Description (podcaster-provided):
How should we be thinking about ethical questions in education? Conversations and features with philosophers and education researchers. From classroom dilemmas to policy decisions, K-12 through higher ed.
We also make teaching guides to use in sociology, education, and philosophy classes. Available on our website.
Produced by the Center for Ethics and Education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Funding from the Spencer Foundation.
Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ education ethics and philosophy • higher-education policy: aims, access, admissions, costs • trust, mentoring, political disclosure, social media • equity: HBCUs, underfunding, mobility • K-12 dilemmas: punishment, strikes, charters, testing • sex education, consent, campus assault • teaching practice and pedagogy
This podcast explores ethical questions that arise in education, bringing together philosophers, education researchers, teachers, and students to think through dilemmas that show up in classrooms, institutions, and public policy. Across K–12 and higher education contexts, episodes examine how values such as trust, fairness, inclusion, and autonomy shape decisions about what educators should do and what students are owed.
A major thread is the ethics of higher education as an institution: what its aims should be, whether access to college is a matter of rights or justice, and how admissions, rankings, tuition, and underrecognized “costs” affect opportunity and inequality. Related conversations look at how universities can earn or lose trust, including through faculty choices about political disclosure, mentoring responsibilities, and professional conduct in public forums such as social media. The podcast also considers ethically complex higher-ed settings like college-in-prison programs, where educational goals can conflict with punitive systems.
Alongside institutional questions, the show returns often to the moral dimensions of teaching practice. It discusses how teachers can foster learning through conversation, curiosity, argument, humor, and interactive methods, and what it means to relate well to students—including topics like care, love, and mentorship. Several episodes focus on contentious issues in schooling and educational governance, including teacher strikes, charter schools, standardized testing opt-outs, punishment in schools, and debates over “divisive concepts.”
Sex education and sexual ethics appear as recurring concerns, from what young people should learn to questions of consent, power, and sexual citizenship on campus. Many episodes are designed to pair with teaching guides, reflecting the podcast’s orientation toward classroom use and structured ethical inquiry.
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Episodes:
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Philosophy With (and for) Children | (K-12)
2026-Jan-07
32 minutes
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Political Disclosure in the Classroom | Harry Brighouse and Tony Laden (Higher Ed)
2025-Jul-29
22 minutes
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Building Trust in Higher Education | Tony Laden (Higher Ed)
2025-Jan-28
34 minutes
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Why Mentoring Matters | Harry Brighouse and Diamond Lannaman (Higher Ed)
2024-Jun-10
26 minutes
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Touchy Subject: Thinking Better About Sex Education | Lisa Andersen and Lauren Bialystok (Book Talk)
2023-Dec-12
31 minutes
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Can College Level the Playing Field? | Sandy Baum and Michael McPherson (Book Talk)
2023-Mar-07
26 minutes
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Faculty and Social Media | Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, TJ Stewart, Harry Brighouse, and Jacob Fay | (Ethics in Higher Education Book Series)
2022-Jun-28
36 minutes
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HBCUs Present and Future | John Torrey, Joyce E. King, Felecia Commodore, and Corey Reed | (Ethics in Higher Education Book Series)
2022-Jun-21
48 minutes
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"Divisive Concepts" | Sigal Ben-Porath and Laura Dinehart (Ethics in Higher Ed Book Series)
2022-Jun-14
37 minutes
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Trailer--Ethics in Higher Ed: Case-Based Conversations (Ethics in Higher Education Book Series)
2022-Jun-07
2 minutes
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The Ethics of College in Prison (Controversial Issues in Education)
2022-May-24
45 minutes
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The Plumber Episode | Harry Brighouse and Grace Gecewicz (Teaching Better)
2022-May-17
42 minutes
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The True Costs of College | Nancy Kendall, Matthew Wolfgram, and Natnael Shiferaw (Higher Ed)
2022-Feb-22
42 minutes
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The Ethics of College Admissions | Joe Boeckenstedt and Harry Brighouse (Higher Ed)
2022-Feb-08
52 minutes
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The Right to Higher Education | Christopher Martin and Harry Brighouse (Higher Ed)
2022-Jan-25
45 minutes
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What Should the Aims of Higher Education Be? (Higher Ed)
2022-Jan-18
10 minutes
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The Ethics of Teacher Strikes | Tony Laden and Eleni Schirmer (Controversial Issues in Education)
2022-Jan-11
42 minutes
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Love and Teaching | Meghan Sullivan and Maria Salazar (Teaching Better)
2022-Jan-04
53 minutes
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Educational Opportunity with Jencks's Principles of Justice | Jaime Ahlberg (Popular Papers)
2021-Nov-16
27 minutes
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The Ethics of Punishment | John Tillson and Winston C. Thompson (Controversial Issues in Education)
2021-Oct-05
26 minutes
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Learning Through Conversation | Agnes Callard (Teaching Better)
2021-Sep-08
30 minutes
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Trailer - Season 2
2021-Aug-24
3 minutes
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Humor, Movement, and Multimedia | Jen Kling (Teaching Better)
2021-Apr-27
21 minutes
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Being in Love with Knowledge | Bailey Szustak (Teaching Better)
2021-Apr-20
9 minutes
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Argument and Curiosity as Skills | W. John Koolage (Teaching Better)
2021-Apr-13
17 minutes
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Interactive Methods and Feminist Critiques | Susan Kennedy (Teaching Better)
2021-Apr-05
19 minutes
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Teaching, Indoctrination, and Trust | Tony Laden (Controversial Issues in Education)
2021-Mar-24
31 minutes
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Why Principles? | Jaime Ahlberg (Thinking Better)
2021-Mar-09
19 minutes
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The Racial Consequences of Underfunding Universities | Laura Hamilton and Kathryn Joyce (Book Talk)
2021-Feb-23
26 minutes
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Education for Liberation | Quentin Wheeler-Bell (Teaching Better)
2021-Feb-09
17 minutes
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The Ethics of Doctoral Admissions | Bryan Warnick (Controversial Issues in Education)
2021-Jan-26
17 minutes
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Sexual Citizenship | Jennifer Hirsch and Shamus Khan (Book Talk)
2021-Jan-07
37 minutes
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The Ethics of Opting Out | Terri Wilson (Controversial Issues in Education)
2020-Dec-15
10 minutes
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The Ethics of Charter Schools | Harry Brighouse, Erica Turner, Gina Schouten (Controversial Issues in Education)
2020-Dec-08
30 minutes
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Higher Education and Social Mobility | Jennifer Morton (Book Talk)
2020-Nov-24
15 minutes
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The Case of the Privileged Poor | Anthony Jack (Book Talk)
2020-Nov-10
13 minutes
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Research Me-Search | Kellen Sharp (Student Episode)
2020-Oct-27
13 minutes
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Good Sex Education for Good Sex | Grace Gecewicz (Student Episode)
2020-Oct-20
11 minutes
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Just Teacher | Paula McAvoy and Lauren Gatti (Book Talk)
2020-Oct-13
28 minutes
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Teaching in a Pandemic | Paula McAvoy and Lauren Gatti (Book Talk Bonus)
2020-Oct-13
3 minutes
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Welcome to Ethics & Education
2020-Oct-05
1 minute
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