Irving Epstein chairs the department of Educational Studies and directs the Center for Human Rights and Social Justice at Illinois Wesleyan University. In the 1970s and 80s, he taught in public schools in Perth, Australia, and Los Angeles, California and also worked in a Vietnamese refugee camp, teaching English while in Hong Kong. An active member of the Comparative and International Education Society for over forty years, he has also been heavily involved in the Scholars at Risk Network, an organization of over 500 universities dedicated to the protection of scholars in danger and the advocacy of academic freedom worldwide. He has written about issues involving education and juvenile delinquency in China, special education in Asia, children 's rights issues from a global perspective, the application of social theory to comparative education questions, and the nature of 21st century global youth protest. His latest work employs the use of affect theory to better understand popular responses to global education policies and practices.
