New Books in Education

Love in the Time of Ethnography: Essays on Connection as a Focus and Basis for Research (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017) is edited by Lucinda Carspecken, anthropologist and lecturer in the School of Education, Indiana University Bloomington. In this beautifully curated book, contributors from various social science disciplines—sociology, anthropology, education, psychology, etc.—explore different facets of a basic component of human life, love. The authors define love broadly to include affective feelings, expressions, practice and philosophy across different cultures and traditions. It not only reveals how affective feelings are deeply shaped by different cultural, social and political practice, but also examines love’s potential to transcend the boundaries between self and the other, to increase the solidarity among young activists, to overcome traumatic experiences, and to anchor the relationship between human beings and nature. While grounded in the ethnographic approach, the book also intentionally includes unconventional academic writings such as poems and autobiographies. Of particular interest is the discussion of love as a primary tenet in social science research methodology: the conceptualization of research praxis as love-in-action and the expatiation of the relationship between love and validity. Audience who are interested in the emotional and affective aspects of human life will find this book inspiring. It will also draw attention from social research methodologists who are searching for alternative research paradigms other than the predominant post-positivist approach. Pengfei Zhao holds a doctoral degree in Inquiry Methodology from Indiana University-Bloomington. Among her research interests are youth culture, identity formation, qualitative research methods, and comparative sociological and educational studies. She is currently working on a book manuscript studying the coming of age experience of rural Chinese youth during and right after the Cultural Revolution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

On Second Thought: Learned Women Reflect on Profession, Community, and Purpose (University of Utah Press, 2017) is a collection of thirteen essays by women, all in the second half of their lives, in which they contemplate the ways in which the different facets of their identities—personal, professional and spiritual—have hitherto unfolded and intertwined. Among their number is the folklorist, ethnographer, oral historian, and prolific independent scholar Luisa Del Giudice, who is also the editor of the volume and the driving force behind it. The seed for the book began some years ago, when a career crisis led Del Giudice to question many aspects of her life. In the process, she developed an acute awareness of its often fragmented nature, a fragmentation exacerbated, if not caused, by an academic establishment that tends to looks askance on its members bringing any aspect of their personal lives, still less their spiritual beliefs, into their work. Del Giudice decided to push back against the resulting dichotomous state, which effectively pits the pursuit of knowledge (academia) against the pursuit of wisdom (spirituality). She contacted a number of women, most of whom she knew personally, and asked if they would be willing to provide written reflections on their lives to date often complex and multifaceted lives that encompassed a range of personal and professional identities. She encouraged each to describe how their existence has accrued meaning and purpose, as well as any spiritual leanings underpinning that process. The result is a kind of textual “Wise Women’s Circle.” It includes four folklorists (aside from Del Giudice herself, there is Mary Ellen Brown, Sabina Magliocco, and Christine Zinni) along with contributors whose professional backgrounds embrace a range of other scholarly disciplines, as well as practitioners of law, medicine, public health, and art. The spiritual and cultural leanings expressed are similarly diverse and include Catholicism, Paganism, Episcopalianism, Jungian Psychology, Judaism and Zen Buddhism. The paths of the women have often been shaped by societal and cultural expectations and institutional constraints. Despite the singular nature of each essay, a number of recurring themes emerge, not least the importance of cultural heritage, the challenges of combining a professional role with that of a domestic caregiver, workplace side-lining, the power of story-telling, and, perhaps most notably, an ongoing experience of existing within a creative, albeit uncomfortable, state of betwixt and betweeness. Del Giudice describes the contributors as “masters of bricolage and diverse resources who find meaning in lonely marginalized places, who struggle to weave together disparate aspects of life to make them meaningful” (23). All can speak to lessons learned, rewards gained, and the critical need for women’s voices to be heard. Overall, this collection is designed to inspire its readers to examine their own lives, to help them clarify their own sense of purpose, and then commit to fulfilling it, despite the obstacles which will surely arise. Rachel Hopkin is a UK born, US based folklorist and radio producer and is currently a PhD candidate at the Ohio State University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Native American students from across the United States attended federally-managed boarding schools where they were taught English, math, and a variety of vocational skills, all for the purpose of forcing their assimilation into white, American society. While enrolled at these schools, students also showcased their writing, editing, and printing skills by publishing school newspapers. In Recovering Native American Writings in the Boarding School Press (University of Nebraska Press, 2017), Assistant Professor of English Jacqueline Emery provides the first comprehensive collection of Native American writings published in boarding school newspapers, and demonstrates the ways in which students used these periodicals to both challenge and reflect assimilationist practices at the schools. The collection includes student-authored letters, editorials, fiction, and folklore, and examines the writings of Gertrude Bonin, Charles Eastman, and Luther Standing Bear, among additional, lesser-known writers. Samantha M. Williams is a PhD candidate in History at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is currently writing her dissertation, which examines the history of the Stewart Indian School in Carson City, Nevada through the lenses of settler colonialism and public history. She can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

It takes courage to walk into a classroom when students don’t look like you. It takes courage to return every day to teach a class when students devalue education. Media has portrayed the scenario in films like Freedom Writers and Dangerous Minds with white teachers symbolizing the great white hope to a class of minority students. Well, Michelle Kuo is not the great white hope, but she becomes hope and maintains hope for young black students in Mississippi Delta, specifically Patrick. Kuo writes about her journey in the memoir Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship (Random House, 2017). Her story focuses on race, justice and education in the rural south where she taught American History through black literature. Kuo, a Harvard graduate born to Taiwainese parents, wanted to work in a place where she was needed. Thus, she was assigned to an alternative school, which the local administration used as a dumping ground for the so-called “bad kids”—where rabble-rousers who had already been expelled from mainstream schools now given a final chance before being permanently ejected from the public education system. Her memoir navigates the terrain of teacher speaking to students through books and poems they can understand. Reading with Patrick points to a teacher who breaks the rule, choosing favorites. The memoir includes effective teaching tools Kuo used in the classroom. Most importantly, the memoir illustrates humanity when Kuo leaves Helena for a law school but returns after discovering her favorite student, Patrick, has gone to jail. Michelle Kuo teaches in the History, Law and Society program at the American University of Paris. She and Patrick share the royalties from this book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In her new book, Youth Encounter Programs in Israel: Pedagogy, Identity and Social Change (Syracuse University Press, 2017), Karen Ross conducts an in-depth analysis of Jewish-Palestinian youth encounter peace-building programs in Israel. She adopts a narrative approach and carefully considers how these youth programs impacted their young participants in long-term, positive and profound ways. Of particular interest is her insights about how to research and evaluate the “impact” of education programs in a non-linear, non-causal and broadly conceived approach. Her work has rich and multi-layered practical implications for the continuous peace-building efforts both within and out of the Israeli/Palestinian context. Karen Ross is an assistant professor in the Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Pengfei Zhao holds a doctoral degree in Inquiry Methodology from Indiana University-Bloomington. Among her research interests are youth culture, identity formation, qualitative research methods, and comparative sociological and educational studies. She is currently working on a book manuscript studying the coming of age experience of rural Chinese youth during and right after the Cultural Revolution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

“Marriage is the foundation of a successful society,” proclaimed the Clinton-era welfare reform bill. Since then, national and state governments have spent nearly a billion dollars on programs designed to encourage poor and low-income Americans to get married and to remain married. But do any of these initiatives achieve their stated goals? To find out, listen to our interview with Jennifer Randles, author of Proposing Prosperity?: Marriage Education Policy and Inequality in America (Columbia University Press, 2016), who knows first-hand what happens in such programs, bringing important new insight into evaluating claims that there is a “success sequence” that will bring people out of poverty. Stephen Pimpare is Senior Lecturer in the Politics & Society Program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of The New Victorians (New Press, 2004), A People’s History of Poverty in America (New Press, 2008), winner of the Michael Harrington Award, and Ghettos, Tramps and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen (Oxford University Press, 2017). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

We all recognize that parenting involves a seemingly endless succession of choices, beginning perhaps with the choice to become a parent, through a sequence of decisions concerning the care, upbringing, acculturation, and education of a child. And we all recognize that many of these decisions are impactful. More specifically, we know that the choices parents make often deeply impact the lives of others, including especially the life of the child. Given the sheer number of impactful and other-regarding choices involved, one might expect parenthood to be a major site of philosophical attention. But it isn’t really. In The Philosophical Parent: Asking the Hard Questions about Having and Raising Children (Oxford University Press, 2017), Jean Kazez philosophically engages with a broad sample of the questions that parents must confront. Her analyses are philosophically nuanced but also accessible to non-academic readers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Richard Rabinowitz is one of the leading public historians in the United States. He has helped conceptualize, design, organize, and build over 500 history programs across the U.S. at such sites as the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York; the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute; and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. Between 2004 and 2011, Richard curated six blockbuster history exhibitions at the New-York Historical Society, including Slavery in New York and Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn. He also drew up the interpretive and curatorial plan for the Slavery and Freedom exhibition at the new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Most of this work has come out of his founding and directing the American History Workshop. The journey he has taken—from receiving his PhD in the History of American Civilization at Harvard to becoming a public historian and working on these exhibits—is the subject of his recent book: Curating America: Journeys through Storyscapes of the American Past (University of North Carolina Press, 2016). Over the course of the hour, I talk with Richard about the changing ways people have come to engage with the past and how this has impacted, and been shaped by, his many museum projects and exhibitions. Richard focuses on the materiality of lived experience. From it he culls knowledge of big ideas (such as freedom, revolution, and oppression) and uses places, objects, and the bodily sensorium to create “storyscapes” in which audiences can recognize themselves. Crucial to this process is the knowledge that audiences and museum-goers bring with them. Richard speaks to how he has, together with these stakeholders, generated a new historical awareness that is more reflective of our ever-changing present. Michael Amico holds a PhD in American Studies from Yale University. His dissertation, The Forgotten Union of the Two Henrys: The True Story of the Peculiar and Rarest Intimacy of the American Civil War, is about the romance between Henry Clay Trumbull and Henry Ward Camp of the Tenth Connecticut Regiment. He is the author, with Michael Bronski and Ann Pellegrini, of “You Can Tell Just by Looking”: And 20 Other Myths about LGBT Life and People (Beacon, 2013), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Nonfiction. He can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Ricardo D. Salvatore‘s new book, Disciplinary Conquest: U.S. Scholars in South America, 1900-1945 (Duke University Press, 2016) offers an alternative narrative on the origins of Latin American Studies in the United States. Salvatore claims that during the first half of the twentieth century scholars defined the contours of Latin American studies. Scholars did so both in the context of the ‘dollar diplomacy’ and the ‘good neighbor’ policy towards the region. Salvatore argues that, in contrast to the military interventions in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, the approach toward South America was defined by scholarly “disciplinary interventions.” Salvatore follows the life and work of five field-defining scholars who approached the South-American “terra incognita” from the vantage point of the hegemonic hemispheric power. An archaeologist (Hiram Bingham), a historian (Clarence Haring), a political scientist (Leo S. Rowe), a sociologist (Edward A. Ross), and a geographer (Isaiah Bowman), defined spaces of inquiry that were transnational in scope and scale. Salvatore argues that the creation of transnational fields of inquiry intended to render the region “visible” to audiences in the United States. The definition of new disciplinary spaces such as “South-American studies” contrasted with the then-prevalent domestic narratives focused on “national” topics. These new transnational spaces, Salvatore claims, were the product of the “imperiality” of the knowledge produced by the five scholars studied in Disciplinary Conquest. Nonetheless, the narrative proposed by the author defies a simplistic depiction of Haring, Rowe, Bingham, Ross, and Bowman as mere pawns of empire. Salvatore shows how some of them produced works that grappled with “anti-American” sentiment in the region while others tried to create alternatives to official policy designs. Moreover, Salvatore shows how these men approached South America as progressive intellectuals interested in democratic governance, social justice, and progress in the region. Salvatore notes how these concerns led to envisioning two different South Americas. One South America, positively appraised by these scholars, was made up of the “ABC powers” (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and by extension, Uruguay). The ABC countries showed promise, from the scholars point of view, regarding democratic development and social equality. Scholars construed another, less-promising from the U.S. perspective, South America by placing focus on the Andean region. Salvatore thus shows how these early iterations of Latin American studies resulted in the creation of various scholarly-defined, and externally-imposed, transnational fields of inquiry. Alvaro Caso Bello is a Ph.D. Candidate at Johns Hopkins University. He can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Andrea L. Turpin is an Associate Professor of History at Baylor University. Her book, A New Moral Vision: Gender, Religion and the Changing Purposes of American Higher Education, 1837-1917 (Cornell University Press, 2017), begins with the early institutions of higher learning and the contest over the idea of separate and unique education. She examines the gender history of both private and state colleges. Evangelical Protestant commitments to personal conversions and missions fuel women’s higher education beyond rudimentary instructions preparing them for domestic life. The objective was a godly social order based on the individual relationship with God. After the Civil War the influence of religious liberals, increased emphasis on research and growing demands for women’s education instigated a reevaluation of the university’s role in moral preparation. Separate men’s, women’s and co-education institutions multiplied and moved toward seeking the public good in sex-specific ways. Women trained for social service professions; men for government and institutional leadership. The shift away from personal piety to gendered character formation and service to nation created increasingly rigid notions of separate male and female cultures in the public life of the Progressive Era. Turpin’s examination highlights the role of higher education in constructing the moral and gender map of a nation. Lilian Calles Barger, www.lilianbarger.com, is a cultural, intellectual and gender historian. Her current book project is entitled The World Come of Age: An Intellectual History of Liberation Theology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

The book discussed here is the The Joy of Mathematics (Prometheus Books, 2017), whose lead author, Alfred Posamentier, is our guest today. The subtitle Marvels, Novelties, and Neglected Gems That Are Rarely Taught in Math Classdescribes the book nicely. Much of the book can be read by someone with only a couple of years of high school math, and the book does a terrific job of showing the reader why those of us who love math do so. We like arithmetic, algebra, geometry, infinity, and the counterintuitively surprising, and the book contains lovely examples of all of these. Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

When undergraduate students look through a course catalog and see the title World Religions they probably have some idea what the course will be about. But why is that? Why do World Religions seem so self-evident in this historical moment? In After World Religions: Reconstructing Religious Studies (Routledge, 2016), edited by Christopher R. Cotter, Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow in the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, and David G. Robertson, Lecturer in Religious Studies at the Open University, several authors attempt to delineate the history and engage with the problems of the World Religions paradigm. The history of the production of the category religion has defined the concept as a universal sui generis entity. This system of classification was bound up in scientism, evolutionary thinking, colonial encounters, and Protestant biases. The World Religions Paradigm extends from this model and has governed both research and teaching in Religious Studies. The essays in After World Religions offer strategies to interrogate or subvert the World Religions Paradigm from within, how to approach introductory courses in the study of religion outside of this governing structure, and the role of emergent pedagogical techniques. In our conversation we discussed the history of religion, textbooks as data, navigating graduate instruction, questions of the sacred, archeological data, new age stuff, critical thinking as opposed to the accumulation of information, the destabilizing effects of alternative data, the planet Pluto, and another podcast, the wonderful Religious Studies Project. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. He is the author of Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims, and is the editor of the forthcoming volumes Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

If you were a cadet at West Point and knew with virtual certainty that upon graduation you would be sent into the teeth of the Vietnam war, what would you do? Well, if you were Tom Carhart and five of his buddies, you’d decide to have one last hurrah and steal the Navy’s mascot before the Army-Navy game. Students at West Point had stolen said mascot–“Bill the Goat”–once before, namely in 1954. To avoid further embarrassment at the hands of its arch-rivals, the Navy thereafter placed “Bill” in a high-security facility under Marine guard. No matter, Tom and his fellow cadets said. Even if they were caught (and they knew they would be found out eventually), what could the Army do? Send them to Vietnam? That was in the works anyway. So, as Tom explains in his terrific book The Golden Fleece: High-Risk Adventure at West Point (Potomac Books, 2017), off they went to steal the goat…and off they went to Vietnam. Tom’s a great storyteller, and his book is at moments funny and touching. Moreover, he offers deep insight into what it was like to be a cadet in the 1960s, to know that you were going to war, and to go to war and come back. Not everyone did, of course. I highly recommend you pick up The Golden Fleece. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Noel Brown is a film and television scholar at Liverpool Hope University. His research has focused on Hollywood and British cinema (classical and contemporary), family entertainment, children’s culture and animation. His first three books were published by I.B. Tauris and include, The Hollywood Family Film: from Shirley Temple to Harry Potter, Family Films in Global Cinema: The World Beyond Disney, and British Children’s Cinema: from The Thief of Bagdad to Wallace and Gromit. Now his newest, The Children’s Film: Genre, Nation and Narrative (Wallflower Press, 2017) looks at children’s film to explore its cultural and social impact, and it shows the evolution of a beloved genre that has resonated across ages and generations. The Children’s Film is part of the Short Cuts Series published by Wallflower Press, an imprint of Columbia University Press. Information on Noel Brown’s work is available at http://lhu.academia.edu/NoelBrown. Susan Raab is president of Raab Associates, an internationally recognized agency that specializes in marketing literature, products and initiatives that help improve the lives of young people. Clients have includedNational Geographic, Scholastic, the International Board on Books for Young People, and bestselling authors and illustrators. Susan is marketing advisor for the Society of Children’sBook Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). She’salso a journalist reporting on publishing, education and human rights. Her work as a broadcast correspondent has been hosted by the University of Connecticut, and by the University of Florida’s Recess Radio, a program syndicated to 500 public radio stations. Her many interviews, including with Art Spiegelman, Jon Scieszka, Norton Juster, Laurie Halse Anderson and many others talking about art and literature can be heard here. Follow Susan at: https://twitter.com/sraab18 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

As the Middle East continues to become more topical to American and European audiences, a need for textbooks to teach the history of the region has become urgent. Some such textbooks take a topical approach, others use a chronological narrative. Betty Anderson‘s A History of the Middle East: Rulers, Rebels, and Rogues (Stanford University Press, 2016) combines both. Taking us through the whirlwind of the last few centuries, she focuses on three types of actors: the titular rulers, rebels and rogues, where rulers rule, rebels rebel, and rogues operate somewhere in-between. Anderson demonstrates that all three have shaped the development of the Middle East politically, socially, culturally, intellectually, and economically. NA Mansour is a graduate student at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies working on the global intellectual history of the Arabic-language press. She tweets @NAMansour26 and produces another Middle-East and North Africa-related podcast: Reintroducing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Nigel Warburton holds a PhD in Philosophy from Cambridge and has held academic positions at University of Nottingham and the Open University. But he is today a freelance public philosopher. He has offered philosophy courses at the Tate Modern gallery, he conducts monthly philosophical discussions at Blackwell’s Bookshop in Oxford, and co-hosts with David Edmonds the wildly popular podcast series Philosophy Bites. Nigel is the author of several books of philosophy, including The Art Question (Routledge 2002), Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 2009), and A Little History of Philosophy (Yale 2012). The "Why We Argue" podcast is produced by the Humanities Institute at the University of Connecticut as part of the Humility and Conviction in Public Life project. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

The dominant narrative in the history of the study of the Middle East has claimed that the Cold War was what pushed Middle East studies to develop, as part of a greater trend in area studies. Drawing on his previous work in 2004’s Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism, Zachary Lockman‘s Field Notes: The Making of Middle Eastern Studies in the United States (Stanford University Press, 2016) looks at the power of institutions, corporations, and foundations in the shaping of Middle East studies in the United States. It’s the story of how money changes hands and in the process, attempts to influence academic output; in many ways, this story complements what we already know of what research was being produced and how it was affecting the field at large. However, what we often neglect to mention is that universities themselves cannot found area studies centers alone and often receive the funding from wealthy benefactors. In Middle East studies, as in other fields, this also meant these benefactors had a research agenda; with area studies, there was a desire to break free of the disciplines history, philology, etc and establish unifying theories of area studies. While today’s Middle East studies is roughly bound together by a shared geographic interest and not by a unifying theory, this drive influenced how the field was shaped and the various infrastructures that still exist today. NA Mansour is a graduate student at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies working on the global intellectual history of the Arabic-language press. She tweets @NAMansour26 and produces another Middle-East and North Africa-related podcast: Reintroducing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Erica Halverson, professor of education at the University of Wisconsin Madison, joins us in this episode to discuss the recently published co-edited volume entitled, Makeology: Makers as Learners (Routledge, 2016). My conversation with Erica actually begins around her earlier work with Kimberly Sheridan (2014), in which they establish the warrant for studying making and learning and define theoretical and empirical approaches to making, makers, and makerspaces. We then discuss the insights that emerged from across each section of the book: the cultures and identities of makers, their tools and materials, and connecting making to the disciplines. For those unfamiliar with the Maker Movement, Erica describes what it is like to attend a Maker Faire. She also shares three vivid stories of makers, including two Hasidic Jewish men who created an electronic Mezuzah that chastises you for not touching it when you walk through the doorway, a boy who made a bow and arrow from straight wood pieces and hinges, and a social studies teacher who asked students to make monuments for women who should be honored on the Washington Mall. Responding to the cultural and gender stereotypes of the Maker Movement, Erica talks about a shared commitment that she sees among scholars in the learning sciences and the maker movement to the equity and diversity component of identity and culture. Throughout our conversation, Erica shares her perspectives on the role of authentic assessment and audience, the whimsy of making (beyond “put a bird on it!”), the role of tools, the STEM monster, and the challenges and opportunities of studying arts-based education. Julie Kallio is a graduate student in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her research interests include educational change, innovation and improvement networks, and participatory design. You can find more about her work on her website, follow her on twitter, or email her at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Anxiety has become a social epidemic. People feel anxious all the time about nearly everything: their work, families, and even survival. However, research shows that some of us are more prone to chronic anxiety than others, due in large part to experiences in utero and during the first year of life. My guest, psychologist Dr. Daniel Keating, explores these biological and genetic mechanisms in his new book, Born Anxious: The Lifelong Impact of Early Life Adversity–and How to Break the Cycle (St. Martin’s Press, 2017). His many years of research inform his ideas about the role of social inequality in elevated stress levels, and the impact of stress and adversity on gene expression and manifestations of anxiety. In our interview, we talk about the implications of these findings for understanding why some people perpetually feel tightly-wound and easily triggered. He also shares his suggestions for breaking this cycle and reducing our proneness to anxiety. Daniel P. Keating is a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. He has conducted research at leading North American universities, at Berlin’s Max Planck Institute, and with the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, where he was a fellow for two decades and led the program in human development. His research focuses on developmental differences–cognitive, social, and emotional and in physical and mental health. Listen to our interview by clicking below. To subscribe to the New Books in Psychology podcast, click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Jim Rickabaugh, Senior Advisor to the Institute for Personalized Learning, joins us in this episode to discuss his recently published book, entitled Tapping the Power of Personalized Learning: A Roadmap for School Leaders (ASCD, 2016). Jim has worked in education for the last 40 years as a classroom teacher, building and district leader, regional director, author, and consultant. The book addresses both the why and how of personalized learning, using vignettes, quotes, activities, and questions for reflection to help readers make sense of what this looks like in practice. At the heart of the book is the honeycomb model, developed at the Institute, which serves as both a roadmap and conceptual model for change. As Jim says in the interview, “it’s not magic to make this happen, but when it happens, it’s magical.” This book presents his vision for leading students, teachers, parents, and the system of schooling into the future. Julie Kallio is a graduate student in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Her research interests include educational change, innovation and improvement networks, and participatory design. You can find more about her work on her website, follow her on twitter, or email her at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Despite the prominence of LGBTQ issues in our current social consciousness, many people still know little about the LGBTQ community, which means that teaching about this community and its issues is an important job. It’s also a difficult one that’s been handled with varying degrees of effectiveness and sensitivity over the past few decades. Many of us can recall during our undergrad or graduate training having a single class day devoted to the topic, or our instructors trying to squeeze it in alongside other material. Fortunately, the teaching of LGBTQ issues has advanced dramatically, thanks to the work of psychologists such as Theodore Burnes and Jeanne Stanley. Their new edited book, entitled Teaching LGBTQ Psychology: Queering Innovative Pedagogy and Practice (American Psychological Association, 2017), covers pedagogical concepts as well as practical suggestions for bringing the material to life and helping students feel at home with it. In our interview, we have a frank discussion about the challenges of teaching LGBTQ psychology–such as fear, prejudice, and misinformation among students–and how to best rise to those challenges. Theodore Burnes is associate professor and director of the LGBT specialization of Antioch University’s clinical psychology masters program. He has 15 years of experience constructing, facilitating, and evaluating undergraduate and graduate coursework in psychology, Black studies, writing, LGBT studies, poetry, women’s studies, teacher education, and counseling in various university settings. He is a licensed psychologist and licensed professional clinical counselor in private practice in Los Angeles. Jeanne Stanley is Executive Director of Watershed Counseling and Consultation Services. She regularly conducts training around the country on best practices for supporting and affirming LGBTQ individuals and is a licensed psychologist in private practice in the Chestnut Hill are of Philadelphia. Listen to our interview by clicking below. To subscribe to the New Books in Psychology podcast, click here. Eugenio Duarte is a licensed psychologist and psychoanalyst practicing in New York City. He treats individuals and couples, with specialties in LGBTQ issues, eating and body image problems, and relationship problems. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Lee Trepanier, Professor of Political Science at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan, edited this important analysis of why the humanities matter, especially within higher education. Trepanier’s collection, Why the Humanities Matter Today: In Defense of Liberal Education (Lexington Books, 2017), brings together authors in a variety of fields within the humanities to reconsider the arguments that have been made in support of the humanities over the past decades, even as these disciplines have declined in terms of majors and faculty appointments across the United States. Kirk Fitzpatrick, James W. Harrison, Nozomi Irei, David Lunt, Kristopher G. Phillips and the collection editor, Lee Trepanier, represent perspectives from philosophy, literature, history, languages, political philosophy, while also engaging the question of what constitutes a liberal education in the 21st century, especially given the role of education within society. This text, which provides some thoughtful considerations beyond the often-given reasons for why the humanities are fundamentally important, is a kind of starting point for dialogue across disciplines, within colleges and university, but also among the public in considering the role of higher education in our contemporary democracy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Author, illustrator and international speaker/teacher, Linda Ragsdale talks about her Peace Dragon Tale series of books for children and shares how the powerful skills of View, Voice and Choice can lead children and adults through challenging parts of their lives with a peaceful and productive outcome. A survivor of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack, her work in peace education has led her around the world, empowering over 30,000 students to see and speak with a new voice, and an expanded capability of choice. Every path of her career supports her current work, which has bloomed in her Peace Dragon series picture books, including Not Opposites, and Alphabetter (Flowerpot Press, 2017). Each story is part of a living curriculum where conflict management skills can be applied whenever an issue arises. More information on Linda’s books and Peace Dragon initiative are at www.thepeacedragon.com. Susan Raab is president of Raab Associates, an internationally recognized agency that specializes in marketing literature, products and initiatives that help improve the lives of young people. Clients have included National Geographic, Scholastic, the International Board on Books for Young People, and bestselling authors and illustrators. Susan is marketing advisor for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). She’s also a journalist reporting on publishing, education and human rights. Her work as a broadcast correspondent has been hosted by the University of Connecticut, and by the University of Florida’s Recess Radio, a program syndicated to 500 public radio stations. Her many interviews, including with Art Spiegelman, Jon Scieszka, Norton Juster, Laurie Halse Anderson and many others talking about art and literature can be heard here. Follow Susan at: https://twitter.com/sraab18 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Dr. Edward Vickers, Professor of Comparative Education at Kyushu University, joins New Books Network to discuss his recently published book, entitled Education and Society in Post-Mao China (Routledge Studies in Education and Society in Asia, 2017). He co-authored the book along with Xiaodong Zeng, Professor at Beijing Normal University. The book chronicles educational development in post-Mao PR China. In just 40 years, the nation and its educational system rapidly transformed, ranging from subtle reforms made after the Chairman’s death in 1976 to rapid changes that came about with the Reform and Opening, culminating with the current international craze seen in the country’s educational sector today. The book covers the important aspect of this development, with a keen sense of politics and power. For any questions, comments, or recommendations for the New Books in Education podcast, you can connect with the host, Ryan M. Allen, at @PoliticsAndEd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In this episode, I speak with Tim Walker, the author of Teach Like Finland: 33 Simple Strategies for Joyful Classrooms (W. W. Norton & Company, 2017). This book stems from recent interest in Finland’s educational system resulting from its success on international assessments and explains how policy translates into classroom routines and structures as well as what American teachers can learn from their Finnish counterparts. We discuss how the two countries take different views on what makes good teachers and learning outcomes as well as ways teachers can promote well-being in any school context. He recommends the following books for listeners interested in his work and our conversation: Finnish Lessons 2.0: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? by Pasi Sahlberg The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way by Amanda Ripley The Well-Balanced Teacher: How to Work Smarter and Stay Sane Inside the Classroom and Out by Mike Anderson Walker joins New Books in Education for the interview. To share your thoughts on the podcast, you can connect with him on Twitter at @timdwalk. Trevor Mattea is an educational consultant and speaker. His areas of expertise include deeper learning, parent involvement, project-based learning, and technology integration. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or on Twitter at @tsmattea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

“Hookup” has become a buzzword, a misleading concept for students, parents and educators alike–one that confuses more than explains the nuances of this complex and pervasive trend. In American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus (W. W. Norton, 2017), Lisa Wade analyzes its cultural roots: the evolution of courtship, our unrealized feminist revolution, America’s new business model of higher education, and the increasingly tenuous economic futures faced by young people. The hookup came to dominate college campuses in this context, but the trouble extends beyond hooking up to the culture itself. It rewards students who endorse and embrace meaningless sex, while ostracizing those who don’t. And there is no escaping it. It permeates not just dorm rooms and frat houses, but dining halls, quads, Facebook and Instagram feeds, and even classrooms. It is now part of the quintessential college experience, necessary for forming and maintaining friendships, and it often determines social status, whether students opt in or out. By including students’ own perspectives and experiences through their college years and beyond, Wade presents a personal and compelling portrait of hookup culture, exploring how it affects a diverse range of students and what it says about the changing face of dating and sex in Tinder-era America. By the end of their senior year, even the most enthusiastic supporters of hookup culture wanted to feel more in hookups and to hurt or be hurt less, to abide by their own standards of attraction, and to opt out of a culture of sexual competition that leaves very few winners and too many losers. Wade challenges readers to envision new sexual cultures, ones that are more equal, more pleasurable, more respectful, kinder, and safer. Wade’s takeaway is for educators, parents, and students alike, asking not “How can we go back?” but “Where do we go from here?” College campuses have always been and should be a place of cultural revolution, and there’s no better place to re-imagine hookup culture and transform American culture in the process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Mark Bray, Chair Professor in the Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, joins the New Books Network to discuss his recently coedited book volume, entitled Researching Private Supplementary Tutoring: Methodological Lessons from Diverse Cultures (Comparative Education Research Centre and Springer, 2016). Sometimes called private supplemental tutoring, shadow education, and many other monikers, this practice is actually a global phenomenon that impacts education in societies around the world. Perhaps often considered an issue mostly concentrated in East Asia, this book covers methodological lessons and issues when studying this kind of education throughout the world, from Jamaica to Iran to Cambodia. The publication was coedited with Ora Kwo, associate professor in the Comparative Education Research Centre at the University of Hong Kong, and Boris Jokic, scientific associate in the Centre for Educational Research and Development at the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Croatia. Dr. Bray previously joined New Books Network to discuss Comparative Education Research Approaches and Methods. For any questions, comments, or recommendations for the New Books in Education podcast, you can connect with the host, Ryan M. Allen, at @PoliticsAndEd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Carrie J. Preston‘s new book tells the story of the global circulation of noh-inspired performances, paying careful attention to the ways these performances inspired twentieth-century drama, poetry, modern dance, film, and popular entertainment. Inspired by noh’s practice of retelling stories in different styles and tenses, Learning to Kneel: Noh, Modernism, and Journeys in Teaching (Columbia University Press, 2016) also weaves together a number of writing styles, and incorporates Preston’s own lessons in noh chant, dance, and drumming and experience writing plays based on noh models and choreographing dances with noh-related gestures throughout the book. The result is a fascinating exploration of the relationships between pedagogy and performance traced through the work of Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Beckett, and others. Learning to Kneel pays special attention to the politics of performance and pedagogy and the themes of submission and subversion, and urges a rethinking of many assumptions that we bring to understanding noh and its translations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In his new book Drawn to See: Drawing as an Ethnographic Method (University of Toronto Press, 2016) Andrew Causey argues that social science practitioners can cultivate new ways of experiencing the world through drawing. He has developed thirty-nine “etudes,” drawing exercises that challenge the reader to become a more rigorous observer and to transform their relationship with both visual media and academia. These etudes have been tried and tested over many years in his class, Visual Anthropology, at Columbia College – Chicago. With exciting interdisciplinary possibilities, this is book expands the toolbox available to ethnographers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In this episode, I speak with Pat Farenga about the new edition of John Holt’s Freedom and Beyond (HoltGWS LLC, 2017). This book offers a broad critique of traditional schooling and its capacity for solving social problems. We discuss John Holt’s transition from classroom teacher to public intellectual as well as the broader implications of schools prioritizing job training over citizenship and self-actualization. He recommends the following books for listeners interested in Holt’s work and our conversation: The Continuum Concept: In Search of Happiness Lost by Jean Liedloff Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich The Changing Nature of Man: Introduction to a Historical Psychology by Jean Hendrick Van Den Berg Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl Farenga joins New Books in Education for the interview. To share your thoughts on the podcast, you can connect with him on Twitter at @patfarenga. Trevor Mattea is an educational consultant and speaker. His areas of expertise include deeper learning, parent involvement, project-based learning, and technology integration. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or on Twitter at @tsmattea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

As I write this, the women’s basketball team for the University of Connecticut is in the midst of a 107 game winning streak. It’s quite reasonable to assert that Geno Auriemma will end his career as the most successful coach in basketball history. In the excitement of setting so many records, many people don’t remember a world where women’s basketball at the university level was, at best, an afterthought. Kelly Belanger’s new book, Invisible Seasons: Title IX and the Fight for Equity in College Sports (Syracuse University Press, 2016) offers a valuable reminder that what is might not have been. The book examines the efforts by female basketball players at Michigan State University in 1977 to assert their right to an equitable share of university resources and respect. This period was a critical one for the newly passed Title IX, a statue in American law prohibiting educational institutions from discriminating by gender. With the federal government debating how to determine if a school had violated the law, players, coaches and universities tried to figure out how the law applied to them. The result at Michigan State was a protracted struggle by many of the female basketball players to claim their legal rights. Belanger teaches English and writing at Valparaiso University. She also played basketball at Michigan state in the early 1980s, when the court case that concluded this struggle was still in process. She has an eye for details and nuance and her retelling of the story as history is excellent. But her background in rhetoric allows her to flesh out her historical account with a thoughtful analysis of the rhetorical choices made by each of the ‘sides.’ Anyone interested in Title IX or in women’s sports should add this book to their reading list. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

It’s common for colleges in the U.S. to have service learning programs of one kind or another. These are sometimes criticized as being liberal or even radical endeavors — especially if “social justice” language is employed. But what if these are, in fact, conservative programs at their heart, ones that, in the context of the corporatized university, are furthering the neoliberal project and inhibiting the development of better social welfare policies? Listen to our interview with Randy Stoecker as he discusses his book, Liberating Service Learning and the Rest of Higher Education Civic Engagement (Temple University Press, 2016), for a first-hand critique as well as some thoughts on how we might all better serve our students — and the communities they would engage with. Stephen Pimpare is Senior Lecturer in the Politics & Society Program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of The New Victorians (New Press, 2004), A People’s History of Poverty in America (New Press, 2008), winner of the Michael Harrington Award, and Ghettos, Tramps and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen (Oxford, 2017). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

How might we account for the rapid rise of for-profit educational institutions over the past few decades, who are the students who attend them, how can we evaluate what those schools do and why, and are there actually lessons that traditional higher ed institutions can learn from them? Join us as we speak with Tressie McMillan Cottom about her new book Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy (The New Press, 2017). Stephen Pimpare is Senior Lecturer in the Politics & Society Program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of The New Victorians (New Press, 2004), A Peoples History of Poverty in America (New Press, 2008), winner of the Michael Harrington Award, and Ghettos, Tramps and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen (Oxford, 2017). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

There has been much talk in the news recently about funding for public education, the emergence of charter schools, and the potential of school vouchers. How much does competition for financing in urban public schools depend on marketing and perpetuating poverty in order to thrive? Are the actors in this drama deliberately playing up stereotypes of race and class? A Good Investment? Philanthropy and the Marketing of Race in an Urban Public School (University of Minnesota Press, 2015) offers a firsthand look behind the scenes of the philanthropic approach to funding public education a process in which social change in education policy and practice is aligned with social entrepreneurship. The appearance of success, equity, or justice in education, the author argues, might actually serve to maintain stark inequalities and inhibit democracy. A Good Investment? Philanthropy and the Marketing of Race in an Urban Public School shows that models of corporate or philanthropic charity in education may in fact reinforce the race and class hierarchies that they purport to alleviate. As their voices reveal, the teachers and students on the receiving end of such a system can be critically conscious and ambivalent participants in a school’s racialized marketing and image management. Timely and provocative, this nuanced work exposes the unintended consequences of an education marketplace where charity masquerades as justice. Amy Brown is an educational anthropologist and a faculty member in the Critical Writing Program at the University of Pennsylvania. In her research she often explores how the increasing privatization of public education affects teaching and learning practices. Another area of focus for Brown is how “philanthrocapitalism” and reliance on private sector funding influence constructions of gender, class and race as well as distribution of power and resources. A Good Investment? Philanthropy and the Marketing of Race in an Urban Public School is her first book. James Stancil is an independent scholar, freelance journalist, and the President and CEO of Intellect U Well, Inc. a Houston-area non-profit dedicated to increasing the joy of reading and media literacy in young people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Daniel Magaziner’s latest book, The Art of Life in South Africa (Ohio University Press, 2016, and UKZN Press, 2017), is a welcome addition to the intellectual history of South Africa. Rich in color images and documentary history, The Art of Life tells the story of African art in white apartheid South Africa, juxtaposing the beauty of an ordinary life well lived, against the random cruelty of the apartheid state. The book follows the story of the Ndaleni Art School in modern-day KwaZulu-Natal from 1952 until its closing in 1981. The school was set up to teach the art teachers of the Bantu education system, but in doing so, it opened up the student’s lives to more complex discussions of creativity, beauty and resilience. Magaziner sets up the tale by spinning the individual lives against the opposing pressures of both the apartheid state and the black consciousness movement. On the one side, rigid oppression, and on the other, the push to fight apartheid or be deemed a collaborator. The individual stories of former Ndaleni students force the reader to see beyond the black and white of these opposing narratives. The people profiled chose to lead fulfilled lives, not because they were defying apartheid, but because their only choice was to simply live. The book is, at its heart, a human story, set against the backdrop of apartheid. Erin Freas-Smith, Ph.D can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In What’s Wrong with the Poor: Psychiatry, Race, and the War on Poverty (University of North Carolina Press, 2016), Mical Raz offers a deep dive into the theoretical roots of the Head Start program, and offers a fascinating story of unexpected policy origins and of the interplay between psychiatric theory, race, and U.S. social welfare policy. Stephen Pimpare is Senior Lecturer in the Politics & Society Program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of The New Victorians (New Press, 2004), A People’s History of Poverty in America (New Press, 2008), winner of the Michael Harrington Award, and Ghettos, Tramps and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen (Oxford, 2017). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Ellen Hazelkorn, Policy Advisor to the Higher Education Authority (HEA), and Director, Higher Education Policy Research Unit (HEPRU), Dublin Institute of Technology, joins the New Books Network to discuss her recently published book, entitled The Civic University: The Policy and Leadership Challenges (Edward Elgar Pub 2016). She is the co-editor of the book, along with John Goddard, Louise Kempton, and Paul Vallance. The book explores the new challenges that universities face in this era defined by globalization and internationalization, but also by the consequences of funding shortages and slashed budgets. The authors of the book look at ways institutions can better embed themselves into their surrounding cities or environments to have greater meaning and connection, instead of becoming separate Ivory Tower islands. While the focus is on the management of solutions to these issues and challenges, the target audience for this book is anyone interested in education, civics, or policy. Ellen Hazelkorn previously joined the New Books Network to discuss Rankings and the Reshaping of Higher Education. For any questions, comments, or recommendations for the New Books in Education podcast, you can connect with the host, Ryan M. Allen, at @PoliticsAndEd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In Steamboat School (Jump at the Sun, 2016), an historical picture book based on true events, author Deborah Hopkinson recounts the story of Reverend John Berry Meachum’s brave act to defy an 1847 Missouri law designed to prohibit African American children from attending school. This fictional account is told from the point of view of a young boy who is at first a student at Meachum’s secret school, which held in a church basement. But when the Missouri law is passed and it is no longer safe to continue teaching the students there, Meachum enlists his students and decides to build a steamboat to house a new, legal, school set afloat on the Mississippi River and thus on federal property. The book concludes with a nonfiction afterword about Reverend Meachum’s life and the research behind the book. Deborah Hopkinson is the author of more than 40 books for young readers including picture books, middle grade fiction, and nonfiction. In her presentations at schools and conferences, she helps bring history and research alive. Her work is especially well suited for STEM and CCSS connections. Her nonfiction includes Courage & Defiance, Stories of Spies, Saboteurs and Survivors in WWII Denmark, Titanic: Voices from the Disaster, a Robert F. Sibert Award honor book and YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction honor book, and Shutting out the Sky, Life in the Tenements of New York 1880-1924, an NCTE Orbis Pictus award honor book and Jane Addams Award honor book. Deborah’s award-winning picture books include Sky Boys, How They Built the Empire State Building, an ALA Notable and Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor book and Apples to Oregon won the Golden Kite Award and Spur Storytelling Award. Susan Raab is president of Raab Associates, an internationally recognized agency that specializes in marketing literature, products and initiatives that help improve the lives of young people. Clients have included National Geographic, Scholastic, the International Board on Books for Young People, and bestselling authors and illustrators. Susan is marketing advisor for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). She’s also a journalist reporting on publishing, education and human rights. Her work as a broadcast correspondent has been hosted by the University of Connecticut, and by the University of Florida’s Recess Radio, a program syndicated to 500 public radio stations. Her many interviews, including with Art Spiegelman, Jon Scieszka, Norton Juster, Laurie Halse Anderson and many others talking about art and literature can be heard here. Follow Susan at: https://twitter.com/sraab18 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Within the context of the social upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s, elite institutions of higher education began to feel pressure to open their doors to women. In ‘Keep the Damned Women Out’: The Struggle for Coeducation (Princeton University Press, 2015), an expansive study in institutional decision making, Nancy Weiss Malkiel analyzes how institutions ultimately decided to approach coeducation and what their institutions would ultimately look like following this radical change. By using examples from both the United States and the United Kingdom, one gets a sense of how men at these institutions viewed coeducation, how women who ended up attending these schools reacted, and how traditionally women-only institutions handled the change. Finally, Nancy Weiss Malkiel answers the important set of questions within this move toward coeducation: what did coeducation do and what did it not do? Nancy Weiss Malkiel is emerita professor of history at Princeton University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

With Growing Each Other Up: When Our Children Become Our Teachers (University of Chicago Press, 2016), Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot offers an intimately detailed, emotionally powerful and different perspective of the parenting experience than we are used to, showing that parents grow themselves, learning the lessons their children teach. While countless books have been written about the challenges of parenting, nearly all of them position the parent as instructor and support-giver, the child as learner and in need of direction. But the parent-child relationship is more complicated and reciprocal; over time it transforms in remarkable, surprising ways. As our children grow up, we begin to learn from them. The lessons parents learn from their offspring–voluntarily and involuntarily, with intention and serendipity, often through resistance and struggle– are embedded in their evolving relationships and shaped by the rapidly transforming world around them. Growing Each Other Up is rich in the voices of actual parents telling their own stories of raising children and their children raising them; watching that fundamental connection shift over time. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot is a MacArthur prize-winning sociologist whose work examines the culture of schools, the broad ecology of education, and the relationship between human development and social change. She has written 10 books, including Worlds Apart: Relationships Between Families and Schools (1978), Beyond Bias: Perspectives on Classrooms (1979), and The Good High School: Portraits of Character and Culture (1983), which received the 1984 Outstanding Book Award from the American Educational Research Association, and Balm In Gilead: Journey of A Healer (1988), which won the 1988 Christopher Award, given for “literary merit and humanitarian achievement.” Dr. Lightfoot is the Emily Hargroves Fisher Professor of Education at Harvard University. Susan Raab is president of Raab Associates, an internationally recognized agency that specializes in marketing literature, products and initiatives that help improve the lives of young people. Clients have included National Geographic, Scholastic, the International Board on Books for Young People, and bestselling authors and illustrators. Susan is marketing advisor for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). She’s also a journalist reporting on publishing, education and human rights. Her work as a broadcast correspondent has been hosted by the University of Connecticut, and by the University of Florida’s Recess Radio, a program syndicated to 500 public radio stations. Her many interviews, including with Art Spiegelman, Jon Scieszka, Norton Juster, Laurie Halse Anderson and many others talking about art and literature can be heard here. Follow Susan at: https://twitter.com/sraab18 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

The Pope said that Donald Trump wasn’t much of a Christian if all he can think about is building walls. Trump replied that it was “disgraceful” for a any leader, even the Pope, “to question another man’s religion or faith.” I imagine that many Americans agreed with Trump on this score. But is Trump’s “radical tolerance” position really sensible? Can’t someone reasonably and respectfully say to another “Gee, I think you’ve got that particular point of scripture wrong” or even “I think your faith is, well, misguided for reasons X, Y an Z”? In his thought-provoking book The Limits of Religious Tolerance (Amherst College Press, 2016), Alan J. Levinovitz argues that we can and indeed must question religion, both our own and everyone else’s. How else, he asks, are we to understand why we and our fellow citizens believe what we say we believe? To be sure, Levinovitz advises that we only engage in critical discussions of religion in certain, well-defined contexts: churches, synagogues, mosques and such are good places to practice religion, not debate it. In contrast, Levinovitz proposes, universities–places defined by rational investigation and (in theory) civil discussion–are perfect for debates about religion. And, Levinovitz continues, institutions of higher education should do everything in their power to encourage it. Thanks to Amherst College Press, Levinovitz’s wonderful book is available free for download here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In this episode, I speak with Ondine Gross, the author of Restore the Respect: How to Mediate School Conflicts and Keep Students Learning (Brookes, 2016). Her book outlines how teachers and administrators can implement mediation protocols in their schools. We discuss different approaches to school discipline and their consequences, the components of a successful mediation, and the skills required of effective mediators. She recommends the following books for listeners interested in her work and our conversation: Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum Black Males and Racism: Improving the Schooling and Life Chances of African Americans by Terence Fitzgerald How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Maslish Gross joins New Books in Education for the interview. To share your thoughts on the podcast, you can connect with her on Twitter at @ondinetalks. Trevor Mattea is an educational consultant and speaker. His areas of expertise include deeper learning, parent involvement, project-based learning, and technology integration. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or on Twitter at @tsmattea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In this episode, I speak with Lee Gutkind, the editor of What I Didn’t Know: True Stories of Becoming a Teacher (In Fact Books, 2016). His book shares more than twenty firsthand accounts of teachers working in different contexts. We discuss how personal narratives can contribute to our understanding a profession, the writing process, and the similarities and difference between these stories and those featured in his other work. He recommends the following books for listeners interested in his work and our conversation: I Wasn’t Strong Like This When I Started Out: True Stories of Becoming a Nurse by Lee Gutkind Frank Sinatra Has a Cold and Other Essays by Gay Talese You Can’t Make This Stuff Up: The Complete Guide to Writing Creative Nonfiction–from Memoir to Literary Journalism and Everything in Between by Lee Gutkind Gutkind joins New Books in Education for the interview. To share your thoughts on the podcast, you can connect with him on Twitter at @LeeGutkind. Trevor Mattea is an educational consultant and speaker. His areas of expertise include deeper learning, parent involvement, project-based learning, and technology integration. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or on Twitter at @tsmattea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In this episode, I speak with Steven Levy, the author of Starting from Scratch: One Classroom Builds Its Own Curriculum (Heinemann, 1996). His book shares his reflections on the complexities of teaching by drawing upon his years spent implementing project-based learning in the elementary grades. We discuss his beginnings and influences, the roles of expertise and curiosity in teaching, and the qualities that make a good teacher. He recommends the following books for listeners interested in his work and our conversation: Leaders of Their Own Learning: Transforming Schools Through Student-Engaged Assessment by Ron Berger, Leah Rugen, and Libby Woodfin How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms by Carol Ann Tomlinson Levy joins New Books in Education for the interview. You can watch a video of students reflecting on their experiences in his classroom on YouTube. To share your thoughts on the podcast, you can connect with him via email at [email protected]. Trevor Mattea is an educational consultant and speaker. His areas of expertise include deeper learning, parent involvement, project-based learning, and technology integration. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or on Twitter at @tsmattea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In this episode, I speak with Heather Shumaker, the author of It’s OK to Go Up the Slide: Renegade Rules for Raising Confident and Creative Kids (TarcherPerigee, 2016). Her book offers advice to parents looking for new approaches to common problems facing their school-age children. We discuss how our perception of childhood has changed over time, the importance of acknowledging dilemmas and desires that may seem trivial from an adult perspective, and the role of modeling in teaching behaviors. Shumaker joins New Books in Education for the interview. To share your thoughts on the podcast, you can connect with her on Twitter at @HeatherShumaker. She recommends the following books for listeners interested in her work and our conversation: The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning by Etta Kralovec and John Buell The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing by Alfie Kohn The Case Against Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Children and What Parents Can Do About It by Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Maslish Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk by David Elkind Becoming the Parent You Want to Be: A Sourcebook of Strategies for the First Five Years by Laura Davis Trevor Mattea is an educational consultant and speaker. His areas of expertise include deeper learning, parent involvement, project-based learning, and technology integration. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or on Twitter at @tsmattea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In this episode, I speak with Heather Dowd, the author of Classroom Management in the Digital Age: Effective Practices for Technology-Rich Learning Spaces (EdTechTeam, 2016). Her book offers a series of structures for teachers beginning to use technology in their classrooms, including procedures, expectations, strategies, and methods for parent communication. We discuss what classroom management looks like in different school contexts as well as the impact of technology on organization, engagement, and community. She recommends the following books for listeners interested in her work and our conversation: Kagan Cooperative Learning by Spencer Kagan Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina The HyperDoc Handbook: Digital Lesson Design Using Google Apps by Lisa Highfill, Kelly Hilton, and Sarah Landis Dowd joins New Books in Education for the interview. To share your thoughts on the podcast, you can connect with her on Twitter at @heza. Trevor Mattea is an educational consultant and speaker. His areas of expertise include deeper learning, parent involvement, project-based learning, and technology integration. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or on Twitter at @tsmattea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Rebecca S. Natow, Senior Research Associate with the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, joins New Books Network to discuss her recently published book, entitled Higher Education Rulemaking: The Politics of Creating Regulatory Policy (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). In the book, she explores what happens after higher education legislation becomes law, specifically focusing on implementation of programs and rules in the sector. For the study, in-depth interviews were conducted with individuals from the US Department of Education, congressional staffers, representatives from higher educational institutions, both student and consumer representatives, mediation experts, state government officials, and representatives from the lending industry. Professor Natow previously joined New Books Network to discuss The Politics of Performance Funding for Higher Education Origins, Discontinuations, and Transformations. For any questions, comments, or recommendations for the New Books in Education podcast, you can connect with the host, Ryan M. Allen, at @PoliticsAndEd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

What is the future for Arts and Humanities in Europe? The podcast discusses these questions with Paul Benneworth, one of the authors, along with Magnus Gulbrandsen and Ellen Hazelkorn, of The Impact and Future of Arts and Humanities Research (Palgrave, 2016). Dr. Benneworth, from the University of Twente’s Center for Higher Education Policy Studies, was part of a pan-European project to consider the impact of Impact and the way Arts and Humanities narrate their public value, research which was the basis for the book. The book draws on a wealth of empirical and theoretical material, including comparative case studies from Ireland, Norway, and The Netherlands. The comparative approach allows the book to contextualise engagements with science policy, the role and purpose of the university, public value, and innovation, to offer a new vision of Arts and Humanities research that avoids instrumentalisation. The book is important and essential reading for all interested in the future of higher education and research. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Matthew Pauly’s Breaking the Tongue: Language, Education, and Power in Soviet Ukraine, 1923-1934 (University of Toronto Press, 2014) offers a detailed investigation of the language policy–officially termed Ukrainization–that was introduced in Ukraine during the formative years of the Soviet Union. Out of a massive amount of archival records and documents, Pauly reconstructs a complex and controversial process that happened to have significant consequences for the subsequent decades. In his research, Pauly presents Ukrainization as a process that impacts multiple fields, outlining the connection between the nation formation and language/cultural policy. The areas that appear to have experienced changes as a result of Ukrainization include educational institutions, political establishment, economy, ethnic groups. Significant attention is given to education and pedagogy. Breaking the Tongue in much detail discusses the role of educators in the process of the Ukrainian culture popularization. While accounting for the policy decisions made and promoted by the Communist leaders, Pauly intriguingly brings to light the contributions which could be attributed to children. On the one hand, for obvious reasons children were the main target of Ukrainization; on the other hand, children through the involvement in youth organization were actively participating in the dissemination of the Ukrainian language and culture. Through the twelve chapters that constitute the research, Pauly observes the trajectory of Ukrainization: its enthusiastic implementation was followed by introducing limitations and restrictions. According to Pauly, Ukrainization could go as far as the Communists leaders would allow: the revival of the interest in the Ukrainian Studies in Ukraine, although it may seem and sound paradoxical, presented potential threats to the solidifying Soviet Union. Breaking the Tongue documents how ardent and genuine supporters of the development of the Ukrainian language and culture were subsequently persecuted being accused of sabotage and nationalism. The final part, “Biographical and Informational sketches,” presents information about the activists who became victims of the Soviet repression: it is a reminder of the controversial language policy as well as manipulative strategies employed by the Soviet authorities in the process of producing programs that would secure the stability of the Soviet Union. Matthew Pauly is an associate professor in the Department of History, Michigan State University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Kate Merkel-Hess‘s new book looks closely at a loose group of rural reformers in 1920s and 1930s China who were trying to create a rural alternative to urban modernity. Focusing on the Rural Reconstruction Movement of roughly 1933-1937, The Rural Modern: Reconstructing the Self and State in Republican China (University of Chicago Press, 2016) argues that the Communists were neither the first nor the only group of urban intellectuals to look to the villages as the foundation of a new nation. The book demonstrates that rural reconstruction was not a failure: the efforts that Merkel-Hess describes to generate a rural version of Chinese modernity established an important precedent that has reverberated through modern Chinese history. Along the way, it introduces some fascinating documents in the course of its analysis, including primers and pamphlets aimed at popular readers that promoted the vision that literacy was a basis for self-transformation, self-discipline, and modern citizenship. The conclusion of the book considers how the approaches and values of a late turn to developmentalism were picked up in the postwar period. Highly recommended! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education