Doing Comparative Education

Sections include: Comparative orientations; Schools in context; Achievement, assessment and evaluating learning; Communist education; Educational policy.

In the newly emerging global economic order governments and policy makers are keen to seek ideas from other countries and recognise the importance of looking comparatively. This expansion of interest in comparative education brings new challenges for the discipline: research may be undertaken by non-specialists (by consultants and politicians or educationists from quite different backgrounds); the short lifespan of democratically elected governments may lend attraction to ‘quick-fix’ solutions; statistics and data may be decontextualised. Added to these challenges there is the worldwide proliferation of education providers outside state control and the transformation of teaching and learning brought about by the new information technology. This book rethinks the role of comparative education in the light of these changing circumstances and looks at the new opportunities they bring.

Approaches and methods in comparative education research are of obvious importance, but do not always receive adequate attention. This book contributes new insights within the longstanding traditions of the field. A particular feature is the focus on different units of analysis. Individual chapters compare places, systems, times, cultures, values, policies, curricula and other units.

Approaches and methods in comparative education are of obvious importance, but do not always receive adequate attention. This second edition of a well-received book, containing thoroughly updated and additional material, contributes new insights within the longstanding traditions of the field. A particular feature is the focus on different units of analysis. Individual chapters compare places, systems, times, cultures, values, policies, curricula and other units. These chapters are contextualised within broader analytical frameworks which identify the purposes and strengths of the field. The book includes a focus on intra-national as well as cross-national comparisons, and highlights the value of approaching themes from different angles. As already demonstrated by the first edition of the book, the work will be of great value not only to producers of comparative education research but also to users who wish to understand more thoroughly the parameters and value of the field.

This book is a cutting-edge collection of articles inspired by the writings of Robert Cowen about comparative education. Authors take up Cowen's central concerns: re-theorising the field of comparative education, rethinking the interpretive concepts that are used by comparative education researchers, and the relationships between them. The authors take us beyond old ideas to provide some new and fresh thinking on and about educational phenomena and the field of comparative education. Writers engage in critical thinking about the intellectual agenda of comparative education, the role of theory in their work, the contexts that are shaping the field, and epistemic consequences of these broader changes for comparative education.The volume contains voices from a variety of geographical regions, theoretical positions, newer and more well-established scholars in the field. The book also includes shorter reflections from individuals in the field who know Robert Cowen personally. More well-established themes in the field are discussed such as borrowing and transfer, as well as newer concepts and ideas from Cowen's work including shape-shifting, and transitologies. New Thinking in Comparative Educationwill be of interest to those who are studying and doing research in the field of comparative and international education, both at the under-graduate and graduate levels of education.

This book is a remarkable feat of scholarship — so remarkable in fact that I put it in the same league as the great classics of the field that had so much to do with setting the direction of Comparative Education. Indeed, this volume goes further than earlier classics to reveal, through textual analysis and interviews with key figures, how the epistemological foundations of the field and crucial professional developments combined to, as the title indicates, construct Comparative Education. Manzon’s work is indispensable — a word I do not use lightly — for scholars who seek a genuine grasp of the field: how it was formed and by whom, its major theoreticians, its professional foundations, and so on. Clearly too, this book marks the rise of a young star, Maria Manzon, who shows promise of joining the ranks of our field’s most illustrious thinkers. Erwin H. Epstein Director, Center for Comparative Education Loyola University, Chicago, USA

Over the past fifty years, new theoretical approaches to comparative and international education have transformed it as an academic field. We know that fields of research are often shaped by "collectives" of researchers and students converging at auspicious times throughout history. Part institutional memoir and part intellectual history, Transforming Comparative Education takes the Stanford "collective" as a framework for discussing major trends and contributions to the field from the early 1960s to the present day, and beyond. Carnoy draws on interviews with researchers at Stanford to present the genesis of their key theoretical findings in their own words. Moving through them chronologically, Carnoy situates each work within its historical context, and argues that comparative education is strongly influenced by its economic and political environment. Ultimately, he discusses the potential influence of feminist theory, organizational theory, impact evaluation, world society theory, and state theory on comparative work in the future, and the political and economic changes that might inspire new directions in the field.

This book is a cutting-edge collection of articles inspired by the writings of Robert Cowen about comparative education. Authors take up Cowen’s central concerns: re-theorising the field of comparative education, rethinking the interpretive concepts that are used by comparative education researchers, and the relationships between them.