Comparative education is a discipline in the social sciences which entails the scrutiny and evaluation of different educational systems, such as those in various countries. Professionals in this area of endeavor are absorbed in advancing evocative terminologies and guidelines for education worldwide, enhancing educational structures and producing a context to which the success and effectivity of education programs and initiatives can be assessed.

Objectives

According to Harold Noah (1985), and Farooq Joubish (2009), comparative education has five purposes: #To describe educational systems, processes, or outcomes. #To assist in the development of educational institutions and practices. #To highlight the relationships between education and society. #To establish generalized statements about education that are valid in more than one country. #To help the current generation understand the nowadays education systems with reference to the past. Comparative education is often incorrectly assumed to exclusively encompass studies that compare two or more different countries. In fact, since its early days researchers in this field have often eschewed such approaches, preferring rather to focus on comparisons within a single country over time. Still, some large scale projects, such as the

PISA Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the ci ...

and

TIMSS The IEA's Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is a series of international assessments of the mathematics and science knowledge of students around the world. The participating students come from a diverse set of educ ...

studies, have made important findings through explicitly comparative macro analysis of massive data sets.

Rationale for the Field

Many important educational questions can best be examined from an international and comparative perspective. For example, in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

there is no nationwide certificate of completion of

secondary education Secondary education or post-primary education covers two phases on the International Standard Classification of Education scale. Level 2 or lower secondary education (less commonly junior secondary education) is considered the second and final ph ...

. This raises the hypothetical question of what may be the advantages and disadvantages of leaving such certification to each of the 50 states. Comparative education may draw on the experience of countries such as

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, for instance, to show how a centralized system works, and illustrate the possible advantages and disadvantages of a more centralized approach to educational certification. Critics of comparative education sometimes disparagingly refer to its approaches and conclusions as "policy borrowing," with the implication that policies are best developed organically according to local needs rather than what appears to have worked in other contexts. However, comparative education scholars argue that education everywhere faces many of the same challenges, and there is much to learn from both successes and failures in other contexts.

Disciplinary vs. Interdisciplinary Identity

Comparative education is closely related to, and may overlap with,

international education International education refers to a dynamic concept that involves a journey or movement of people, minds, or ideas across political and cultural frontiers. It is facilitated by the globalization phenomenon, which increasingly erases the constrai ...

, international development education, and

comparative sociology Comparative sociology involves comparison of the social processes between nation states, or across different types of society (for example capitalist and socialist). There are two main approaches to comparative sociology: some seek similarity ac ...

. There are also efforts to expand and "

decolonize Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence m ...

," the field of

philosophy of education The philosophy of education is the branch of applied philosophy that investigates the nature of education as well as its aims and problems. It includes the examination of educational theories, the presuppositions present in them, and the arguments ...

with a comparative education approach. While in some countries, comparative education is fully established as a distinct field of educational research, in others it might best be regarded as an interdisciplinary field that brings together scholars from diverse specializations. For instance, specialists in math education, social studies education, or various arts subjectsA recent example from the field of music education is Hebert, David & Hauge, Torunn Bakken. (2019). ''Advancing Music Education in Northern Europe''. London: Routledge. Similar books addressing the same subject area in other regions include Torres-Santos, Raymond (Ed.), ''Music Education in the Caribbean and Latin America: A Comprehensive Guide'' (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), and Akuno, Emily Achieng' (Ed.), ''Music Education in Africa: Concept, Process, and Practice'' (Routledge, 2019). may develop research designed to enable meaningful comparisons between national educational systems with a focus on their specific subject area of expertise. It follows that comparative education research can examine schooling holistically and globally (macro-level analysis), or may alternatively focus on the status of a particular subject area in a specific region of the world, thereby benefiting from subject-area or regional expertise (meso- or micro-level analysis). Each approach may have characteristic advantages and disadvantages.

Comparative and International Education Society

The Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) was founded in 1956 to foster "cross-cultural understanding, scholarship, academic achievement, and societal development through the international study of educational ideas, systems, and practices."

Comparative Education Society of India

Th
Comparative Education Society of India (CESI)
was established in 1979 and admitted to the World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES) in 1980. Th

of CESI bring together Education Researchers from across the country to present papers on different topics connected to the theme of the conference.

Influential Scholars

Andreas Kazamias Andreas ( el, Ἀνδρέας) is a name usually given to males in Austria, Greece, Cyprus, Denmark, Armenia, Estonia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Finland, Flanders, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, the Netherlands, and Indonesia. The name ...

Mark Bray Mark Bray is the Chair Professor of Comparative Education in the Comparative Education Research Centre (CERC) at the University of Hong Kong. He has researched and published about the study of comparative education in areas including policy-makin ...

Nicholas Burbules Nicholas C. Burbules is a Gutgsell Endowed Professor of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership and an affiliate of the Unit for Criticism and Interpretative Theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the director of t ...

Torsten Husen Thorsten (Thorstein, Torstein, Torsten) is a Scandinavian given name. The Old Norse name was ''Þórsteinn''. It is a compound of the theonym ''Þór'' ('' Thor'') and ''steinn'' "stone", which became ''Thor'' and ''sten'' in Old Danish and Old Swe ...

John W. Meyer John Wilfred Meyer (born 1935) is a sociologist and emeritus professor at Stanford University. Beginning in the 1970s and continuing to the present day, Meyer has contributed fundamental ideas to the field of sociology, especially in the areas o ...

* Harold J. Noah *

Fernando Reimers Fernando M. Reimers is the Ford Foundation Professor of the Practice in International Education and Director othe Global Education Innovation Initiativeat the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is interested in advancing understanding of the ...

* Carlos Torres

*Educational Research, Methodology and Measurement: An International Handbook. 2nd ed. Edited by J.P. Keeves. New York: Pergamon, 1997. *International Handbook of Research in Arts Education. Edited by Liora Bresler. New York: Springer, 2006. *International Encyclopedia of Adult Education and Training. 2nd ed. Edited by Albert C. Tuijnman. Oxford, UK; Tarrytown, NY: Pergamon, 1996. *International Encyclopedia of National Systems of Education. 2nd ed. Edited by T. Neville Postlethwaite. Tarrytown, NY: Pergamon, 1995. *International Companion to Education, Edited by Moon, B. Ben-Peretz, M & Brown S. London & NY: Routledge, 2000. *International Handbook of Educational Change. Edited by Andy Hargreaves, et al. Boston,: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998. *International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Administration. Edited by

Kenneth Leithwood Kenneth "Ken" Leithwood is an educational researcher and professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in Toronto, Canada. His research has focused on school leadership, processes of school reform, and assessment of educational policy ...

, et al. Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1996. *International Handbook of Teachers and Teaching. Edited by Bruce J. Biddle, Thomas L. Good, Ivor F. Goodson. Boston,: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998. *International Handbook of Women's Education. Edited by Gail P. Kelly. New York: Greenwood Press, 1989.

Other Resources

*Altbach, Philip G. Comparative Higher Education: Knowledge, the University, and Development. Greenwich, CT: Ablex Pub. Corp., 1998. *Comparative Education Research Approaches and Methods. Edited by Mark Bray, Bob Adamson and Mark Mason. Hong Kong and Dordrecht: Springer, 2007. *Emergent Issues in Education: Comparative Perspectives. Edited by Robert F. Arnove, Philip G. Altbach, and Gail P. Kelly. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992. *Arnove, R. and Torres, C. eds (1999) Comparative Education: The Dialectic of the Global and the Local. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield. *International Perspectives on Educational Reform and Policy Implementation. Edited by David S.G. Carter and Marnie H. O'Neill. Washington, DC: Falmer Press, 1995. *Quality Assurance in Higher Education: An International Perspective. Edited by Gerald H. Gaither. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1998. *Higher Education Policy: An International Comparative Perspective. Edited by Leo Goedegebuure, et al. New York: Pergamon Press, 1994. *Harold J. Noah and Max A. Eckstein. Toward a Science of Comparative Education (New York: Macmillan, 1969). *Harold J. Noah and Max A. Eckstein. Secondary School Examinations: International Perspectives on Policies and Practice (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). . *Harold J. Noah and Max A. Eckstein. Doing Comparative Education: Three Decades of Collaboration (Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Press, 1998). *Hebert, David & Hauge, Torunn Bakken. ''Advancing Music Education in Northern Europe'' (London: Routledge, 2019). *Gottlieb, Esther E.
Are We Postmodern Yet? Historical and Theoretical Explorations in Comparative Education
'. In Moon, B. Ben-Peretz, M & Brown S., (eds.) International Companion to Education, pp. 153–175 London & NY: Routledge, 2000. * Mazawi, A.E. & Sultana, R.G. (eds)(2010). Education and the Arab 'World'. Political Project, Struggles, and Geometries of Power. (New York: Routledge). *Reagan, Timothy G. Non-Western Educational Traditions : Alternative Approaches to Educational Thought and Practice. Mahwah, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1996. * Schriewer, Jürgen (2000). "Comparative Education Methodology in Transition: Towards the Study of Complexity?" pp. 3–52. In Schreiwer, Jürgen (Ed.) ''Discourse Formation in Comparative Education''. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. *Vulliamy, G., Lewin, K. and Stephens, D. (1990) Doing Educational Research in Developing Countries: Qualitative Strategies. Lewes: Falmer Press. *Higher Education in an International Perspective : Critical Issues. Edited by Zaghloul Morsy and Philip G. Altbach. New York: Garland Pub., 1996.

References

External links

World Council of Comparative Education Societies
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080208135614/http://nccrest.edreform.net/resource/13965 NCCRESt Bibliography (2000)br>Comparative and International Education Society (CIES)Comparative Education Society of India (CESI)
{{Authority control Education by subject Philosophy of education