Freshed

How can we think about inequality and education? My guest today, Mario Novelli, dives into the subject by looking at the role of schools in the production of inequality. Since 2010, Mario has researched issues related to the role of education in peace building processes, working with UNICEF on a series of projects. In our conversation, Mario not only details how modernity, capitalism, and colonialism combine to create systems of inequality inside school systems but also publicly struggles with his role in the production of inequality through his work in international educational development. Mario Novelli is Professor of the Political Economy of Education and Director of the Centre for International Education (CIE) at the University of Sussex. His latest article discussed in this podcast can be found in the most recent issue of the British Journal of the Sociology of Education.

Did you know that today there are more forcibly displaced people than at any time since World War II? The total number comes out to roughly 65 million, including internally displaced peoples, asylum seekers, and refugees. That’s roughly 1 out of every 113 people on Earth. Today I speak with three professors from Teachers College, Columbia University about their research project on refugees, which is being funded by the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. At Teachers College, Mary Mendenhall is an Assistant Professor of Practice in International and Comparative Education; Garnett Russell is an Assistant Professor of International and Comparative Education; and Elizabeth Buckner is a Visiting Assistant Professor in International Comparative Education. If you’d like to see some of their research photos showing urban refugee education, please check out FreshEdpodcast.com

It’s been over two months since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. Right after it happened, I invited Prof. Susan Robertson on FreshEd to talk about the possible consequences the Brexit vote would have on education. During that conversation, I asked if this vote would open the possibility for a new left to emerge within the British Labour Party. Well, how have things turned out? To update the situation in the United Kingdom, I recently spoke with Mario Novelli. Mario Novelli is Professor of the Political Economy of Education and Director of the Centre for International Education (CIE) at the University of Sussex. For years, Mario has followed the solidarity work of Jeremy Corbyn, who is now Leader of the labour party and currently in a leadership battle with Owen Smith. This short episode of FreshEd has been taken from a longer conversation I had with Mario about his research on inequality and education, which will air on September 12.

You’ve probably heard about the elaborate Olympic handover from Rio to Tokyo that included a video animation of Super Mario walking through Shibuya, jumping through a green tube, and then appearing at the closing ceremony in Rio. The super Mario custom dropped to the floor and there was, lo and behold, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, standing in a red hat holding a red ball, ready to take the helm of the Tokyo Olympics, which will take place in 2020. It was an unusual moment, to say the least, for the Japanese leader, who is typically reserved and anything but showy. But the scene perfectly captured the contemporary push by the Abe administration to internationalize Japan. There he was in front of a global audience, showing off Japan’s athletes and pop-culture icons. Abe has been on a march to change Japan: he’s trying to alter the constitution to allow Japan to send military forces abroad, something that has not been done since World War II. And his administration started something called super-globa

Today we look at developmental leadership in the Philippines. My guest is Professor Michele Schweisfurth. In a recent report for the Developmental Leadership Program, with support from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Michele and a team explored the ways in which higher education has supported the emergence of developmental leaders and the formation of networks among leaders in the Philippines. Michele Schweisfurth is Professor of Comparative and International Education at the University of Glasgow, where she is also co-Director of the Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change. Her latest co-written report on developmental leadership in the Philippines can be found on FreshEd’s website: FreshEdpodcast.com. Check it out today.

Today: Case Studies. My guests, Fran Vavrus and Lesley Bartlett. They have a new co-written book entitled Rethinking Case Study Research: A Comparative Approach, which will be published by Routledge later this year. Fran and Lesley contend that the recent conceptual shifts in the social sciences, some of which have been discussed by previous guests on this show, demand that case studies re-configure their approach towards culture, context, space, place, and comparison. Fran Vavrus is a professor in the college of education and human development at the University of Minnesota. Lesley Bartlett is a professor in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. I spoke with Fran and Lesley in Mid-July. They have written an exclusive summary of their forthcoming book, Rethinking Case Study Research: A Comparative Approach, for FreshEd listeners, which is only available on FreshEdpodcast.com Check it out today.

Low-fee private schools are a hot topic in educational research. What happens when public schooling is provided by for-profit companies that charge families monthly user fees? What happens when those companies receive government funds? Researchers around the world have been exploring various issues around for-profit public schooling. One company has been of particular interest. Bridge International Academies operates schools in Africa and Asia and is supported by people such as Bill Gates and Mark Zukerburg. Bridge International uses a standard curriculum that is read off of a tablet computer. This low-cost model of schooling relies on paying small wages to instructors, who simply read the curriculum, and fees paid by students to attend (or government subsidies). I can be extremely profitable when delivered to scale. In the most extreme case, in Liberia, the Ministry of education is trying to outsource its entire primary education system to Bridge International. Given Bridge international’s work, it’s no wo

In a recent paper for the University of Johannesburg, Raewyn Connell shared some of her thinking on the decolonization of knowledge. In many ways she aimed to re-think the history of knowledge itself, moving away from the Northern bias and colonial structures in mainstream social science. She argues, “The relationship between knowledge produced in different parts of the world is not as simple as “Western” domination. Knowledge flows in multiple directions from the metropole to the periphery and from the periphery to the metropole.” Raewyn is 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 Association established the Raewyn Connell Prize for the best book in Australian sociology. After her interview, Will Brehm wanted to ask Raewyn an additional question. You can find Raewyn's answer online at www.FreshEdPodcast.com

We don’t normally air shows in the middle of the week but the vote in Britain to leave the EU warrants a special show. Let’s call it FreshEdge — a look at the most pressing issues today. Susan Robertson joins us today to talk about Brexit and its implications for education. She is professor of sociology of education in the Graduate school of education at the university of Bristol. She is also co-editor of the journal Globalization, Societies, and Education.

Can film help us understand educational phenomena? My guest today, David Cole, has co-written a new book called A Pedagogy of Cinema. By analyzing images in various films, he attempts to produce philosophical insights into education systems dominated by a digitalized, corporatized, and surveillance-controlled world. David Cole is an Associate Professor in Education at Western Sydney University, Australia and the leader of the Globalisation theme in the Centre for Educational Research.

The Global Partnership for Education is a powerful multi-stakeholder organization in educational development. It funnels millions of dollars to develop education systems in dozens of low-income countries. Yet the board of directors of the organization strategically avoids some of the most important and controversial topics in education today. My guest today, Francine Menashy, has researched the Global Partnership for Education and the ways in which its board of directors avoids the topic of low-fee private schools, which is a heavily debated idea in both education policy and research. Francine Menashy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Leadership in Education at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She researches aid to education and non-state sector engagement, including the policies of international organizations, companies, and philanthropies. Her research discussed in today’s show was funded through a fellowship with the National Academy of Education and the Spencer Foundation.

Education For All is a global movement led by UNESCO. It began in 1990 when 155 countries adopted the World Declaration on Education For All. The movement was renewed in the year 2000 when countries agreed on the Dakar Framework for Action, which committed them to achieve education for all by the year 2015. Education For All continues to be a common phrase in educational development. But it has changed over its 26-year existence. It linked into Goals 2 and 3 of the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals and was tied closely to the World Bank through the funding mechanism known as the Fast Track Initiative. The movement has adapted and adopted new elements and has included additional actors, such as non-governmental organization, human rights activists, and philanthropic organizations and individuals. My guest today, Leon Tikly, argues in a forthcoming article in Comparative Education Review that Education For All is best understood as a regime, borrowing an idea from international relations. He sa

Do schools provide the best education possible for children? My guest today believes schools are the greatest barrier to education. Simon Springer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Victoria, Canada. He advocates and practices with his children a concept he calls un-schooling, but which also goes by the more popular name de-schooling. Simon’s research agenda explores the political, social, and geographical exclusions that neoliberalism has engendered, particularly in the context of contemporary Cambodia, where he emphasizes the role of violence and power. He cultivates a cutting edge theoretical approach to his scholarship by foregrounding both poststructuralist critique and a radical revival of anarchist philosophy. In today’s show Simon discusses his new co-edited volume, The Radicalization of Pedagogy: Anarchism, Geography, and the spirit of revolt (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016).  Before starting the show, I want to apologize for the high pitched sound that you’

My guest today is José Cossa, a Visiting Associate Professor at the American University in Cairo. In the fall of 2016, he will join the faculty of Peabody College at Vanderbilt University as a Senior Lecturer. In today’s show, José talks about his archival research on three past editors of the Comparative Education Review. He is concerned with the ways in which the field of comparative education was formed and the role journal editors play in setting intellectual boundaries. His work can be found in the book Crafting a Global Field (Springer, 2016).

Human capital theory connects education to the labor market. It posits that more education makes workers more productive, which increases earnings. A more educated and productive workforce subsequently increases the gross domestic product of a nation. This theory has been prevalent since the 1950s and continues to play a central role in the minds of both policymakers and parents: You go to school because you will get a better job in the future; The government invests in education because it will have a return on investment in larger GDPs. My guest today says human capital theory is dead. Hugh Lauder is Professor of Education and Political Economy at the University of Bath. He specialises in the relationship of education to the economy and has for over 10 years worked on national skill strategies and more recently on the global skill strategies of multinational companies.

My guest today is Iveta Silova, Director of the Center for the Advanced Studies in Global Education at Arizona State University. Professor Silova has spent her career studying post-socialist education transformation processes. In today’s show she discusses some of her new work comparing Latvian textbooks before, during, and after Soviet occupation.

Large-scale assessments such as PISA have profoundly changed the processes of educational policy making. Countries that do well on PISA are turned into reference societies by other countries trying to emulate educational success. My guest today is Florian Waldow, a professor of comparative and international education at Humboldt University in Berlin. One of Florian’s main research interests is the study of educational “borrowing and lending”, particularly the ways in which countries point to experiences from abroad as a way to legitimate policy agendas and how educational “reference societies” are constructed. In today’s show, Florian talks about how the German media has interpreted the PISA success of countries in Scandinavia and Asia. His research shows that reference societies can both be positive and negative — pointing towards education reforms Germany should enact and those it should not. The research discussed in this podcast was published in 2016 in the journal Zeitschrift für Pädagogik. Ful

Today on the show: social networks analysis in educational research. My guest is Robin Shields. Robin is an Associate Professor at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom. His research broadly investigates the globalization of education, examining patterns of convergence and differentiation in educational policy and practice. He particularly focuses on the innovative application of research methods such as social network analysis and multilevel modeling to address key theoretical debates in the field. He has applied these methods to the study of international higher education and international development education. On today’s show we discuss some of his work looking at twitter feeds of world class universities, which can be found in the February 2016 issue of Higher Education.

Private interests are increasingly becoming commonplace inside education. In today’s economic globalization, the attainment of knowledge is seen as the key difference between economies that succeed and economies that stagnate or fail. Perhaps more precisely, it is knowledge that determines if an individual — not a national economy—succeeds or fails. We call this the “knowledge economy” and it is one of the main reason why private interests have entered education systems. Private interests in education range from private schools and private textbook and examination companies to the emerging belief that education is an individual, positional good that can be purchased and to the financialization of education where companies buy and sell student debt. It also includes things such as evidence based policy and information technology Our guest today, Professor Gita Steiner-Khamsi sees herself as a second generation researcher of educational privatization. Whereas the first generation of scholars aimed at describin

This year the Comparative and International Education Society's Globalization and Education Book Award goes to Suhanthie Motha for her book "Race, Empire, and English Language Teaching: Creating Responsible and Ethical Anti-Racist Practice." This book smoothly and bitingly makes connections between globalization, the spread of English and English language teaching, and colonialism and empire. It is an accessible read which we hope spreads widely among both academics and teachers/practitioners. Sincerely, we hope as many people as possible, both within the larger TESOL community and beyond it, have a chance to read this excellent book. Suhanthie Motha is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Washington.