Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Many stakeholders in education undertake comparisons of curricula. Governments increasingly compare their states’ curricula with overseas models when searching for new initiatives and when attempting to enhance international competitiveness; parents compare the offerings of schools in order to choose suitable institutions for their children; students look at the range of courses available when they select electives; and all parties except possibly the pupils make comparisons between current curricula and those which operated in earlier historical periods.

This chapter explores the challenges of, and prospects for, research comparing educational organisations and institutions in and across societies. For over a century, researchers and writers have been eliciting features of different education systems. Their focus has been diverse, ranging from educational policy and system-wide structures at the macro level to particularities of curriculum, pedagogy, leadership, management and governance at the micro level.

For over two decades I have been involved in investigations of teaching and learning in different cultures. This chapter describes some of the methodological problems I have faced and some of my findings. In particular the chapter notes what types of comparisons of learning can be justified, and the analytic methods appropriate for conducting such comparisons.

Innovation seems to be a constant – and necessary – theme in education. In the contemporary era, a common underlying rationale is that changes in education of all levels and types are necessary to prepare citizens for life in the knowledge society, which is characterised by increasing globalisation, progressively shorter half-lives of knowledge, the increasing importance of knowledge creation in sustaining development, and economic competitiveness which requires increased collaboration in the workplace (Riel 1998). As the creation and dissemination of knowledge are perceived to be of paramount importance, education not only has to go beyond the framework of initial schooling but also requires new goals and processes. This view is held not only in industrialised countries (see, e.g. European Round Table of Industrialists 1997), but also in less developed countries (see, e.g. Gregorio & Byron 2001; UNESCO 2003b).

The preceding chapters in this book have noted that the field of comparative education is by nature interdisciplinary. This chapter elaborates on this theme, and examines ways in which the field relates to other domains of academic study.

This final chapter pulls together some themes from earlier chapters, and in a sense makes a comparison of comparisons. The earlier chapters have addressed a range of foci within a variety of paradigms. Using insights from the book, this final chapter begins with a discussion of models for comparative education research. It then makes some remarks about emphases, before concluding with comments about the insights than can be gained from comparative approaches and methods in educational research.