ICE-Breaking, the Podcast

Congratulations to (MSc) Nicola Garroutte who graduated from the programme of Education with an International and Comparative Specialisation at Stockholm University in June 2022 with her thesis. In this Quick Burst podcast episode, she reads her abstract. Congratulations to Nicola!

Congratulations to (MSc) Yuto Sunakawa who graduated from the programme of Education with an International and Comparative Specialisation at Stockholm University in June 2022 with his thesis: A Narrative Inquiry into International Students' Learning Experiences in Sweden! In this Quick Burst podcast episode, we read his abstract. Click here to find Yuto's LinkedIn and reach out to him!

Congratulations to (MSc) Ekaterine Gogoberishvili who graduated from the programme of Education with an International and Comparative Specialisation at Stockholm University in June 2022 with her thesis. In this Quick Burst podcast episode, she read her abstract. Click here to find Ekaterine's LinkedIn and reach out to her!

Congratulations to (MSc) Sidney P. da Silva who graduated from the programme of Education with an International and Comparative Specialisation at Stockholm University in June 2022 with his thesis: Technology Integration and Higher Education! In this Quick Burst podcast episode we read his abstract. Click here to find Sidney's LinkedIn and reach out to him!

On today's episode I talk with Elmedina, who is studying the master's programme of Development, Education and International Cooperation at Jyväskylä University and shared her ideas about development of the world and more specifically about how history repeats itself. Going from this point of view: how come we don't learn from human mistakes and past fallacies? how come they will be repeated again? and which kind of events are we talking about? By discussing this we argue for the need of critical education and an awareness for people. There is something to take, learn or reflect on from Elmedina's story for everyone that is listening!

Do you want to know more about Elmedina? Click here to be directed to her LinkedIn profile.

The book Elmedina was talking about during the quick-fire questions, is called ''The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us about America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny'' by William Strauss and Neil Howe.

I'm currently working on a transcript for this episode. Come back here to access it.

Thank you so much for listening! Do you have ideas, suggestions or feedback? Reach out to me through [email protected], or click here to be directed to my LinkedIn profile.

What does it mean for you to speak your heritage language? To learn about your heritage culture? For some, this might be self-evident, but for an increasing amount of people this has become an important factor to maintain their identity abroad. Our contemporary world is characterised by human mobility globally. With migration, people bring along their own language while going abroad and the educational need to learn and develop a language or connect to native cultural, traditional and linguistic backgrounds increases. Our guest of today has been researching sociolinguistics,  the study of sociological aspects of language, and Heritage Language Education. Quite coincidentally, we find out that we are both working as HLE teachers in a Greek and a Dutch school, and we share our experiences. 

Do you want to know more about Irene? Click here to be directed to her LinkedIn profile

The book Irene was talking about during the quick-fire questions, is called Educated by Tara Westover

I'm currently working on a transcript for this episode. Come back here to access it.

Thank you so much for listening! Do you have ideas, suggestions or feedback? Reach out to me through [email protected], or click here to be directed to my LinkedIn profile.

Looking for more information? Here are some references to books and articles that might be interesting for you:

Brinton, D. M., Kagan, O., & Bauckus, S. (Eds.). (2017). Heritage language education: A new field emerging. Routledge. 

Carreira, M., & Kagan, O. (2018). Heritage language education: A proposal for the next 50 years. Foreign Language Annals, 51(1), 152-168. 

King, K. A. (2000). Language ideologies and heritage language education. International Journal of bilingual education and bilingualism, 3(3), 167-184.

Do you look back at your secondary school memories with pleasure? Reminiscing the breaks with friends, fooling around in the classroom, strolling through the hallways in which everything and everyone was so familiar? Or was your experience less pleasant and did you not feel like you belonged? Belonged to the place, time, or community? Turns out that this sense of belonging is of importance to student's self-efficacy, academic motivation, engagement and performance. Isabel has been studying a sense of belonging within schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, we will be talking about this, and more.

Do you want to know more about Isabel? Click here to be directed to her LinkedIn profile.

You can find Isabel's thesis here, or via the website of Stockholm University's Department of Education: Isabel Maria Machado Da Silva. School belonging during challenging times: A qualitative interview study of students transitioning to high school in the context of a global pandemic. September 2021.

The books Isabel was talking about during the quick-fire questions, are called ''The Power of Now'' by Eckhart Tolle and "A court of thorns and roses'' by Sarah Maas .

I'm currently working on a transcript for this episode. Come back here to access it.

Thank you so much for listening! Do you have ideas, suggestions or feedback? Reach out to me through [email protected], or click here to be directed to my LinkedIn profile.

Looking for more information on Weak Theory? This is a reference to the article Isabel mentioned: Wright, S. (2015). More-than-human, emergent belongings: A weak theory approach. Progress in Human Geography, 39(4), 391-411.

Welcome to yet another episode of the podcast! Today we are discussing a prominent factor within the field of ICE, namely the influence of cultural factors on education. We are all accustomed to our own educational system, which includes cultural influences shaping the ways of teaching, the daily schedule, and instruction material among other things. What if all of these things would change all of the sudden? We will be discussing a 360 degree change in the educational system from one day to another. From a western system (UK, Sweden) to the Chinese system. There are enormous differences between these educational traditions. China is scoring very high in international rankings, how is this achieved? What is so different than in Western countries? What does this do to the students? Yolanda will be talking about her personal experiences with the Chinese system and the phenomena we see in the documentary ''Are Our Kids Tough Enough'' (see below). 

Do you want to know more about Yolanda? Click here to be directed to her LinkedIn profile.

Our conversation was inspired by the BBC documentary, called ''Are Our Kids Tough Enough?'', which aired in 2015.

The book Yolanda was talking about during the quick-fire questions, is called ''The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia'' by Michael Booth.

I'm currently working on a transcript for this episode. Come back here to access it.

Thank you so much for listening! Do you have ideas, suggestions or feedback? Reach out to me through [email protected], or click here to be directed to my LinkedIn profile.

In today’s episode we welcome Taras! He has experience working with curriculum reforms in Ukraine, as well as in other jobs and studying there. We discuss the complex process of curriculum reforms and his role in this, which also brings us to the topic of corruption and plagiarism. Taras has a moral and philosophical answer to this, but also a more instrumental one. If we trust students, explain plagiarism and motivate them intrinsically, is control still necessary?  How are plagiarism controls executed? And although we can’t compare curriculum systems one to one, we can compare programs. In which way do the programs Taras followed differ from each other? What are the different educational approaches? Taras concludes the episode by showing the importance of education and learning for yourself and throughout your entire life.

These are the books Taras is currently reading: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber, and Churchill and Orwell by Thomas E. Ricks.

Do you want to know more about Taras? Click here to be redirected to his LinkedIn profile.

I'm currently working on a transcript for this episode. Come back here to access it.

Thank you so much for listening! Do you have ideas, suggestions or feedback? Reach out to me through [email protected], or click here to be directed to my LinkedIn profile.

Despite it not being written in the curriculum, Ekuna explains how our master’s programme of ICE does include human rights values and citizenship education lessons. Citizenship education and human rights education is of importance to individuals, but also the collective. It is context-dependent, but also interconnected globally. How can a programme teach similar content, but support plurality and learn to respect differences? How does the process of meaning-making go hand in hand with critical thinking? This is where cosmopolitan values intertwine with citizenship education and human rights education.

In Ekuna's words: The podcast is inspired by people’s stories, up until now specifically the voices of people within the programme of ICE. It’s a presentation of the process and values which this process of meaning-making is based upon. We talk about valuing different voices, words and concepts, our diversity that connects individuals with the concepts. This podcast and each episode represents what the programme represents and how we make meaning of our master's programme in ICE.

This is the title of the book Ekuna was mentioning: In the House of Silence, by Arab Women Writers

Do you want to know more about Ekuna? Click here to be redirected to her LinkedIn profile. 

I'm currently working on a transcript for this episode. Come back here to access it.

Thank you so much for listening! Do you have ideas, suggestions or feedback? Reach out to me through [email protected], or click here to be directed to my LinkedIn profile.

Looking for more information? Here are some of Ekuna's suggestions: