New Books In Education

It’s becoming more and more common to see comparisons of educational attributes between other countries. From international tests like PISA or TIMSS rankings, to study habits, and classroom life, policymakers, educators, and even everyday people want to make cross-country comparisons. But, comparisons, if not analyzed correctly, can be grossly simplified or misinterpreted. So then, how can we do comparative education with nuance? Mark Bray, Bob Adamson, and Mark Mason provide a wonderfully robust handbook for just this question with their edited volume entitled Comparative Education Research Approaches and Methods (Comparative Education Research Centre [CERC], the University of Hong Kong, 2014). The book is largely comprised of chapters synthesized into “Units of Comparisons,” including: comparing places, systems, times, race, class, and gender, cultures, values, policies, curricula, pedagogy, ways of learning, and educational achievement. Each of these chapters thoroughly explains proper analysis of cross-co

China has had an amazing developmental path over the past thirty years. Decade long double digit economic growth numbers along with more assertion on the international stage have led to some concern of a “Rising China”, one that may eventually threaten the status quo. But economic rise is not the only area in which China has dramatically developed, as education too has seen a major boost since opening up in the late 1970s. With international testing like PISA showing that China has some of the top students in the world, some policymakers in the West are looking to their system with envy. In Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon? (Jossey-Bass, 2014), Dr. Yong Zhao, Presidential Chair and professor at the University of Oregon’s College of Education, provides true nuance to the Chinese educational system, which might not be worth replicating after all. In Zhao’s book, he chronicles China’s long history of testing through the imperial exam system up to today’s gaokao, the Chinese university entrance exam. He furthe

In the early 1830s, the French school teacher Eugénie Luce migrated to Algeria. A decade later, she was a major force in the debates around educational practices there, insisting that not only were women entitled to quality education, but that women’s education served a fundamental role in the French mission in the colonies. “Woman is the most powerful of all influences in Africa as in Europe,” she wrote in 1846, the year after she founded a school for the instruction of indigenous Muslim girls. In A Frenchwoman’s Imperial Story: Madame Luce in Nineteenth-Century Algeria, Rebecca Rogers (Stanford University Press, 2013), a Professor at the Université Paris Descartes and an expert in the history of the French educational system, lucidly explores Luce’s work in the field, bringing  a wealth of precise details– everything from what the lessons in the school room were like to prize-giving ceremonies and hygiene inspections. But Rogers also lets the reader in on the questions that remain about Luce’s own life.

“All classes are sorta boring” (p. 19). This statement is one that college students might believe, along with many of their professors, but not Dr. Mark Carnes, author of Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College (Harvard University Press, 2014). In Carnes’ book, he describes a new type of learning and classroom pedagogy called “Reacting”, where students take control of the class by being immersed into various roles in a certain event in history and given a competitive goal to complete by the end of the exercise, sometimes over a month long. For instance, students could be assigned as Jacobins in the French Revolution or Gandhi during the partitioning of British India. Each role is different and each student is tasked with various objectives to complete. The method, which can be used in disciplines beyond history, is akin to Model UN or mock trials, but on overdrive. Carnes, professor of history at Barnard College, asserts that through these immersion activities students will gain a better se

Teachers have recently become a target in the educational reform debate. Most would agree that great teachers are crucial for education. However, there is no singular formula for a great teacher. So then, what makes a great teacher? Do those characteristics transcend culture? These questions and more are explored in a new book titled West Meets East:  Best Practices from Expert Teachers in the United States and China (ASCD, 2014). The book is a collaboration from several American and Chinese academics: Leslie Grant, James Stronge, Xianxuan Xu, Patricia Popp, Yaling Sun, and Catherine Little. Dr. Grant, Assistant Professor of Education at The College of William and Mary, joins New Books in Education to discuss West Meets East. In the interview, Dr. Grant provides an overview of her coauthored book, including how the project began with collaboration between The College of William and Mary and Yunnan Normal University, in Yunnan Province, China. Grant and her coauthors interviewed teachers across the US and Chi

With a new focus on vocational and work ready education, the notion of a liberal education is becoming less valued in American society. Though, there are still defenders of this well-rounded and classic form of education. One staunch defender is Dr. Michael S. Roth, current President of Wesleyan University and author of Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters (Yale University Press, 2014). As the title suggests, Dr. Roth contends that liberal education is still important in higher education and how it can be molded onto modern advancements, such as aligning liberal education with MOOCs. To illustrate liberal education’s impact on American society, Dr. Roth’s book casts an expansive list of intellectuals, politicians, and writers who all espouse “enlightened” principles of education. From Thomas Jefferson’s belief that better education was needed so that the elites would not unfairly run society, to W. E. B. DuBois’ and Jane Addams’ inspiration from their German experiences, and Benjamin Franklin

“Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League.”  This was the headline of a recent New Republic article that reverberated across the internet recently, going viral as it was shared over 160 thousands times on Facebook. The author of this piece, Dr. William Deresiewicz, joins the New Books in Education podcast to discuss his new book Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life (Free Press 2014), which further elaborates upon his recent viral article and another from 2008,  “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education“. In Excellent Sheep, Deresiewicz draws on his decades of experience at Ivy League institutions; first, at Columbia where he did his undergraduate and graduate degrees, and then later at Yale where he taught for a decade. With an insiders view and a critical lens, he dissects what education at these types of institutions has become. He asserts that the hypercompetitive nature of elite institutions has taken away from self-discovery of students, a key facet to inn

Helene Snee, a researcher at the University of Manchester, has written an excellent new book that should be essential reading for anyone interested in the modern world. The book uses the example of the ‘gap year’, an important moment in young people’s lives, to deconstruct issues of class, cosmopolitanism and identity. Like many other aspects of contemporary life, common assumptions about travel (as opposed to tourism) or the individual experience (as opposed to patterns in social life) are taken apart in the book. The book reflects broader debates around class in British society that have been influenced by French theorist Pierre Bourdieu, such as the recent Great British Class Survey. The book situates itself in the tradition that seeks to unsettle the assumptions about taken for granted ideas about what is good judgement or good taste, asking why one form of, largely, middle class self development is privileged over others. A Cosmopolitan Journey? Difference, Distinction and Identity Work in Gap Year Tra

In the post 9/11 era in which Muslims in America have increasingly felt under the surveillance of the state, media, and the larger society, how have female Muslim students on US college campuses imagined, performed, and negotiated their religious lives and identities? That is the central question that animates Dr. Shabana Mir‘s dazzling new book Muslim American Women on Campus: Undergraduate Social Life and Identity (University of North Carolina Press, 2014). This book was the winner of the Outstanding Book Award awarded by the National Association for Ethnic Studies. In her book, Dr. Mir engages a number of interlocking themes such as the varied and at times competing understandings of Islam among female Muslim undergraduates, the haunting legacy of Orientalist discourse and practice on U.S. college campuses, questions of religious authority among Muslim students on campus, and contradictions of pluralism in US higher education. Through a theoretically sophisticated and compelling ethnographic study focused

Thomas A. Bryer joins the podcast to discuss his book Higher Education Beyond Job Creation: Universities, Citizenship, and Community (Lexington Books 2014). Dr. Bryer is the director of the Center for Public and Nonprofit Management University of Central Florida (UCF) and associate professor in the university’s School of Public Administration. Should the goal of higher education simply be about job creation? In Higher Education Beyond Job Creation, Dr. Bryer argues that job creation and economic factors should not be the only higher education policy consideration for policymakers, administrators, and alumni, and that community engagement, civic training, and other areas of interests should also be concerns for institutions. The book introduces the concept of SEE DEMOS (Student Empowered Education/ Democratizing Education for Members of Society), which is how students can become “active ethical citizens” through experiential learning and social engagement (p. 46). Dr. Bryer provides pedagogical examples of se

From 1945 to the mid-1970s, the rate at which Americans went to and graduate from college rose steadily. Then, however, the rate of college going and completion stagnated. In 1980, a quarter of adult Americans had college degrees; today the figure is roughly the same. What happened? In her book Degrees of Inequality: How the Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream (Basic Books, 2014), Suzanne Mettler argues that American students–and particularly those from the lower and lower-middle class–have been priced out of good higher education. Over the past several decades, college tuition has risen far faster than inflation and, of course, the ability of disadvantaged parents and students to pay for it. Mettler points out that the colleges themselves are usually blamed for the spike in tuition, and she agrees that they are to some degree at fault. But she argues that the Federal and State governments are the primary culprits: in the era of growth, they generously supported higher education; toda

Sherry Lee Mueller and Mark Overmann are the authors of Working World: Careers in International Education, Exchange, and Development (Georgetown University Press 2014). Dr. Mueller has decades of international education experience, including past experience at Institute of International Education (IIE), the National Council for International Visitors (now Global Ties U.S.), and in the Fulbright Program. She is currently an Adjunct Professorial Lecturer at American University’s School of International Service. Mr. Overmann also has a considerable background in the field and is now Deputy Director of Alliance for International Cultural Exchange. This book provides tips, tools, and perspectives on the wide field of international education, exchange, and development. Through personal experience and extensive interviews of leading experts in various stages of their career, the authors provide successful road maps and building blocks for “idealists” looking to begin a career or to those who wish for a mid-career c

Gita Steiner-Khamsi and Florian Waldow are the editors of Policy Borrowing and Lending: World Yearbook of Education 2012 (Routledge, 2012). Dr. Steiner-Khamsi is professor of Comparative and International Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Waldow is professor of Comparative and International Education at Humboldt University in Berlin. This monograph provides a collection of articles that chronicle policy borrowing, also known as travelling reforms. These policies move across the world, jumping from one country or sector to the next. While the book covers a wide-array of subjects and topics (from a social network analysis of Chinese Republican Era to Japanese domestic policy concerns with PISA results), it has a strong focusing theme, tying each article together through the idea of moving policy and their origins. This book is a staple for international and comparative education, but the fields of history, economics, public policy, and political science are all relied upon throughout the

[Re-published with permission from Inspired by Math] Sue VanHattum is a math professor, blogger, mother, author/editor, and fundraiser. She’s a real powerhouse of motivation for making math fun and accessible to more of our young folks. Sue has teamed up with a number of writers to compile a book, Playing With Math, which she is producing in partnership withMaria Droujkova in a community sponsored publication model. Sue and I shared a delightful chat about what math is, what the book is about, and how we can all get more inspired to engage in math with our kids. And, Sue sprinkles the conversation with some interesting open-ended math problems. Think part coffee table conversation part math circle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

David C. Berliner, Gene V. Glass, and associates are the authors of 50 Myths and Lies That Threaten America’s Public Schools: The Real Crisis in Education (Teachers College Press, 2014). Dr. Berliner is Regents’ Professor of Education Emeritus at Arizona State University. Gene V Glass is a senior researcher at the National Education Policy Center and professor at the University of Colorado. The associate authors are comprised of leading Ph.D. students and candidates selected by Dr. Berliner and Dr. Class for this book. In the book, Dr. Berliner, Dr. Glass, and the other writing associates attempt to expose common myths and lies that are present in the current political and educational landscape. While grounding their writing in academic research, the authors’ wrote a book aimed to be assessable to administrators, teachers, government officials, and the common (non-academic) person. The result is an extensive and yet easy-to-read book, broken into small sections that all pack a powerful punch. The authors do

Dr. Amy Stambach is the author of Confucius and Crisis in American Universities: Culture, Capital, and Diplomacy in U.S. Public Higher Education (Routledge, 2014). Dr. Stambach is a lecturer in Comparative and International Education at University of Oxford. Dr. Stambach’s book, a part of the Education in Global Context series, offers an ethnographic look at the partnership between American universities and the Confucius Institutes, the Chinese government funded language and cultural teaching centers. Drawing on student, faculty, and administrator interviews, personal experience, and institutional document review, the author provides an in-depth insight and analysis of the often-maligned relationship between these institutions. In the book, it is argued that American universities turn to ventures such as the Confucius Institutes on the grounds that US congressional cuts to higher education can be offset by funding from China. Dr. Stambach also introduces the term “eduplomacy” in this book, which she defines

Robert A. Rhoads, Xiaoyang Wang, Xiaoguang Shi, Yongcai Chang are the authors of China’s Rising Research Universities: A New Era of Global Ambition (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014). Dr. Rhoads is the Director, Globalization and Higher Education Research Center at UCLA. Dr. Wang is Director of the Higher Education Institute at Tsinghua University. Dr. Shi is Director of the Center for International Higher Education Research in the Graduate School of Education at Peking University. Dr. Chang is Professor of Comparative Education and Cultural Anthropology and Psychology in the School of Education at Minzu University. In this book, the authors explore the Chinese universities system, keying on research institutions and professor experience in this rapidly changing higher education environment. While the book provides an overview and history of the entire Chinese higher education sector, the research focuses on four universities–Tsinghua University, Peking University, Renmin University, and Minzu University

Kevin Dougherty and Vikash Reddy are the authors of Performance Funding for Higher Education: What Are the Mechanisms What Are the Impacts (Jossey-Bass, 2013). Dr. Dougherty is Associate Professor of Higher Education and Education Policy at Teachers College-Columbia University and Mr. Reddy is a Senior Research Assistant at the Community College Research Center. In their book, the authors explore past research on performance funding in higher education, a practice where state governments tie university or college budget allocation to certain indictors–like graduation rates, remedial education, or drop out rates. This kind of funding has been around since the late 70s, but has not really taken off in the national discussion, even as around 25 states have some kind of performance funding for their higher education system. Dougherty and Reddy chronicle an expansive of past research on performance funding, dating back to 1979. The book provides a sprawling landscape, yet a concise explanation, of the discourse i

Benjamin A. Elman‘s new book explores the civil examination process and the history of state exam curricula in late imperial China. Civil Examinations and Meritocracy in Late Imperial China (Harvard UP, 2013) is organized into three major sections that collectively provide a careful, deeply researched, and elegantly written account of the Ming and Qing exam systems. Part I looks at the construction of “Way Learning” from its Southern Song institutionalization as a form of mainstream classicism through its emergence as political orthodoxy during the early Ming. Part II considers the consequences (both positive and unintended) after 1450 of an empire full of well-trained civil exam failures, and Part III traces the many ways that the civil exams were transformed in response to changing times. There are gripping stories along the way, from a history of early Ming exam curricula that’s traced in blood, to the examination dreams of a rising cult figure who would launch the Taiping Rebellion. Though set in late im

In this episode, I sit down with Karen G. Weiss, associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at West Virginia University, to talk about her book, Party School: Crime, Campus, and Community (Northeastern University Press, 2013). We discuss the subculture of the “party university,” and how such an environment normalizes and encourages extreme binge drinking and reckless partying. We talk about how extreme partying harms students as well as the larger community, and why students willingly put themselves (and others) at risk for victimization. We discuss why the party subculture appears so resistant to change, and why efforts from university personnel and law enforcement often appear futile. We also explore possible ways to transform the party subculture and address the problems it causes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education