By Alan Wolfe. "Revolutions devour their own children." (The line is usually attributed to the German playwright Georg Büchner, although it has been repeated so often that authorship hardly matters.) It is also incorrect; it ought to tell us that revolutions chew up the parents who launch them. In The Paradox of Liberation, a fascinating excursion into the ironies of political action, the political philosopher Michael Walzer adds a new twist: Secular revolutions unwittingly give rise to religious zealotry. More...

By Richard D. Kahlenberg. On Thursday the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to decide in a private conference whether to accept an appeal from Abigail Noel Fisher in the Fisher v. University of Texas litigation challenging UT-Austin’s affirmative-action policies. If the court takes the case for review, as I think it should, that would be a big victory for poor and working-class students hoping to attend selective colleges and for those who believe racial considerations should not be a factor in deciding who gets ahead in society. More...

By Kentaro Toyama. In 2004, I moved to India to help found a new research lab for Microsoft. Based in Bangalore, it quickly became a hub for cutting-edge computer science. My own focus shifted with the move, and I began to explore applications of digital technologies for the socioeconomic growth of poor communities. India struggles to educate its billion-plus population, so during the five years that I was there, my team considered how computers, mobile phones, and other devices could aid learning. More...

By Cecilia Gaposchkin. It’s that time of year again: At many colleges, second-year students must declare their majors. Uncles, grandmothers, and friends will almost certainly ask: "What are you going to do with that?" Some parents will say, "I am not going to shell out this amount of money for my kid to major in …."
Such responses are based on the premise that choosing a major amounts to choosing a career path, and thus a particular financial future, a degree of security, a lifestyle, an entire identity. More...

By Marc Parry. In October 1984, a young Skidmore College professor, Sheldon Solomon, traveled to a Utah ski lodge to introduce what would become a major theory of social psychology. The setting was a conference of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, a prestigious professional organization. Solomon’s theory explained that people embrace cultural worldviews and strive for self-esteem largely to cope with the fear of death. The reception he got was as frosty as the snow piled up outside. More...

By Steve Kolowich. The study, published in Science, purported to show that short conversations could change people’s opinions about same-sex marriage, and many leading news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, wrote about it. More...

By Kelly Field. As the Education Department prepares to unveil its plan to provide loan forgiveness to borrowers who attended the defunct Corinthian Colleges, consumer advocates are amplifying their calls for blanket relief. More...

By Maysa Jalbout. This week, Arab and international leaders will gather in Jordan for the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Their discussions will centre on how to solve some of the region’s greatest challenges: grave humanitarian crises engulfing conflict-affected countries and their neighbours, wide income and gender inequalities, and growing numbers of unemployed youth. Education must be a central theme to all of these discussions. While the regional challenges affect education, education can also help solve these challenges. However, outstanding threats and weaknesses in the region’s educational systems are making it difficult to address these key issues. More...