Feature Archives - Page 62 of 150

Education

Reasons for Hope

Integrating New York Public Schools

June 3, 2018 • by Clara Hemphill

In the mostly pessimistic debate over school segregation here’s a reason for optimism: For the first time in decades, we have the possibility — if not yet the reality — of more economically, and also racially, integrated public schools in many neighborhoods in New York City. And there are heartening ...

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Stranded in Stagnant Regions, Older Workers Left with Low Wages

May 2018 Unemployment Report for Workers Over 55

June 2, 2018 • by Teresa Ghilarducci

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported a 2.8% unemployment rate for workers age 55 and older in May, a decrease of 0.2 percentage points from April. The economy is expanding, unemployment is low, and wages are growing. But wage growth for workers over 55 is slower than wage growth for younger ...

Stranded in Stagnant Regions, Older Workers Left with Low Wages

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Making Room for Democracy

On the beauty of gray, the social condition, and individual and group responsibility

June 1, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

In my Friday posts, I have focused on the beauty of gray, presenting arguments for the good over the ideal and for openness to people and principles other than our own. I have argued, further, that these are preconditions for acting together against the dark forces of our times, and ...

Education

Etchings of Democracy

School desks and the politics of nostalgia

June 1, 2018 • by Campbell F. Scribner

Desks have been ubiquitous in American schools since the mid-nineteenth century. Made of wood and iron, bolted to the floor, they began as fixtures in the truest sense of the word. So firmly did they anchor the classroom that when progressive reformers finally introduced movable models in the early 1900s, ...

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Post-truth or Moral Truth?

The populist claim to authenticity

May 31, 2018 • by Lone Sorensen

“Enemy agents” is how the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) described the media in 2015. The EFF are an increasingly influential populist opposition party in South Africa, famous for their disruptive action and their calls for former president Jacob Zuma to #PayBackTheMoney he allegedly embezzled. In their attacks on the press ...

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Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism

An excerpt from Judy Wajcman’s latest book

May 31, 2018 • by Judy Wajcman

There is a widespread perception that life is faster than it used to be, and smartphones and the Internet are continually being blamed. In Pressed for Time, Judy Wajcman explains why we immediately interpret our experiences with digital technology as inexorably accelerating everyday life. She argues that we are not mere ...

Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism

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Roseanne Bombs

Social change and the politics of laughter

May 30, 2018 • by Claire Potter

Yesterday I checked my Twitter feed and learned that Roseanne Barr had finally blown herself up. Up all night tweeting about Soros and Clinton conspiracy theories (including a bizarre exchange with the cool-headed Chelsea Clinton about whether her husband is a member of the Soros family), Barr capped off her literary ...

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Incels, Mormonism and Race, and Millennials and Personal Finance

Past Present Episode 132

May 30, 2018 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Nicole Hemmer and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: In the wake of a Toronto terrorist attack, “incels,” or involuntary celibates, are gaining attention. Niki referred to this New York Times article about Jordan Peterson. Natalia cited Jia Tolentino’s New Yorker article on the origins of incel rage, Ross Douthat’s New York Times op-ed raising the possibility of the redistribution ...

Incels, Mormonism and Race, and Millennials and Personal Finance

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Who Needs Big Brother?

Post-truth, populism, and the crisis of public communication

May 30, 2018 • by Silvio Waisbord

The following is a summary of remarks delivered at the 2018 Jay Blumler Lecture, University of Leeds. Western democracies have been in a constant state of crisis for decades now. It is hard to remember when there was no crisis. In their landmark book, The Crisis of Public Communication (1995), Blumler and Gurevitch ...

Blue Monday

Prague in Spring

A riff on jazz, dissent and democracy in dark times

May 28, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout, and I wrote some blues." -Duke Ellington I started writing this in Prague, on May 20, which is my birthday, while sitting across the street from Villa Lana, the home of the Czech Academy of Sciences, which for the past twenty-five years ...

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The Spy who Psychoanalyzed Me

Psychology’s long and shameful history with torture

May 28, 2018 • by Tristan Chirico

After a highly controversial confirmation process, Gina Haspel is now director of the CIA. At the heart of the controversy surrounding her nomination were Haspel's alleged ties to the systematic torture of terrorism suspects conducted at so-called “black sites” during the Bush Era -- one of which Haspel oversaw in ...