aims to minimize the impact of Covid-19 by providing useful data and guidelines for action. In our conversation, Yaneer discusses what different countries are doing in response to the virus and talks specifically