Noah W. Sobe

About

Professor Sobe (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI) is a historian of education also active in the field of comparative and international education.  He teaches courses in Modern European History and Global History.  Professor Sobe’s scholarship examines the global circulation of educational policies and practices and includes work in the history of childhood and the history of emotions.  He recently returned to Loyola after a three-year leave of absence (2019-2022) spent at UNESCO-Paris helping to lead the research and drafting of a global futures of education report.  Professor Sobe has served on the Executive Committee of the International Standing Conference on the History (ISCHE), is a Past-President of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), and currently serves as co-Editor of the journal European Education.

Research Interests

Transnational educational history, history of emotions and boredom in school, Balkan and East/Central European history, world's fairs and international expositions, international curriculum history, history of educational accountability and governance.

Selected Publications

N. W. Sobe, “The Future and the Past are Unevenly Distributed: COVID’s Educational Disruptions and UNESCO’s Global Reports on Education," Paedagogica Historica (2022) Vol. 58, No. 5, https://doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2022.2112244

N. W. Sobe, “Problematizing Comparison in a Post-Exploration Age: Big Data, Educational Knowledge, and the Art of Criss-Crossing," Comparative Education Review (2018) Vol. 62, No. 3, https://doi.org/10.1086/698348

N.W. Sobe, “Illustrating American progressive education: The cover illustration of John Dewey’s 1899 School and Society” in H. Amsing, N. Bakker, M. van Essen and S. Parlevliet (Eds.) Images of education: Cultuuroverdracht in historisch perspectief (Uitgeverij Passage: Groningen, 2018), p. 141-154.

N. W. Sobe, “Affect, Embodiment and Pedagogic Practice in Early-Twentieth-Century American Progressive Education: The School of Organic Education and John Dewey’s Schools of To-morrow,” in K. Berdelmann, B. Fristzsche, K. Rabenstein & J. Scholz (Eds.) Transformation von Schule, Unterricht und Profession: Erträge praxistheoretischer Forschung (Berlin: Schöningh, 2018), p. 167-184

N. W. Sobe, “Boredom and Classroom Design: the Affective Economies of School Engagement.” in I. Grosvenor & L. Rasmussen (Eds.) Making Education: Governance by Design. (New York Springer, 2018), p. 157-182.

N.W. Sobe, “Travelling Researchers, Colonial Difference: Comparative Education in an Age of Exploration,” Compare (2017) Vol. 47, No. 3, p. 332-343, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2016.1273760

N.W. Sobe, "All that is Global is not World Culture:  Accountability Systems and Educational Apparatuses," Globalisation, Societies and Education (2015) Vol. 13, No. 1, p. 135-148, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14767724 .2014.967501