Download Comparative Education

Participatory Lecture
by Dr. Justine Su
Comparative Education
Why, How, and What?
 Why do you want to study comparative education?
 How have you experienced the world?
 What kind of international experiences would you like
to have?
Describe Comparative and
International Education
 In your own words, please write down
your definition or descriptions of
comparative and international
education on note cards.
Share your descriptions with
someone sitting next to you and
exchange note cards
Present your classmate’s
descriptions in class
Definitions from scholars who
claim to know the field
From Erwin Epstein:
 Comparative education refers to a field of
study that applies historical, philosophical,
and social science theories and methods to
international problems in education.
 Comparative education is primarily an
academic and interdisciplinary pursuit.
Phillips & Schweisfurth - Authors’
definition on comparative education
 The study of any aspect of educational phenomena in two
or more different national or regional (can be in the same
nation) settings in which attempts are made to draw
conclusions from a systematic comparison of the
phenomena in question.
Summary by Eckstein:
 Comparative Education serves to combat provincialism and
ethnocentricity, to motivate study of the history and
development of school systems, and to increase awareness
of the interplay between schools and their social and
cultural environments.
Fundamental Purpose
 Learning lessons on the basis of the informed
understanding of other systems is a fundamental
purpose of comparative education.
Major purposes of
Comparative education
 To promote knowledge – build up comparative ed. as a
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field of study.
To assist reform and development
To improve knowledge about one’s own educational
system
To transfer good ideas and practices from one
setting/country to another.
To promote international attitudes and goodwill.
Comparative Education Challenges and Opportunities
Challenges – hard to define:
 Too immense - it is about all aspects of education in every
country of the world throughout all time.
 Too generic - it is a context, not a discipline.
Opportunities – to create and to collaborate:
 Give you the most freedom to create and to work with your ideas
and with other people’s ideas.
 Different disciplinary backgrounds and different degrees and
types of experience provide different perspectives and introduce
different methodological approaches.
 Therefore scholars from different fields can work together in a
team on comparative and international studies– i.e., IEA and
OECD studies.
International Education
 International education fosters an international
orientation in knowledge and attitudes and, among
other initiatives, brings together students, teachers,
and scholars from different nations to learn about and
from each other. It suggests an applied approach.
 International education also includes the analysis and
description of such activities. Many practitioners of
international education are experts on international
exchange and interaction. Their activities are partly
based on a knowledge of comparative education.
Internationalization of
higher education
 Student mobility - study abroad students increased by 50%
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in the past decade to 3.7 million in 2009.
International curricula has an international orientation in
content, aimed at preparing students for performing in an
international and multi-cultural context. See Su’s efforts to
internationalize teacher education at CSUN.
International collaboration in research – example of Dr.
Su’s and other faculty’s work with Chinese scholars.
Europe’s example – exchange & common framework of
qualifications for all degree programs across nations.
Borderless edu. -New York Univ. Shanghai Campus, etc.
Distance education – online programs, virtual classroom.
International education research
- through different lenses
 Insider & Outsider Research – example: study on preschool
in three cultures – combination of both perspectives. You
are an “outsider” for American education.
 Research employing international frameworks – human
capital theory; diploma disease, transition to democracy;
various international agreements – Education for All, etc.
 Globalization studies – political, economic, cultural and
educational globalization
 Education and development studies – education in
developing countries , strong applied dimension; problem
with the concept of development & developing country.
Are you a global citizen?
- Global Education or GCE
 Global Citizenship Education - GCE or Global Education
seeks to cultivate in learners an international outlook and a
sense of belonging to, and responsibility towards, the
global community.
 Knowledge – facts about the world, understanding of social
and physical geography, citizenship, sustainable
development, social justice, values and perceptions,
diversity, interdependence, conflict resolution and human
rights.
 Skills – ability to communicate inter-culturally, to analyze
critically, to explore the nature of conflicts, and to provide
solutions for resolutions
 Can also consider GCE in terms of attitudes and behaviors.
Intercultural competence
Do you have the following intercultural skills:
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Critical reflection on one’s own culture;
Curiosity about other cultures;
Empathy for people from other cultures;
Linguistic skills;
Analytical awareness that allows understanding
beyond superficial representations.
These skills, combined with comparative perspectives,
are essential for success of comparative education
researchers.
Comparative & International
Education complement each other
 International education is dependent on comparative
expertise. Dr. Hawkins and Dr. Su are good examples.
 Comparative studies are usually international in
nature, and international studies are implicitly
comparative.
 Comparative and international education are
essentially complementary - interdependent, allowing
academics and practitioners in both fields to
collaborate closely.
 Many scholars are both comparative education expert
(research) and international education administrators
(practice).
Multiple vs. single-country
comparative studies
 Multiple-country comparative study – examining two
or more educational entities or aspects/practices by
putting them side by side and looking for similarities
or differences between or among them.
 Examples – Tobin et al. study of preschools in three
cultures; Dr. Su’s comparative study of science
education in American and Chinese high schools;
teaching in elementary schools in the U.S. and China;
training of school principals in the U.S., China and
Australia.
Single country study - observation of
education and schooling through
“foreign eyes” or sub-regional comparison
 Chinese National Ministry of Education’s efforts to
compile reports on “Chinese Education Through
Foreigners’ Eyes.”
 Dr. Su’s study on “Chinese education through American
eyes” and “American education through Chinese eyes”
 Comparison of urban vs. rural education or comparison
of mainstream vs. minority education within a country.
 See many other examples of multi-country and singlecountry studies in education journals such as
Comparative Education Review, Comparative Education,
and Compare.
Brain storm on your own ideas
 Think and write down some ideas on multi-country
and/or single-country comparative studies and share
with your classmates.
History of Comparative Education
 Origins began in the early years of the 19th Century in
Europe and the U.S. – e.g., Victor Cousin in France,
Michael Sadler in England, William Torrey Harris &
Horace Mann in the U.S.
 By the 1960s, it was common for universities and
colleges to offer courses in comparative education.
 More education borrowing in 19th Century – learn
good lessons from other countries’ schools
 More systematic and scientific analysis in 20th Century
–explore factors contributing to success or failure
Noah & Eckstein –
Five stages of development
1. Travelers’ tales – superficial descriptions
2. Travelers with a specific educational focus; learning
through example, improving circumstances at home
– policy borrowing, intelligent observers,
3. Understanding of other nations; detailed
accumulation of information –by data gathering;
educational exchange
 Marc-Antoine Jullien 1816 proposed a systematic
empirical investigation by means of a questionnaire
 Victor Cousin and Horace Mann also produced
thorough knowledge on education in Germany
Noah & Eckstein –
Five stages of development
4. Study of “national character” (socio-economic
dimension of education) and its deterministic role
in shaping national systems of education - factors
contributing to education systems
5. Quantitative research; explanation of educational
phenomena – detailed “scientific” analysis of
educational phenomena to provide explanation and
to improve performance. i.e., OECD – PISA
One stage does not simply replace the other, but adds to
layers of sophistication, so that it has evolved into a multidimensional field of educational inquiry.
Postmodernism
 Postmodernism favors a pluralistic view and different
perspectives from some individuals and groups – three
major strands of critique are feminist, culturalist, and
class.
 Post –colonial perspectives are associated with
postmodernism, in contrast to colonialism and neocolonialism
 Work of Marx, Weber, Durkheim or Foucault can
provide illuminating perspective on particular topics
of inquiry in education.
CIES (1956) and WCCES (1970)
 CIES - Comparative and International Education
Society, the oldest and largest, holds annual meetings.
 WCCES – World Council of Comparative Education
Societies holds regular world congresses.
Major Journals & References
 International Review of Education by UNESCO
 Comparative Education Review
 Compare
 Comparative Education
 International Encyclopedia of Education
 Prospectus – 教育展望 by UNESCO in China
Policy Transfer Is at the Heart of
Comparative Education
Some key questions:
 What can be learnt from an examination of
educational provision in other countries, and how this
learning can be transferred to education policy and
practices in one’s home country?
 What implications does the example of the “other”
have for a particular nation or region?
 What ideas/policies might be successfully imported?
 What are the processes involved in such transfer?
Compare Chinese and Japanese
Experiences of Learning from the West
 Japan – the Meiji Restoration (1868-1912) –
government’s efforts to investigate and learn from the
west
 China – 辛亥革命 1911 Revolution, and many Chinese
students went to study abroad, in Japan and western
countries, including some key leaders and education
scholars– Deng Xiaoping, Zhou Enlai, Tao Xingzhi, etc.
 杜威访问中国 John Dewey visited and lectured in
China from 1919-1921 and had tremendous impact on
the development of democracy and education
Do you think the following “transfer” or
“borrowing” would be effective?
 If China adopts some of the features of American
higher education system, will China improve the
quality of higher education, therefore further
enhancing its economic development?
 If the U.S. adopts some of the features of Chinese
elementary education system, will the U.S. improve
the quality of basic skills education for all students,
therefore enhancing their performance at upper level
schools and colleges?
Finnish Lessons
 Long experience with 9-year comprehensive schools
 Focused attention to pupils with special needs
 Local autonomy in education
 A highly professional and well-qualified teaching
force.
Teaching in Finland is so attractive that only 10% of
applicants can get into teacher training program, and all
teachers have master’s degrees.
Praises and Criticism of
“Surpassing Shanghai”
 Impassioned pleas to implement global best practice
Criticism of the book from some comparative education
scholars:
 Deepen pre-existing policy preferences
 Reflect local predilections of a privileged few
 Authors lack the knowledge of theory, training in methods,
and experience that move beyond the confines and
consequences of a limited worldview
Do you agree with such criticism?
Keep these in mind when you read the book and PISA report.
PISA will dominate discussions of
the future of education globally
 PISA – Program for International Student Assessment
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conducted by OECD – Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development, since 2000.
China joined the study in 2009 and 2012, and Shanghai
schools ranked No. 1 in the World both times, in all
three areas – language, math and science.
U.S. ranked average and below average in PISA.
Watch out for outcomes of the 2015 PISA, which will
have an additional focus on creative problem solving.
PISA will reveal who has the world’s best education
system and why.
Do you agree that the basis of
all knowledge is comparison &
comparison should serve as a basis for
education decision-making?
Congratulations on
becoming a comarativist!
Enjoy a comparative Way
of life now! Way to go!