TPSE 1825: Comparative Education Theory and Methodology – Autumn 2009
Purpose of the Course
This course is intended as an introduction to the field of Comparative Education, including the various academic schools that have emerged and the literature linked to such international
organizations as UNESCO and the World Bank. We will also see a film entitled “Comparatively Speaking” which features presidents of the Comparative International Education Society of the USA, including three OISE professors.
The course was developed in the mid-1980s, and first taught in 1986. It has been taught at OISE fairly regularly ever since. It is can be seen as a kind of intellectual history of the field, with the different schools or approaches presented in a roughly chronological way. The intention is to trace changing approaches to Comparative Education research over time, and link debates over
methodology to wider debates in the literature of the social sciences. Thus the additional readings are by no means comprehensive or detailed, but suggestive only. The roots of the course go back to the ideas and methodology of Professor Brian Holmes at the University of London Institute of Education, one of the leading figures in the development of the field. The course has been updated and changed a number of times, but the original framework and many of the core readings have been kept, in order to maintain this link to history. For later sessions that have been added in recent years, such as Session 8 on the postmodern challenge, and session 9 on globalization and comparative education, students are encouraged to explore bibliographies in books such as Crossley and Watson, Comparative and International Research in Education: Globalisation, context and difference (2003) or Arnove and Torres, Comparative Education: The Dialectic of the Global and the Local (2003).
Students are encouraged to focus their attention on such fundamental questions as the purpose of Comparative Education, the views of social change that underlie different approaches to
Comparative Education and the question of what \not it should be a goal in Comparative Education research. By the end of the course students should have developed their own critical perspective on the literature through careful reading and sustained thought and discussion.
Class Format:
Class sessions will involve brief lectures, discussion of common readings and student
presentations from the additional reading list, the list of anthologies or textbooks in the field and/or related readings that have been self selected. Some discussion of plans for term papers can also be accommodated.
Evaluation:
Two short papers (400-600 words or 1-2 typed pages) should be prepared for class presentation and handed in during the term. One of them will be a reflective review of any one of the comparative
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education textbooks or anthologies listed below, or a related text with the instructor?s approval,
with a focus on how they present the purpose and method of comparative education. This will be due by October 20. The other will be a summary critique of an article or book chosen from the additional reading list or elsewhere, on a topic that is related to the final research paper. These short papers/reviews will make up 30% of the final mark. 70% will be based on a research paper of 3-4,000 words (15-20 typed pages). Students may choose their own topics in consultation with the instructor.
Overview of Course Themes and Topics
Introduction: The Origins and early development of Comparative education 1. The Historical Approach 2. The Positivist Approach
3. Phenomenological, Ethnographic & Narrative Approaches 4. The Problem Approach
5. The Developmental Approach: Neo-Marxism, Dependency Theory and World Order thinking
6. Ideal Types in Comparative Education
7. Comparative Education and the Postmodern Challenge 8. Comparative Education and Globalization
9. International Organizations and Comparative Education 10. A Dialectical Paradigmatic Stance and Mixed Methods in Comparative Education 11. Data Collection and Classification in Comparative Education
Major Influential Books
Altbach, P., Arnove, R., and Kelly, G., (eds.), 5Emergent Issues in Education: Comparative
Perspectives (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992). See especially Part 1 \and Trends in Comparative Education\
Altbach, P. and Kelly, G., 5Education and the Colonial Experience (N.B., U.S.A. and London: Transaction Books, 1984)
Arnove, Robert F. and Torres, Carlos Alberto (eds.) 5Comparative Education: The Dialetic of the Global and the Local (Lanham, Boulder, New York and Oxford: Rowen & Littlefield Publishers Inc, 1999, second edition 2003).
Bereday, George, 5Comparative Method in Education [New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964],
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Bray, Mark, (ed.), 5Comparative Education: Continuing Traditions, New Challenges and New Paradigms (Dordrecht, London, Boston: Kluwer Publishers, 2003)
Bray, Mark, Adamson, Bob and Mason, Mark, 5Comparative Education Research: Approaches and Methods (Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong, 2007.)
Broadfoot, Patricia, Changing educational contexts, issues and identities : 40 years of comparative education (London: Routledge, 2007).
Burns, R. and Welch, A. (eds.), 5Contemporary Perspectives in Comparative Education (New York: Garland Press, 1992).
Crossley, Michael and Watson, Keith, 5Comparative and International Research in Education: Globalisation, context and difference (London and New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2003).
Delors, Jacques et al, 5Learning: The Treasure Within (Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 1998). F?gerlind, Ingemar and Saha, Lawrence, 5 Education and National Development: A Comparative Perspective (Oxford: Pergamon 1989).
Green, Andrew, 5Education, Globalization and the Nation State (New York: St Martin?s Press, 1997).
Gu Mingyuan, Education in China and Abroad: Perspectives from a Lifetime in Comparative Education (Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong, 2001).
Halls (ed.), W. D. Comparative Education: Contemporary Issues and Trends (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1990).
Hans, Nicholas, 5Comparative Education (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967).
Holmes, Brian, Comparative Education: Some Considerations of Method (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1981).
King, Edmund, Other Schools and Ours (London: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973, 5th Edition).
Kandel, Isaac,5 The New Era in Education (Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton and Mifflin Inc., 1955),
Masemann, Vandra Lea and Welch, Anthony (eds.), 5Tradition, Modernity and Post-Modernity in Education (Amsterdam: Kluwer, 1997)
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Mundy, Karen, Bickmore, Kathy, Hayhoe, Ruth, Madden, Meggan and Madjidi, Katherine,
Comparative and International Education: Issues for Teachers (Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, New York: Teachers College Press, 2008)
Noah, H. and Eckstein, M., 5Towards a Science of Comparative Education [London: MacMillan, 1969.
Paulston, Rolland, 5Social Cartography: Mapping Ways of Seeing Social and Educational Change (New York and London: Garland Publishing Inc., 2000)
Schriewer, J. and Holmes, B., 5Theories and Methods in Comparative Education (Frankfurt am Main, Bern, New York, Paris: Peter Lang, 1988).
Schriewer, Juergen, 5Discourse Formation in Comparative Education (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2003)
Trahar, Sheila, Narrative Research on Learning: comparative and international perspectives (Oxford: Symposium Books, 2006
Major Comparative Education Journals
Canadian and International Education (CIE), Comparative Education Review (CER) [USA.], Comparative Education (CE) [UK], Compare [UK]
International Review of Education (IRE) [Europe] Prospects (UNESCO)
Session 1: The Historical Approach to Comparative Education
Common Readings
1. Hans, Nicholas, 5Comparative Education (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967), Chapter 1, pp. 1-16.
2. Kandel, Isaac, 5The New Era in Education (Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton and Mifflin Inc., 1955), Chapter 1, pp. 3-18.
3. *Cummings, William, “The InstitutionS of Education,” Comparative Education Review Vol. 43, No. 4, November, 1999, pp.
Discussion Questions:
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1. Compare and contrast the way in which Hans and Kandel viewed the purposes of
Comparative Education.
2. What underlying notions of social change do you find in the historical approach to Comparative Education?
3. Do you find any view of scientific method implicit in the historical school?
4. How has William Cummings applied a historical perspective to his suggested approach to comparative education through what he calls “institutionalism”? How does this enable him to deal critically with many of the widely accepted views of educational convergence, and the effects of globalization on education systems?
Additional Readings
Archer, Margaret Scotford, 5Social Origins of Education Systems [Original full version, London: Sage, 1979; abridged university version, London: Sage, 1984].
Blake, David, \Kandel\CE, Vol. 18, No. 1, 1982, pp. 3-13.
*Cowen, Robert, “Acting Comparatively upon the educational world: puzzles and possibilities,” in Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 32, No. 5, November, 2006, pp. 561-573.
Cremin, L. A. (ed.), The Republic and the School - Horace Mann on the Education of the Free men, Classics in Education, 1. (New York: Teachers College Press, 1957).
Durkheim, Emile, The Evolution of Educational Thought: Lectures on the Foundation and Development of Secondary in France [London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977].
Eisenstadt, S.N., Tradition, Change and Modernity [New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1973]. F?gerlind, Ingemar and Saha, Lawrence, Education and National Development: A Comparative Perspective (Oxford: Pergamon 1989)
Flexner, Abraham, Universities, American, English, German [London: Oxford University Press, 1968]
Fraser, Stewart, and Brickman, William (eds.). A History of International and Comparative Education: 19th Century Documents [Illinois: Scott Foresman and Co., 1968].
Fraser, Stewart (ed.), M.A. Jullien's Plan for Comparative Education: 1816-1817. [New York: Teachers College Columbia, 1964].
Green, Andrew, Education, Globalization and the Nation State [New York: St Martin?s Press, 1997]