New Books in Education

Today, we're speaking with Nicholas Juravich, author of Para Power: How Paraprofessional Labor Changed Education (U Illinois Press, 2024). In this book, Juravich explores the emergence of paraprofessional educators in U.S. schools during the social and political upheavals of the late 1960s. He shows how these workers—often underpaid and undervalued—played a crucial role in addressing what he calls a "crisis of care" in public education.

The book situates paraprofessionals within broader Black and Latino struggles for economic opportunity and social justice, particularly in New York City. Juravich traces how these workers reshaped classrooms, strengthened ties between schools and communities, and helped create pathways for Black and Latino teachers in the 1970s and early 1980s. He also highlights how their organizing contributed to the growth and diversification of public-sector unions. Para Power ultimately offers a compelling look at an often overlooked workforce and its impact on education, labor, and community life.

Nicholas Juravich is an assistant professor of history and labor studies at UMass Boston, where he also serves as Associate Director of the Labor Resource Center. Previously, he was the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Women's History at the New-York Historical Society, where he curated the exhibition Ladies' Garments, Women's Work, Women's Activism and helped develop educational workshops on school segregation and movements for educational equality in New York City. His research focuses on public education, community organizing, and public-sector unions in 20th-century U.S. cities, and has been supported by numerous foundations and institutions.

My co-host today is Jillian Felton, a graduate student in the MA program in Communication at Oakland University.

Tom Discenna is Professor of Communication at Oakland University whose work examines issues of academic labor and communicative labor more broadly.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

How the rise of the culture wars afflicts the politics of education. 

On August 9, 2022, the Denton Independent School District held a meeting to address complaints about its libraries. Like so many districts in Texas and across the country, Denton had been responding to accusations that children had access to inappropriate books at school. During the public comment session, a local man stood up to the podium and read a sexually explicit passage from a book that he wanted removed from Denton’s school libraries. But beguiled by the prospect of securing a political win, he had confused the title of the lurid psychological thriller he read aloud with a young adult fiction series about mermaids. While his attempt to ban a book that was never in Denton’s school libraries in the first place received a few laughs, it also reflects a deeply serious and troubling culture of conflict that has taken over the politics of education and now divides people so completely as to make public education as a shared endeavor seem impossible. 

In Willing Warriors, Mark Hlavacik shows how the culture wars have redefined the politics of US schooling from the 1970s to the present through vivid accounts of public controversies featuring Allan Bloom, Oprah Winfrey, Lynne Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Betsy DeVos, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and others. Beginning in the 1970s, Hlavacik shows, efforts at innovation in schooling have increasingly been met by attempts to discredit them through exposé. As the culture wars have accelerated and exploded, this cycle of innovation and exposé has embroiled public schools in increasingly heated debates. He explains the dynamics that make curriculum controversies so intractable and confronts the delicate question of whether raucous public arguments are bad for education. With clarity and insight, Hlavacik reveals why bitter contests between educational ideologies not only add another burden for the schools, but also for the people—the willing warriors—who devote their lives to fighting for their betterment.

Mark Hlavacik is assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at Texas A&M University. He is the author of Assigning Blame: The Rhetoric of Education Reform.

Laura Beth Kelly is an associate professor of Educational Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone (Bold Type Books, 2021), Sarah Jaffe argues that modern culture encourages workers to see their jobs as a “labor of love.” This idea tells people that passion and dedication should motivate them more than pay or working conditions. Jaffe shows that this belief often allows employers to justify low wages, long hours, and poor treatment. Through stories of workers across many fields, such as teachers, domestic workers, nonprofit employees, artists, athletes, and tech workers, the book demonstrates how devotion to work is used to normalize exploitation. Jaffe calls for a reevaluation of the relationship between work, identity, and personal fulfillment, suggesting that workers should organize collectively and demand fair compensation and conditions instead of relying on passion alone.

Sarah Jaffe is a journalist and labor reporter who writes about work, inequality, and social movements. Her work has appeared in major publications such as The Nation, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. Jaffe has long reported on labor struggles and worker organizing, including movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Fight for $15 campaign. She is also the author of Necessary Trouble and most recently From the Ashes: Grief and Revolution in A World on Fire. She is co-host of the labor podcast Belabored. Her writing focuses on how economic systems shape everyday life and workers’ experiences.

My co-producer on this episode is Kelly Knight, a graduate student in the MA program in Communication at Oakland University.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Who gets to live a life with dignity? Each day, families around the world make the difficult decision to leave their homes in search of safety, stability, and opportunity. For many migrant families, this search centers on access to strong, caring, and equitable educational systems that enable children to flourish. Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life (Stanford UP, 2025) follows the lives of 16 migrant families from Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras as they navigate the promises and challenges of the American education system. Drawing on immersive ethnographic research in homes and schools from 2018 to 2021, Gabrielle Oliveira offers an intimate portrait of these families' experiences. She weaves together stories of parental sacrifice, children's educational and migration journeys, and educators' responses to trauma—all shaped by the additional disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. Oliveira highlights the perseverance of families confronting the overlapping crises of border detention, family separation, and a public health emergency. These experiences forced them to reimagine education and what it means to build a future in the U.S. By examining how migrant children engage in classrooms, how teachers understand their needs, and how hope evolves, this book offers vital insights into the intersections of schooling and immigration. It calls for more responsive educational practices and policies that affirm the dignity and potential of all migrant children.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

How do you advance your career when AI is rewriting the rules of success?

As AI and automation revolutionize the global workforce, professionals everywhere are asking the same urgent question: How can I stay relevant in the age of AI?

Artificial Death of a Career: A Tale of Professional Obsolescence and Reinvention (Practical Inspiration Publishing, 2025) blends storytelling and strategy to explore the human side of technological disruption. When Shey Sinope's world collapses under the weight of the AI revolution, his personal fight to adapt becomes a roadmap for every professional determined to stay valuable, visible, and future-ready.

Award-winning authors, Drs. Schuster and Oxley, combine their behavioural science expertise with decades of experience as HR leaders and advisors to entrepreneurs and start-ups around the world, all delivered with their trademark wry sense of humour.

Inside, you'll discover how to:

Stay relevant in the age of AI by mastering adaptability and continuous learning

Reinvent your career before technology or automation forces the change

Build a leadership mindset for the AI revolution and beyond

Recognize early signs of professional obsolescence-and counter them fast

Develop resilience and confidence that withstand economic and technological shifts

Transform your work identity from outdated to indispensable

Career and professional life advice rooted in authenticity, respect, and inclusion-championing a world where being true to yourself is the foundation for realizing your fullest potential.

Equal parts insightful and entertaining, this book helps readers future-proof their skills, reimagine success, and thrive through change rather than fear it. The future of work isn't coming-it's here. Learn how to adapt, evolve, and lead in the age of AI. Your career reinvention starts now.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education