Now Streaming · S2 · E6
The Hidden Curriculum: When Researchers Chose the Word Violence
The Hidden Curriculum: When Researchers Chose the Word Violence
Apr 30, 2026
Podcast · Solo Narration
The Cultural
Context
of Knowledge.
Knowledge is never neutral.
A solo-narrated essay series from Dr. Donald Easton-Brooks on how culture shapes what we know — and what that means for classrooms, curricula, and the institutions that serve every learner.
“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
Two seasons, one inquiry.
All episodesSeason · 6 episodes · In progress
Knowledge & Power
How institutions decide what counts — and what happens when newly legitimate knowledge meets the backlash.
Enter the seasonSeason · 11 episodes · Complete
Foundations
What culture does to learning — and what learning, as productive struggle, asks of us in return.
Enter the seasonSeason · Forthcoming
In preparation
A new inquiry, beginning later this year — on method, the researcher’s lens, and whose knowledge counts.
Recent essays
Full archive- 17
S2 · E6 · Apr 30, 2026
The Hidden Curriculum: When Researchers Chose the Word ViolenceSome words are not just names — they are arguments. This episode examines how researchers came to use "violence" to describe certain institutional practices in education, and what that conceptual shif…
Latest
- 16
S2 · E5 · Apr 24, 2026
The Backlash: Why Newly Legitimate Knowledge Gets TargetedMarginalized knowledge does not stay marginalized, and it does not stay curricular either. This episode names the three-move cycle — dismissal, absorption, restriction — that dominant knowledge system…
- 15
S2 · E4 · Apr 20, 2026
Who Gets to Teach It? Representation and the Long Shadow of Brown v. BoardIntegration happened to the students — it did not happen to the teaching profession. Revisits the Brown v. Board–era displacement of Black educators rarely included in the standard story, and examines…
- 14
S2 · E3 · Mar 9, 2026
Why Some Knowledge Is Marginalized: The Evolution of Ethnic StudiesExplores the history of ethnic studies and how student movements challenged universities to recognize marginalized histories and perspectives — and how expanding participation reshapes the boundaries…
- 13
S2 · E2 · Mar 9, 2026
From Knowledge to Legitimacy: How Institutions Decide What CountsHow do ideas become legitimate knowledge? Drawing on Foucault, Kuhn, Merton, and Bourdieu, this episode examines how universities, journals, and academic institutions decide what counts as credible th…
Companion 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.
The archive
All episodes
- 017
S2 · E6 · Apr 30, 2026
The Hidden Curriculum: When Researchers Chose the Word ViolenceSome words are not just names — they are arguments. This episode examines how researchers came to use "violence" to describe certain institutional practices in education, and what that conceptual shift reveals about adultification, developmental harm, and the unwritten rules children of color meet in kindergarten classrooms long before they meet a textbook.
15:21Apr 30, 2026 - 016
S2 · E5 · Apr 24, 2026
The Backlash: Why Newly Legitimate Knowledge Gets TargetedMarginalized knowledge does not stay marginalized, and it does not stay curricular either. This episode names the three-move cycle — dismissal, absorption, restriction — that dominant knowledge systems run when bodies of knowledge from the margin reach the record, and traces its most recent appearance in the wave of state-level curriculum laws since 2020.
10:27Apr 24, 2026 - 015
S2 · E4 · Apr 20, 2026
Who Gets to Teach It? Representation and the Long Shadow of Brown v. BoardIntegration happened to the students — it did not happen to the teaching profession. Revisits the Brown v. Board–era displacement of Black educators rarely included in the standard story, and examines what decades of research on ethnic matching reveal about student outcomes.
11:15Apr 20, 2026 - 014
S2 · E3 · Mar 9, 2026
Why Some Knowledge Is Marginalized: The Evolution of Ethnic StudiesExplores the history of ethnic studies and how student movements challenged universities to recognize marginalized histories and perspectives — and how expanding participation reshapes the boundaries of legitimate knowledge.
13:22Mar 9, 2026 - 013
S2 · E2 · Mar 9, 2026
From Knowledge to Legitimacy: How Institutions Decide What CountsHow do ideas become legitimate knowledge? Drawing on Foucault, Kuhn, Merton, and Bourdieu, this episode examines how universities, journals, and academic institutions decide what counts as credible through power and gatekeeping.
Mar 9, 2026 - 012
S2 · E1 · Feb 21, 2026
Knowledge, Power, and the U.S. Demographic PivotThe classroom has changed — has education? For the first time in U.S. history, children under 18 are the majority non-white. Season 2 opens with the question: who decides what counts as knowledge?
Feb 21, 2026