New Books in Education

High-achieving students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to end up at less selective institutions compared to their socioeconomically advantaged peers with similar academic qualifications. A key reason for this is that few highly able, socioeconomically disadvantaged students apply to selective institutions in the first place.In Unequal Choices: How Social Class Shapes Where High-Achieving Students Apply to College (Rutgers University Press, 2023), Dr. Yang Va Lor examines the college application choices of high-achieving students, looking closely at the ways the larger contexts of family, school, and community influence their decisions. For students today, contexts like high schools and college preparation programs shape the type of colleges that they deem appropriate, while family upbringing and personal experiences influence how far from home students imagine they can apply to college. Additionally, several mechanisms reinforce the reproduction of social inequality, showing how institutions and families of the middle and upper-middle class work to procure advantages by cultivating dispositions among their children for specific types of higher education opportunities.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Paulo Freire offers activists and academics everywhere a lesson in what it means to be a radical intellectual. He is known as the founder of critical pedagogy, which asks teachers and learners to understand and resist their own oppression. His subversive books have been banned and burned in many countries, including his native Brazil, where the military dictatorship of the 1960s imprisoned and then exiled him.On this episode, we learn about Freire's life and the basics of his foundational text, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, with help from professor emeritus John Portelli. Then, we explore how Freire's legacy is still shaping our ideas of teaching and learning today. Academic/activist/artist Deborah Barndt takes us to York University's faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, which is rooted in the work of Freirean scholars. Next, we learn about how Freire's pedagogy is put into practice to advocate for disabled learners, with Marc Castrodale, a teacher, disability officer, and scholar of critical disability and Mad studies. Finally, social worker Sharon Steinhauer tells us the story of the University at Blue Quills, and how an act of Indigenous resurgence led to the beginning of a network of decolonial universities in Canada. SUPPORT THE SHOWYou can support the show for free by following or subscribing on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whichever app you use. This is the best way to help us out and it costs nothing so we’d really appreciate you clicking that button.If you want to do a little more we would love it if you chip in. You can find us on patreon.com/dartsandletters. Patrons get content early, and occasionally there’s bonus material on there too.ABOUT THE SHOWFor a full list of credits, contact information, and more, visit our about page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

With the Supreme Court poised to potentially outlaw race-conscious admissions, Affirmative Action may soon be on the chopping block.What will be the legacy of this half-century-old policy? Jason Riley, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and columnist at the Wall Street Journal, discusses affirmative action's impact both on the black community and the broader American education system. Riley is the author of Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell and Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed.Riley's piece "Racial Preferences Harm Their Beneficiaries, Too" is here.Riley's article "The College Board's Racial Pandering" is here.Statistical evidence of the impact of racial preferences in college admissions, mentioned in the discussion is here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In the current period of social and political unrest, conversations about identity are becoming more frequent and more difficult. On subjects like critical race theory, gender equity in the workplace, and LGBTQ-inclusive classrooms, many of us are understandably fearful of saying the wrong thing. That fear can sometimes prevent us from speaking up at all, depriving people from marginalized groups of support and stalling progress toward a more just and inclusive society.Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow, founders of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at NYU School of Law, are here to show potential allies that these conversations don't have to be so overwhelming. Through stories drawn from contexts as varied as social media posts, dinner party conversations, and workplace disputes, they offer seven user-friendly principles that teach skills such as how to avoid common conversational pitfalls, engage in respectful disagreement, offer authentic apologies, and better support people in our lives who experience bias.Research-backed, accessible, and uplifting, Say the Right Thing: How to Talk About Identity, Diversity, and Justice (Atria Books, 2023) charts a pathway out of cancel culture toward more meaningful and empathetic dialogue on issues of identity. It also gives us the practical tools to do good in our spheres of influence. Whether managing diverse teams at work, navigating issues of inclusion at college, or challenging biased comments at a family barbecue, Yoshino and Glasgow help us move from unconsciously hurting people to consciously helping them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

What makes a community college job interview different than one at a four-year college or a university? Do you need a PhD to get hired? What are they looking for? Professor Rob Jenkins joins us to explain the hidden curriculum of navigating the community college job market, including: How long a typical interview lasts. What it really means when they ask you to do a job talk. How much of your expertise they want to hear about. Why your commitment to teaching well matters the most. Important things not to say or do. Our guest is: Professor Rob Jenkins, an associate professor of English at Georgia State University Perimeter College. He has spent more than 35 years in higher education, mostly at the two-year college level, where he has served as a faculty member, a department chair, an academic dean, and a program director. He writes the “Two-Year Track” columns in The Chronicle of Higher Education, and is the author of six books, including Welcome to My Classroom, and Think Better Write Better. For the past 15 years, he has led workshops on preparing for two-year college careers at research universities across the country. For more information, visit www.robjenkins.com.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a historian.Listeners to this episode may also be interested in: The Employability Journal, by Barbara Bassot Candid Advice for New Faculty Members, by Marybeth Gasman Building a Career in America’s Community Colleges, by Rob Jenkins Putting the Humanities PhD to Work, by Katina Rogers Academic Life episode on leaving academia Academic Life episode on moving far from home for an academic job Academic Life episode on the long road to the dream job in academia Academic life episode with the American Association of University Professors Academic Life episode on the role of community colleges in higher education Welcome to The Academic Life! Join us here each week to learn from today’s experts inside and outside the academy, and embrace the broad definition of what it truly means to live an academic life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

May Hara and Annalee G. Good's Teachers as Policy Advocates: Strategies for Collaboration and Change (Teachers College Press, 2023) argues that teachers’ active participation in policy advocacy is crucial to creating a K–12 educational system that honors the needs of students, families, and communities. The authors examine obstacles to teacher involvement in policy, analyze preservice and practicing teachers' experiences, and present a model for collaborative professional development for teacher policy advocacy. Case studies are used to explore four contemporary policy areas—school safety, student assessment, public health, and digital learning—to identify what teachers know about policy, how they view their relationships to advocacy, and the impact of collaborative professional development on their beliefs and practices. This text offers pragmatic strategies for increasing teacher policy capacity and advocacy agency while simultaneously calling for systemic change at school, district, state, and national levels of policymaking. Teachers, teacher educators, researchers, and administrators can use this resource for reflection, discussion, and action with the goal of creating more effective and responsive educational policy.Alex Tabor is a doctoral candidate in history, a government research consultant, and an experienced educator currently working with undergraduate and incarcerated adult learners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

What kinds of tools do we need to make big decisions, and why aren't our universities training us to make them? Are universities doing students a disservice by occupying them with myriads of boxes to tick? Are students right to prefer money to meaning?Madison Program alumni Ben and Jenna Storey discuss the philosophy of making choices and of restlessness, and critique the way universities treat those topics.Ben and Jenna are senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department, where they focus on political philosophy, classical schools, and higher education. Previously, they directed the Toqueville Program at Furman University in South Carolina. They are the authors of Why We Are Restless. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

With the Biden Administration's student loan relief coming down the pike, Annika sits down with Dr. Beth Akers, a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who specializes in higher education finance. Beth discusses the issue of student debt, and what the Biden relief plan will and will not achieve. You can find more information about Dr. Akers and her recent writing and appearances here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Religious Literacy has become a popular concept for navigating religious diversity in public life. In The Politics of Religious Literacy: Education and Emotion in a Secular Age (Brill, 2022), Justine Ellis challenges commonly held understandings of religious literacy as an inclusive framework for engaging with religion in modern, multifaith democracies. As the first book to rethink religious literacy from the perspective of affect theory and secularism studies, this new approach calls for a constructive reconsideration focused on the often-overlooked feelings and practices that inform our questionably secular age. This study offers fresh insights into the changing dynamics of religion and secularism in the public sphere.Justine Esta Ellis received a doctorate from the University of Oxford and is the Associate Director of Columbia University’s Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life.Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

The concept of human dignity is a foundational one within human rights discourses, and is commonly used in the context of human rights and sustainable development policies and programs. But the meaning of ‘human dignity’, and its role, have seldom been interrogated rigorously or systematically. Instead, there exists a widespread presumption of universality, despite growing evidence that the concept of human dignity can be understood in profoundly different ways in different socio-cultural and political settings. Dr Rachel Killean and Dr Natali Pearson discuss human dignity in Cambodia, and prospects for human rights education.Dr Natali Pearson is Curriculum Coordinator at the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre, a university-wide multidisciplinary center at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her research focuses on the protection, management and interpretation of underwater cultural heritage in Southeast Asia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education