The mathematical Hypatia of Alexandria climbs into a DeLorian DMC-12 well loaded with plutonium. Enter the date of October 21, 2015. It accelerates to 88 miles per hour and… it appears 1,600 years later. If Marty McFly, the protagonist of Back to the Future II , finds notable differences in a journey of barely 30 years, Hypatia finds his journey shocking. […] … learn more→

A few years ago, when conferences were still public events, I was midway through giving a paper when someone shouted out “You’re wrong!” – but offered no further elaboration. When I tell this tale to non-academic friends, they are typically horrified. Such public rudeness would not be tolerated in their workplaces, they say. Yet some […] … learn more→

When Australians think of international education and China, they typically consider the country as a source of international students — Australia’s largest. But China is now one of the leading host countries of international students in the world. China’s level of international education policymaking over the past decade, backed up by strategic priorities, has been unprecedented. My recently published research shows Chinese […] … learn more→

Charter schools are 30 years old as of 2021, and the contentious debate about their merits and place in American society continues. To better understand what happens at charter schools – and as a sociologist who focuses on education – I spent a year and a half at a particular type of urban charter school that takes a “no-excuses” approach toward education. My […] … learn more→

You have certainly happened to chat with someone in a language you do not understand well. In this kind of situation, one of the reflexes to better understand what is being said is to base oneself on the gestures or facial expressions of the other person. Perhaps he will even have made the effort to underline or […] … learn more→

As a former vice-chancellor, I understand the need to balance a university’s books and to refocus provision from time to time. And I realise that those who lead institutions now do so amid a pandemic they could not have predicted, an associated loss of international student income that they can do little to stem and […] … learn more→

Building a career you can rely on starts with the type of education you receive. Many people start off with one degree and eventually go all the way, finally earning their Ph.D. Others finish their initial degree and then pursue a variety of certifications in an attempt to broaden their horizons and give them a […] … learn more→

In these times in which, who more and who less, everyone allows himself to talk about science and its advances, the criticism that is directed towards certain professional sectors connected in a very direct way with science, such as the doctors and teachers, when they incorporate scientific advances. There are some very clear examples that […] … learn more→

With the first COVID-19 vaccine now authorized for adolescents, ages 12 and up, a big question looms: Will students be required to get the vaccine before returning to their classrooms in the fall? As a professor of education policy and law and a former attorney for school districts, I regularly think about this sort of question. In the […] … learn more→

The UK government’s renewed focus on lifelong learning is widely welcomed – and for good reason. The UK is one of the most economically imbalanced European countries; only Romania and Poland have larger inter-regional income gaps. The UK also has greater income inequality than all but one European Union country, and it has the third-highest […] … learn more→