Comparative and International Education at the Crossroads? An Optimistic Note.

Overview & Synopsis

The field of international and development education has become dependent on theory and requires new and more effective principles and methods to move from the theoretical to the practical. Being concerned with choice and action--its methods leading to defensible decisions--international education contrasts with comparative education, which is more concerned with knowledge leading to warranted conclusions. Emerging from the research is agreement that comparative education can contribute to the understanding of education and its planned development, even if comparative education as a scientific field of inquiry remains an open question. More attention should be given to the academic base of comparative education, focusing on mutually interdependent development of conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and data bases that may be directed toward a range of issues and activities. The future of the Comparative and International Education Society will determine the future of comparative and international education. (Author/DW)