Podcast · Solo Narration
The Cultural
Context
of Knowledge.
Knowledge is never neutral.
A solo-narrated essay series hosted by Dr. Donald Easton-Brooks, an award-winning scholar of educational equity, author of Ethnic Matching, and a dean with three decades of higher-education leadership. The show explores how culture shapes what we know, and what that means for classrooms, curricula, and the institutions that serve every learner.
For educators, students, school leaders, researchers, and anyone asking how knowledge, power, culture, and schooling shape what we call learning.
Latest essay
S3 · E6 · Jul 8, 2026
The Chair Was Full: A Lived History (1960 to 1980)
They came to measure children like me, and they could not see the one thing that was carrying us. Dr. Easton-Brooks was born in 1964 and grew up in Texas schools where nearly every teacher at the front of the classroom was Black, from his o…
“Knowledge is not just what we have learned. It is what our culture has decided is worth learning, and from whom.”
From the show · Season 2
Three seasons, one inquiry.
All episodesSeason · 11 episodes · Complete
Foundations
What culture does to learning, and what learning, as productive struggle, asks of us in return.
Enter the seasonSeason · 10 episodes · Complete
Knowledge & Power
How institutions decide what counts, and what happens when newly legitimate knowledge meets the backlash.
Enter the seasonSeason · 7 episodes · In progress
The History of an Idea
A chronological history of ethnic matching, and the tradition of Black educators that existed, and was dismantled, long before the term did.
Enter the seasonCompanion writing
The argument, in print.
Episodes are arguments written for the ear. The companions are the same arguments on the page, short essays that travel alongside the audio, with notes and references for the reader who wants to follow the trail further.
All companionsStay close to the show
New episodes monthly. Show notes, references, and the next question, to your inbox.
Beyond the podcast
Work with Dr. Easton-Brooks.
Keynote speaking, institutional advising, and equity-in-education consulting — for schools, districts, universities, and philanthropic partners.