- Frank Furedi
- Sociologist, commentator and author
‘Schools need to encourage students out of their comfort zone so they can adapt to university’
Students who regard higher education as a sophisticated version of school are not being prepared properly for a life of independent learning. Schools need to urge them to take risks.
‘Once you start asking pupils about their teachers, the profession will inevitably be undermined’
Surveys of children not only reveal little beyond the obvious, they are also often used as indirect prompts for influencing schoolchildren.
Boys have internalised the stereotype that they’re not supposed to like books or learning
The prevailing cultural script is that boys do not perform as well as girls in exams. As a result, the stereotype has become self-perpetuating.
The ages of distraction
Busy, distracted, inattentive? Everybody has been since at least 1710 and here are the philosophers to prove it.
In praise of cultural appropriation
The mixing and meshing of different cultures is something to celebrate.
Why is Europe giving Muslim migrants sex-ed lessons?
These creepy leaflets are testament to a much deeper malaise.
Podcast: Information Overload
Frank joins Richard Aldous to discuss distractions in today’s world. He makes the case that (what we consider to be recent) fears of information overload have a long history and are not, in fact, anything new. He also warns of the dangers of relying too heavily on data and analytics, and not enough on the pursuit of ideas.
Don’t dismiss digital media – they have as much value as paper
Big data, Google Books and the Ngram database are wonderful aids to today’s intellectual problems.
Information overload or a search for meaning?
Our society is supposedly drowning in a flood of information brought on by the frenzied pace of technological change. A tour through history, however, shows us that these concerns are nothing new.
