Teaching Comparative Education: Trends and Issues Informing Practice

Overview & Synopsis

With chapter contributions from seminal scholars in the field of comparative and international education (CIE), this book examines the ways in which comparative education is being taught, or advocated for, in teacher education within higher education institutions worldwide. A particular concern raised by the authors--in locations as diverse as Germany, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States--is the utilitarian approach in teacher education, where that which is valued is that which is measurable. The implications for what and how CIE should be taught is examined in light of the ideological, sociocultural, political, and economic trends influencing education worldwide. The main questions posed in the book include: What are the challenges and opportunities for CIE, and its practice, now and in the future? The following contents are included: (1) Introduction. Framing the Teaching Comparative Education Terrain: the need for critical agency in teacher education (Patricia K. Kubow & Allison H. Blosser). Part 1: Ideological and Conceptual Landscape of Comparative and International Education: (1) The Roles of the Social Sciences and Philosophy in Teaching Comparative Education (Robert F. Arnove & Barry L. Bull); (2) Reconceptualising the Teaching of Comparative and International Education (Michael Crossley); (3) Why Comparative and International Education? Reflections on the Conflation of Names (Erwin H. Epstein); and (4) Multicultural Education is Not Enough: the case for comparative education in preservice teacher education (Patricia K. Kubow & Allison H. Blosser). Part 2: Aims and Purposes of Comparative and International Education: (5) From Parochialism to Globalism: infusing comparative and international education through study abroad in teacher education programs (Karen L. Biraimah); (6) Comparative Education at the Undergraduate Level: affirming liberal inquiry as an alternative to the professional teacher education model (Irving Epstein); and (7) Comparative Educations to What Ends? (Maria Manzon). Part 3: Sociopolitical Trends and Issues Influencing Practice of Comparative and International Education: (8) Comparative Education, Globalization and Teaching with/against the Nation-State (Noah W. Sobe); (9) Teaching Comparative Education: the dialectics of the global and the local (Carlos Alberto Torres); (10) Teaching Comparative and International Education: bridging social demands for practical performance-based competencies with critical reflectivity (Marcelo Parreira do Amaral & Sabine Hornberg); and (11) Teaching Comparative Education: a personal afterword (David Phillips). A notes on contributors section is included.