FreshEd

Happy 2018. The FreshEd team is on break. We'll return in February. Please take our audience survey: http://www.FreshEdpodcast.com/survey

On Sunday, Germany's social democratic party voted to enter formal talks with Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union to form a new government. It's been nearly 4 months since the Germans' voted in September.

One reason Germany has had difficulty forming a governing coalition is because of the rise of extremist parties. The Alternative for Germany, a right-wing extremist party, is the third largest party in government.

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.

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 will be published by Princeton University Press in February.

The FreshEd team is on break. We'll return in February. Please take our audience survey: http://www.FreshEdpodcast.com/survey

Lobbyists are paid to influence government officials. They often operate behind closed doors, hidden from public view. In the education sector, for-profit companies rely on the work of lobbyists to promote commercial interests in public policy, from privately operated public schools to the use of education technology inside classrooms.

My guest today author, lobbyist, and activist, Tamasin Cave, shines a light on commercial lobbyists in Britain’s education sector. A director of SpinWatch and leader of the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency, Cave talks about her book, co-authored with Andy Rowell, entitled: A Quiet Word: Lobbying, Crony Capitalism and Broken Politics in Britain, which was published in 2014 by Random House.

Cave reveals the techniques used by successful lobbyists and discusses the revolving door among government office, lobby firms, and the media. She calls for transparency in lobbying and reveals how she thinks like a lobbyist.

Happy 2018. The FreshEd team is on break. We'll return in February. Please take our audience survey: http://www.FreshEdpodcast.com/survey

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.

What a year! 2017 was a year of massive growth for FreshEd. We put out 44 shows that received over 25,000 listens. We covered a range of topics, including – but certainly not limited to –educational privatization, student unions, intercultural competencies, the militarization of childhood in Japan, and, of course, PISA. We spoke to professors, students, politicians, and development practitioners from around the world.

All of this is huge for a show that is basically a hobby for a group of education enthusiasts.

 There are some changes in the works for next year, but I’ll announce those details once everything is finalized.

 For now, let’s take stock of the year.

What were the big ideas in educational research in 2017? What was missing? And where are we going in 2018?

For the final show of the year, I’ve invited Susan Robertson and Roger Dale to reflect on the year in research and point to future directions.

They are co-editors of the journal Globalisation, Societies, and Education, which — like FreshEd — has a relatively broad remit.

In our conversation, we look back at the diverse range of topics covered in educational research this year. We also ponder why certain topics, like austerity and meritocracy, remain unexamined and why many scholars don’t fully engage theory. 

Susan Robertson is a Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge  and Roger Dale is a Professor of Education at the University of Bristol.

To celebrate the 100th episode of FreshEd, I’ve saved an interview with a very special guest.

Back in October, I had the privilege of sitting down with Professor David Harvey during his visit to Tokyo. For those who don’t know him, David Harvey is considered “one of the most influential geographers of the later twentieth century.” He is one of the most cited academics in the humanities and social sciences and is perhaps the most prominent Marxist scholars in the past half century. He has taught a course on Marx’s Capital for nearly 40 years. It is freely available online, and I highly recommend it.

You can go online and find all sorts of interviews with David Harvey where he explains his work and understanding of Marx in depth.

For our conversation today, I thought it would be best to talk about higher education, a system David Harvey has experienced for over 50 years. Who better to give a Marxist critique of higher education than David Harvey himself?

David Harvey is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York. His newest book is entitled Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason, which was published last month.

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 Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at Arizona State University (ASU).

Today we talk about a television show that was hugely popular in Latin America called El Chavo del Ocho. The show crossed boarders across Latin America, taking on a multiplicity of meaning. My guests today, Daniel Friedrich and Erica Colmenares, have a new edited collection that explores how the show worked and produced particular visions of Latin American childhood, schooling, and societies. They also contend that their approach to studying El Chavo del Ocho is a new direction in comparative education research.

Daniel Friedrich is an Associate Professor of Curriculum at Teachers College, Columbia University where Erica Colmenares is a doctoral candidate in the Curriculum and Teaching department. Their new edited collection is entitled Resonances of El Chavo del Ocho in Latin American Childhood, schooling and societies. It is the first book in the new Bloomsbury series “New Directions in Comparative and International Education.”

Finland is known to have an excellent education system. Its high scores on the Programme for International Student Assessment have convinced people around the world that Finland is a country worth copying. In 2011, Pasi Sahlberg detailed Finland’s educational reforms that helped achieve these world-class results in his book Finnish Lessons.

As Pasi traveled the world talking about his award-winning book to academics, policy makers, and educators, he was always asked if it is a good idea to copy the Finnish education system.

Today, Pasi Sahlberg – a regular on FreshEd -- sits down with me to talk about his latest book, FinnishEd Leadership: Four Big, inexpensive ideas to transform education. FinnishEd Leadership is, in some sense, a sequel to his earlier book, Finnish Lessons. FinnishEd Leadership offers ideas to make a difference in other schools inspired by Finnish practice. In other words, he provides an answer to those people asking if their country should copy Finland’s education system.

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. Prior to his time at Harvard, he was the Education Secretary for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As Governor Patrick’s top education adviser, Paul brings valuable insights to his work of the real-life political challenges that sometimes slow educational change.

Paul is the Francis Keppel Professor of Practice of Educational Policy and Administration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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 to take standardized tests across the USA. Unlike my own mini-protest, however, students who refuse to take tests are part of the Opt-Out movement. This movement is found in many states in America and units people from across the political divide.

With me to talk about this growing movement is Oren-Pizmony-Levy, an Assistant Professor of International and Comparative Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. He has been researching the opt-out movement, situating it within the global context. What motivates people to join the movement? What results have been produced?

In my conversation with Oren today, we discuss his and Nancy Green Saraisky's report entitled “who opts-out and why?"

Who Opts Out and Why? Results from a national survey on opting out of standardized tests

https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:201689

How Americans View the Opt Out Movement

https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:xd2547d7zx