Events
Each semester the Mandel Center offers a full schedule of public events at which educators, scholars and members of the community can learn about new work in Jewish education research and exchange ideas.
Redefining "Context" in Education
Lunch Seminar with Philip Wexler
Wednesday, April 24
12:15-2:00 p.m.
ASAC 204 |Directions
Lunch will be served. Dietary laws observed.
RSVP by April 15: mandelevents@brandeis.edu
The paradigms for social analyses of education are changing. In his presentation, Philip Wexler will explore ways to situate these new paradigms within changes in society and culture. He will consider several models of change and implications for new ways of thinking about the social context of education. Philip will explore what it means to “widen the margins” of social analysis and bring this to bear on the question of education in society. His talk will be informed by his work at the intersection of social theory, sociology of education and religious mysticism.
Philip Wexler is the 2012-2013 Charles R. Bronfman Visiting Professor in Jewish Communal Innovation in the Hornstein Program in Jewish Communal Service. He is currently on leave from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he is Professor of Sociology of Education, and serves as the Bella and Israel Unterberg Chair in Jewish Social and Educational History.
His recent publications include: Mystical Interactions: Sociology, Jewish Mysticism and Education, Symbolic Movement: Critique and Spirituality in Sociology of Education; and Social Theory in Education. He is currently working on the relationship between social theory and mystical traditions, particularly Jewish mysticism and, relatedly, on Hasidism and education.
A Seat at the Schoolhouse? The Organizational Context of Immigrant Parent Involvement in Two New York City Elementary Schools
Lunch Seminar with Marci Borenstein
Monday, May 6
12:15-2:00 p.m.
ASAC 204 |Directions
Lunch will be served. Dietary laws observed.
RSVP by April 22: mandelevents@brandeis.edu
Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic research in two urban elementary schools, Marci Borenstein asks how the organizational structure of the school impacts involvement. She will show how involvement is an organizational construct in which what, who, and when involvement takes place is as much about how schools are structuring opportunities for involvement and allocating educational responsibility as it is about individual families.
Marci Borenstein is director of the office of high school programs at Brandeis. She has many years of experience working with educators, youth and communities in the United States, Israel, and the former Soviet Union. Marci has a doctorate in Education from New York University where her research focused on diverse immigrant families, urban schools and parent involvement.