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Comparative and International Education

The field of comparative and international education has a long history, although some argue that it is still in search of a distinct identity. This entry describes the individuals, organizations, and issues that have shaped the field, creating the problem or advantage of its multiple identities.

Historical Roots

In most North American and European literature, the field of comparative and international education is traced to the work of Parisian Marc-Antoine Jullien (1775–1848). Sometimes referred to as the “father of comparative education,” he compiled data about education across Europe and developed a plan to promote international data collection and analysis to guide educational reform, that is, to address the problem that the physical, moral, and intellectual dimensions of schooling do not meet the needs of young people or their nations. Jullien developed a method of collecting statistics through distribution of a questionnaire to government ministries that became the compiling descriptive statistics by contemporary international agencies, such as UNESCO and OECD.

In Asia, however, the field is said to have emerged during the Han Dynasty (2006 BCE to 220 CE) and the Tang Dynasty (618–906 CE) in China, given that educational ideas and practices were borrowed and lent across nations in the region. Moreover, the scholarly study of education in other countries was initiated in 1849 by Xue Funcheng, who delineated the educational system in four countries to inform Chinese educational policy in line with broader moves to reestablish economic prosperity and political stability in the wake of China's defeat by Western forces in the first opium war in 1840.

The distinction in origins of the field is not only one of geography but also one of definition and identity—that is, what constitutes activity in and who should be considered a member of comparative and international education.

Traditions and Identity Sources

One source of identity for the field involves “travelers,” who wrote up more or less systematic and in-depth “tales” of their visits to one or more countries with the intent to encourage compatriots to “borrow” the good ideas and practices they observed. An American, Horace Mann, would be a good example of this type of effort, focusing on European societies during the first half of the nineteenth century. Similarly, Englishmen Matthew Arnold and Michael Sadler and Russian Leo Tolstoy traveled abroad to observe educational systems in other countries and document their findings at home. Sadler's writing was distinct, in that he advocated against borrowing organizational and methodological educational elements from other country systems, arguing that such elements could not be divorced from their local context for use in another country context.

A second identity source for the field is associated with scholars based in Europe and North America during the first half of the twentieth century—Nicholas Hans, Isaac Kandel, Friedrich Schneider, and Robert Ulrich. They—as well as Ruth Hayhoe and Edmund King in the second half of the twentieth century—employed an idealist, humanist approach to investigate ideas and forms of education across countries in an attempt to illuminate historical trends in school systems within societal contexts. Their concern was less with borrowing educational ideas than with understanding how over time education systems are connected to societies in which they are located.

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