New Books in Higher Education

Making a Grade: Victorian Examinations and the Rise of Standardized Testing (U Toronto Press, 2025) takes historiographic and sociological perspectives developed to understand large-scale scientific and technical systems and uses them to highlight the standardization that went into "standardized testing." Starting in t

For many years, Diane Ravitch was among the country’s leading conservative thinkers on education. The cure for what ailed the school system was clear, she believed: high-stakes standardized testing, national standards, accountability, competition, charters, and vouchers. Then Ravitch saw what happened when these ideas

Which parts of life are serious, and which are a game? In Critical Games: On Play and Seriousness in Academia, Literature and Life (Manchester UP, 2025) Tim Beasley-Murray, an Associate Professor of European Thought and Culture and Vice-Dean (Innovation and Enterprise) for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Univer

In today’s polarized landscape, libraries face two key challenges: the difficulty of turning raw data into narratives that effectively advocate for libraries, and the ethical complexities of representing communities in these stories. In Critical Data Storytelling for Libraries: Crafting Ethical Narratives for Advocacy

Matthew D. Nelsen, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami, has a new book out that focuses on the content of civic education in the United States, and how we learn about the diverse and varied history of the United States. There is an ongoing and contemporary conversation about civic edu

The speech debates have not abated, and it’s clear that invoking the First Amendment, and the importance of free speech for democracy, does not settle these debates but provokes more questions. We have lost our way, it seems, since people on all sides invoke free speech and then try to silence those they disagree with.