Theories and Methods in Comparative Education: 3rd Edition (Komparatistische Bibliothek / Comparative Studies Series / Bibliothèque d'Études

Theories and Methods in Comparative Education: 3rd Edition (Komparatistische Bibliothek / Comparative Studies Series / Bibliothèque d'Études

Issues of methodology have been at the centre of debate among Comparative Educationists for decades. The essays in this volume, written by scholars from Europe, Latin America, and the USA, reflect current interests in the changing metascientific discourse in the field of Comparative Education. A shift in the nature of this discourse from prescription to socio-historical description is particularly clear in the essays in Part I, in which frameworks are developed within which analyses of the field's differing traditions, currents, and paradigms can be made. Theories which direct attention to historical explanations and policy-oriented predictions and which inform conceptual problems in making cross-cultural comparisons are examined in Part II. In these essays reference is made to both the different epistemological premises and the application of such theories to substantive comparative research. The essays in Part III add an unusual dimension to methodological debates in so far as they define the disciplinary status and theoretical functions of Comparative Education within the wider context of Education (or Educology) as the basic discipline. The Editors: Dr. Jürgen Schriewer is Professor of Comparative Education at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, West Germany. His research work focuses especially on the comparative social history of education. Dr. Brian Holmes is Emeritus Professor of Comparative Education at the University of London. For more than thirty years he has pioneered research into the theoretical foundations of Comparative Education as a social science.