Globalisation and Comparative Education: Changing Paradigms (Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, 24) 9402420533, 9789402420531

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Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research 24

Joseph Zajda Val Rust

Globalisation and Comparative Education Changing Paradigms

Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research Volume 24

Series Editor Joseph Zajda, Faculty of Education and Arts, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia Editorial Board for the Series Robert Arnove, Indiana University Birgit Brock-Utne, University of Oslo Martin Carnoy, Stanford University Lyn Davies, University of Birmingham Fred Dervin, University of Helsinki Karen Evans, University of London Kassie Freeman, Alcorn State University Deborah Henderson, Queensland University of Technology Andreas Kazamias, University of Wisconsin Leslie Limage, UNESCO MacLeans Geo-JaJa, Brigham Young University Nikolai Nikandrov, Russian Academy of Education (Moscow) Marcella Mollis, University of Buenos Aires Susan Majhanovich, University of Western (Ontario) Val Rust, UCLA, USA Advisory Board: Abdeljalil Akkari, University of Geneva Beatrice Avalos, National Ministry of Education, Chile Sheng Yao Cheng, Chung Chen University Karen Biraimah, University of Central Florida David Chapman, University of Minnesota David Gamage, University of Newcastle Mark Ginsburg, University of Pittsburgh Yaacov Iram, Bar Ilan University Henry Levin, Teachers College Columbia University Noel McGinn, Harvard University David Phillips, Oxford University Gerald Postglione, University of Hong Kong Heidi Ross, Indiana University

M’hammed Sabour, University of Joensuu Jurgen Schriewer, Humboldt University Sandra Stacki, Hofstra University Nelly Stromquist, University of Maryland Carlos Torres, UCLA John Whitehouse, University of Melbourne David Willis, Soai University, Japan Vince Wright, Taupo, New Zealand

The Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research book series aims to meet the research needs of all those interested in in-depth developments in comparative education research. The series provides a global overview of developments and changes in policy and comparative education research during the last decade. Presenting up-to-date scholarly research on global trends, it is an easily accessible, practical yet scholarly source of information for researchers, policy makers and practitioners. It seeks to address the nexus between comparative education, policy, and forces of globalisation, and provides perspectives from all the major disciplines and all the world regions. The series offers possible strategies for the effective and pragmatic policy planning and implementation at local, regional and national levels. The book series complements the International Handbook of Globalisation and Education Policy Research. The volumes focus on comparative education themes and case studies in much greater scope and depth than is possible in the Handbook. The series includes volumes on both empirical and qualitative studies of policy initiatives and developments in comparative education research in elementary, secondary and post-compulsory sectors. Case studies may include changes and education reforms around the world, curriculum reforms, trends in evaluation and assessment, decentralisation and privatisation in education, technical and vocational education, early childhood education, excellence and quality in education. Above all, the series offers the latest findings on critical issues in comparative education and policy directions, such as: • developing new internal strategies (more comprehensive, flexible and innovative modes of learning) that take into account the changing and expanding learner needs; • overcoming ‘unacceptable’ socio-economic educational disparities and inequalities; • improving educational quality; • harmonizing education and culture; • international co-operation in education and policy directions in each country. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/6932

Joseph Zajda • Val Rust

Globalisation and Comparative Education Changing Paradigms

Joseph Zajda Faculty of Education & Arts, School of Education Australian Catholic University East Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Val Rust Center for Education and International Development University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA, USA

ISSN 2543-0564     ISSN 2543-0572 (electronic) Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research ISBN 978-94-024-2053-1    ISBN 978-94-024-2054-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2054-8 © Springer Nature B.V. 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature B.V. The registered company address is: Van Godewijckstraat 30, 3311 GX Dordrecht, The Netherlands

To Rea, Nikolai, Sophie, Imogen and Belinda

Foreword

Globalisation and Comparative Education: Changing Paradigms, the 24th book in the 24-volume book series Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, focuses on comparative education discourses of globalisation and education reforms. The book analyses and evaluates the shifts in methodological approaches to globalisation and education reforms, as reflected in comparative education research and their impact on education policy and pedagogy. The book covers such topics as globalisation and comparative education, globalisation as a multidimensional construct, methodologies in comparative education, the moral face of post-structuralism, and school reforms in the age of globalisation. It offers a critical analysis of education policy reforms and the resultant social stratifications in the global culture. The book demonstrates a complex nexus between globalisation, ideology and education reforms  – where, on the one hand, democratisation and progressive pedagogy is equated with equality, inclusion, equity, tolerance and human rights, while on the other hand, globalisation is perceived, by some critics at least, to be a totalising force that is widening the socio-economic status (SES) gap and cultural and economic capital between the rich and the poor, and bringing power, domination and control by corporate bodies and powerful political, economic and educational organisations. The perception of globalisation as dynamic and multi-faceted processes clearly necessitates a multiple-perspective approach in the study of comparative education research globally. The book contributes in a very scholarly way to a more holistic understanding of the nexus between globalisation, comparative education research and education reforms. Faculty of Education and Arts Australian Catholic University East Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Joseph Zajda

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Preface

Series title: Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research (24-­volume series) Globalisation and Comparative Education: Changing Paradigms, the 24th book in the 24-volume book series Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, focuses on discourses of globalisation and education reforms. The monograph examines comparative education research and its focus on various diverse and competing cultural, social, economic and political dimension of multi-faceted globalisation. Globalisation, as an epistemological and ontological construct, denotes a quantum-like shift in time and space, due to the intensification of worldwide social, economic and cultural relations, which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring both locally and globally. The monograph discusses some of the key features of globalisation explored in comparative education research, which include standardisation of curricula, global standards of excellence, global academic achievement syndrome (OECD, World Bank), global academic elitism and increasing global inequality. The monograph also discusses the growing resistance to globalisation among some scholars. It examines the place of theory in comparative education, at least among comparative educators who publish in research journals. The contextual backdrop for the discussion is globalisation and comparative education research (Zajda 2020a). There are important theoretical differences in the field of comparative education, particularly during this period of globalisation (Zajda and Rust 2016). Paradigm shifts, like postmodernism and poststructuralism, as part of postfoundationalism, are also discussed. The monograph also examines the school reform in the age of globalisation, with reference to structural adjustment and educational reform, the commodification of higher education, the decentralisation of education, choice in education, the privatisation of education, and multiculturalism and education. In addition, globalisation and education reforms, higher education reforms and neo-liberalism, intercultural dialogue, and human rights education research are analysed. Melbourne, VIC, Australia Los Angeles, CA, USA

Joseph Zajda Val Rust xi

Editorial by the Series Editor

Volume 24 is a further publication in the Springer Series of books on Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, edited by Joseph Zajda and Suzanne Majhanovich. Globalisation and Comparative Education: Changing Paradigms, the 24th book in the 24-volume book series Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, focuses on discourses of globalisation and education reforms. There have been the following two significant paradigm shifts since the 1950s relevant to discourses in comparative education research: structural-functionalist and post-structuralist. In comparative education research, the structural-functional paradigm was known for defining and propagating the notion of a single subject, or a single identity, unlike post-structuralism, especially post-modernism, which focused on multiple subjectivities and multiple interpretations of the phenomena under investigation. The second paradigm shift, which was post-structuralism, occurred in 1960s. It was a complex and diverse paradigm, consisting of a number of perspectives, such as discourse analysis, deconstruction, post-modernism, and social and cognitive constructivism, to name a few. Discourse analysis has been taken up in a variety of social science disciplines, examining the sorts of tools and strategies people use when engaged in communication, such as the use of metaphors, choice of particular words to display affect, how people construct their own version of an event, and how people use discourse to maintain or construct their own identity. One of the central and unresolved problems in the process of globalisation and comparative education research, within a post-structuralist context, is the unresolved tension, and ambivalence between cultural homogenisation and cultural heterogenisation, or the on-going dialectic between globalism and localism, between faith and reason, between tradition and modernity, and between totalitarianism and democracy. The book explores conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches applicable in the research covering globalisation, comparative education research

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Editorial by the Series Editor

and major theoretical perspectives used in comparative education, especially post-­ structuralist paradigmatic shift during the 1980s. Various book chapters critique the dominant discourses reflected in comparative education research and methodologies. We thank the anonymous international reviewers who reviewed the chapters in the final manuscript.

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to the three anonymous referees, who read the manuscript and made many valuable suggestions. Their constructive comments have enriched the manuscript. I also want to thank the following colleagues for their insightful comments and suggestions: Deborah Henderson, Queensland University of Technology Susan Majhanovich, Western University, Canada Sev Ozddowski, University of Western Sydney John Whitehouse, University of Melbourne Vince Wright, Taupo, New Zealand

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Contents

1 Globalization and Comparative Education ������������������������������������������    1 Comparative Education and Policy: The History������������������������������������     2 Globalization as a Construct��������������������������������������������������������������������     2 Economic Dimensions of Globalization��������������������������������������������������     3 Political Dimensions of Globalization ����������������������������������������������������     4 Educational Dimensions of Globalization ����������������������������������������������     5 Cultural Dimensions of Globalization ����������������������������������������������������     6 The Origins of Globalization ������������������������������������������������������������������     7 Colonialism����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������     7 Cultural Imperialism����������������������������������������������������������������������������     8 World System Theory������������������������������������������������������������������������������     9 Dependency����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    11 Modernization������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    12 Evaluation������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    14 Modernity and Education������������������������������������������������������������������������    15 Modernity and Its Impact on Modern Consciousness��������������������������    15 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    17 2 Globalization as a Multidimensional Construct�����������������������������������   19 Homogenization and Hybridity����������������������������������������������������������������    20 Globalization as a Homogenization Process in Education������������������    21 Globalization as a Hybridization Process in Education����������������������    23 Resistance, Receptivity and Restoration��������������������������������������������������    24 Resistance������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    24 Receptivity ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    26 Restoration and Renewal ������������������������������������������������������������������������    28 Integration and Fragmentation����������������������������������������������������������������    30 Crime����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    31 Terrorism����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    32 Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons����������������������������������������    33 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    34 xvii

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3 Theory in Comparative Education��������������������������������������������������������   37 Theory Meaning��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    37 Comparative Education and Theory��������������������������������������������������������    38 Studying Theory in Comparative Education��������������������������������������������    38 Theory Perspectives in Comparative Education��������������������������������������    40 Discipline Base of Theory�����������������������������������������������������������������������    40 Specific Theory Orientations ������������������������������������������������������������������    41 Paradigm Orientations ����������������������������������������������������������������������������    42 Level of Abstraction of Theories��������������������������������������������������������������    43 The Commitment of Comparative Educators to Science������������������������    44 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    47 4 Methods and Methodologies in Comparative Education ��������������������   49 Epistemological Issues����������������������������������������������������������������������������    51 Data Source����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    54 Data Collection Research Strategies in the Journal Articles����������������    54 Comparative Education as a Social Science��������������������������������������������    54 Overview of Data Collection Research Strategies ����������������������������������    56 Experimental Research Strategies������������������������������������������������������������    57 Comparative Research Strategies������������������������������������������������������������    58 Geographic Orientation (Location)����������������������������������������������������������    59 Analysis of the Data��������������������������������������������������������������������������������    60 Discussion������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    62 5 Global Pedagogies: From Universal to Situated Ethics������������������������   65 The Idea of the Modern as an Ideal Type������������������������������������������������    66 Dissociation of Domains in Modern Society ������������������������������������������    68 Process of De-Differentiation in Postmodernism������������������������������������    69 Finding Space for a Postfoundational Ethos��������������������������������������������    69 The Integration of the Arts and Sciences ������������������������������������������������    71 Ethics as Moral Relationships������������������������������������������������������������������    72 A Poststructural Ethos: Generosity Generously Understood������������������    72 Generosity and Globalization������������������������������������������������������������������    78 Generosity and Comparative Education��������������������������������������������������    80 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    82 6 The Moral Face of Postmodernism and Postfoundationalism ������������   83 Do Postmodernism and Postfoundationalism Have a Moral Base?��������    83 Conjectural Histories ������������������������������������������������������������������������������    84 The Limits of Conjectural History����������������������������������������������������������    85 The Modern as an Ideal Type������������������������������������������������������������������    86 Dissociation of Domains in Modern Society ������������������������������������������    87 Process of De-Differentiation in Postmodernism������������������������������������    88 Finding Space for a Postmodern Ethos����������������������������������������������������    89 Morality as Relationships������������������������������������������������������������������������    90 A Postmodern Ethos: Generosity Generously Understood����������������������    91 Moving Beyond the Text: Generosity and Comparative Education��������    97

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7 School Reform in the Age of Globalization��������������������������������������������  101 Structural Adjustment and Educational Reform��������������������������������������   101 The Commodification of Higher Education��������������������������������������������   104 The Decentralization of Education����������������������������������������������������������   106 Choice in Education��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   110 The Privatization of Education����������������������������������������������������������������   112 Multiculturalism and Education��������������������������������������������������������������   114 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   117 8 Globalisation, Education Reforms and Policy: Competing Discourses ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  119 Globalisation, Education Reforms and Society ��������������������������������������   119 Globalisation and Its Effects on Societies�������������������������������������������   120 Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation ����������������������������������������������������   121 Globalisation as a Construct����������������������������������������������������������������   123 Globalisation Discourses as a Concept Map����������������������������������������   124 Pro-globalisation and Anti-globalisation Researchers ������������������������   124 Globalisation and Socio-Economic Transformations��������������������������   125 Cultural, Political and Economic Globalisation Discourses��������������������   127 Globalisation as a World System ��������������������������������������������������������   127 Globalisation as a Global Capital Model ��������������������������������������������   127 Globalisation as a Cultural Transformation ����������������������������������������   128 Globalisation and Its Politico-Economic Impact on Societies����������������   129 Is Globalisation Global?����������������������������������������������������������������������   130 Globalisation and Implications for Education: Global Pedagogies ��������   131 Global Pedagogies ������������������������������������������������������������������������������   131 The Moral Function of Global Pedagogy��������������������������������������������   131 The Schooling for Tomorrow Project��������������������������������������������������   132 Comparative Education Policy Issues in Education for Tomorrow ��������   132 New Paradigm Shift in Pedagogy��������������������������������������������������������   133 Evaluation������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   135 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   137 9 Globalisation and Comparative Education: Changing Paradigms and Issues������������������������������������������������������������  139 Mapping of Educational Policy and Change ������������������������������������������   139 Policy and Education: Competing Views������������������������������������������������   140 Education and Policy: Paradigm Shifts����������������������������������������������������   140 Comparative Education and Policy Shifts��������������������������������������������   143 From International Cooperation Policies to Global Education������������   146 Central Issues in Education Planning and Policy������������������������������������   146 Educational Planning as a Concept������������������������������������������������������   147 Shift to Qualitative View of Total Process-Planning Model in the 1970s������������������������������������������������������������������������������   148 Education and Policy Outcomes����������������������������������������������������������   150 Structural Changes in Education and Policies: Reforms and Innovations����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   150

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Contents

Universal Primary Education Policy����������������������������������������������������   151 Equality and Equity Policy Issues��������������������������������������������������������   152 School Choice Policy Issue and Social Inequality������������������������������   154 Critical Evaluation of Education Policy��������������������������������������������������   154 Concluding Comments����������������������������������������������������������������������������   155 10 Current Research in Higher Education Reforms ��������������������������������  159 The Changing Nature of Higher Education Globally������������������������������   159 Globalisation and Research Trends in Higher Education Reforms ��������   160 Globalisation and Neo-liberalism in Higher Education Reforms��������   162 Governance in Education ��������������������������������������������������������������������   164 Global University Rankings����������������������������������������������������������������   165 Continuing Trend Toward Internationalization����������������������������������������   166 Globalisation Beginning to Overwhelm Internationalization������������������   168 Shifting Higher Education Delivery Systems��������������������������������������   168 The Extension of Global Rankings������������������������������������������������������   169 Quality Assurance��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   172 Teaching and Research Performance in the Higher Education Sector����   173 Evaluation������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   174 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   175 11 Globalisation and Cultural Identity: The Role of Intercultural Dialogue����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  177 Globalisation, Education and Intercultural Dialogue������������������������������   177 Epistemological Issues������������������������������������������������������������������������   178 Ontological Issues��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   179 Cultural Differences����������������������������������������������������������������������������   180 Globalisation, Education and the Other ��������������������������������������������������   181 Evolving Muslim Societies as the Other����������������������������������������������   181 Evolving National Identity������������������������������������������������������������������   182 Multidimensional Aspect of Globalization������������������������������������������   183 Methodological Issues in Education and Intercultural Dialogue������������   184 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   185 12 Current Research on Human Rights Education Globally ������������������  187 Research on Human Rights Education: History��������������������������������������   187 Defining Human Rights ��������������������������������������������������������������������������   188 Social and Cultural Dimension of Human Rights Education������������������   189 Children’s Rights ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   190 Conceptualising Human Rights Education����������������������������������������������   191 Current Research on Human Rights Education ��������������������������������������   192 Human Rights Education and Implementation and Emerging Issues ��������������������������������������������������������������������   194 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   195 References ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  197 Index�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 221

About the Series Editor

Joseph Zajda,  BA (Hons), MA, MEd, PhD, FACE, coordinates and lectures in graduate courses – MTeach courses: (EDFX522, EDSS503 and EDFD546) – in the Faculty of Education and Arts at the Australian Catholic University (Melbourne Campus). He specialises in globalisation and education policy reforms, social justice, history education, human rights education and values education. Dr Zajda has written and edited 47 books and over 150 book chapters and articles in the areas of globalisation and education policy, higher education, history textbooks and curriculum reforms. Recent publications include: Zajda, J. (Ed). (2021). 3rd International handbook of globalisation, education and policy research. Dordrecht: Springer; Zajda, J. (Ed). (2020). Globalisation, Ideology and Education Reforms: Emerging Paradigms. Dordrecht: Springer; Zajda, J. (Ed). (2020). Human Rights Education Globally. Dordrecht: Springer; Zajda, J (Ed.). (2020). Globalisation, Ideology and Neo-Liberal Higher Education Reform. Dordrecht: Springer; Zajda, J. (2018). Globalisation and education reforms: Paradigms and ideologies. Dordrecht: Springer. http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789402412031; Zajda, J. (2017). Globalisation and National Identity in History Textbooks: The Russian Federation. Dordrecht: Springer; Zajda, Tsyrlina-Spady & Lovorn (2017) (Eds.). Globalisation and Historiography of National Leaders: Symbolic Representations in School Textbooks. Dordrecht: Springer; Zajda & Ozdowski (2017). (Eds.), Globalisation and Human Rights Education Dordrecht: Springer; Zajda & Rust (Eds.) (2016). Globalisation and Higher Education Reforms. Dordrecht: Springer; Dr Zajda is editor and author of the Second International Handbook on Globalisation, Education and Policy Research. Springer, 2015. http://www. springer.com/education+%26+language/book/978-94-017-9492-3; Zajda, J. (2014). The Russian Revolution. In G. Ritzer & J. M. Ryan (Eds.), The Wiley-­ Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization Online; Zajda, J. (2014); Zajda, J. (2014). Ideology. In D. Phillips (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy. Thousand Oaks: Sage; Zajda, J. (2014). Values Education. In D.  Phillips (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy. Thousand Oaks: Sage; Zajda, J. (2014); Values Education. In D.  Phillips (Ed.), Encyclopedia of

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About the Series Editor

Educational Theory and Philosophy. Thousand Oaks: Sage; Zajda, J (2008). Schooling the New Russians. Melbourne: James Nicholas Publishers. He is the editor of the 24-volume book series Globalisation and Comparative Education (Springer, 2013&2021). He edits the following journals: https://www.jamesnicholaspublishers.com.au/curriculum-and-teaching/ Curriculum and Teaching, volume 35, 2021. https://www.jamesnicholaspublishers.com.au/education-and-society/ Education and Society, volume 38, 2021. https://www.jamesnicholaspublishers.com.au/world-studies-in-education/ World Studies in Education, volume 21, 2021.

Editor, Editor, Editor,

His works are found in 445 publications in 4 languages and some 10, 987 university library holdings globally. Dr Zajda is the recipient of the 2012 Excellence in Research Award, Faculty of Education, Australian Catholic University. The award recognises the high quality of research activities and particularly celebrates sustained research that has had a substantive impact nationally and internationally. He was also a recipient of the Australian Award for University Teaching in 2011 (Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning, for an innovative, influential and sustained contribution to teacher education through scholarship and publication). Dr Zajda received the vice chancellor’s Excellence in Teaching Award at the Australian Catholic University (Melbourne Campus). He was awarded an ARC Discovery Grant (with Monash University) for 2011–2015 for a comparative analysis of the history of national curriculum implementation in Russia and Australia ($315,000). Dr Zajda was electedas fellow of the Australian College of Educators (June 2013). He completed (with Professor Fred Dervin, University of Helsinki) the UNESCO report: Governance in education: Diversity and effectiveness. BRICS countries. Paris: UNESCO (2021).  

About the Authors

Joseph Zajda coordinates and teaches M. Teach units EDFD546, EDFX522 and EDSS503  in the Faculty of Education and Arts, Australian Catholic University (Melbourne Campus). He completed his BA (Hons.), MEd, MA and PhD on a Monash Graduate Scholarship. Dr Zajda specialises in globalisation and education policy reforms, social justice, history education and values education. He has written and edited 45 books and over 150 book chapters and articles on globalisation and education policy, higher education, and curriculum reforms. He is also the editor of the 24-volume book series Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research (Springer, 2009 & 2021). Recent publications include: Zajda, J. & Majhanovich, S. (Eds.) (2021). Globalisation, cultural identity and nation-­building: The changing paradigms. Dordrecht: Springer; Zajda, J (Ed). (2020a). Globalisation, ideology and neo-liberal higher education reform. Dordrecht: Springer.Zajda, J. (Ed). (2020b). Human rights education globally. Dordrecht: Springer; Zajda, J. (Ed). (2020c). Globalisation, ideology and education reforms: Emerging paradigms. Dordrecht: Springer; Zajda, J. (2018). Globalisation and education reforms: Paradigms and ideologies Dordrecht: Springer; Zajda, J. (2017). Globalisation and national identity in history textbooks. Dordrecht: Springer; Zajda, J. & Rust, V. (Ed.) (2016). Globalisation and Higher Education Reforms. Dordrecht: Springer; Zajda, J. (2015). (Ed.). Second International Handbook of Globalisation, Education and Policy Research. Dordrecht: Springer. Honours include the 2012 Peter Sheehan Excellence in Research Award. The award recognises the high quality of research activities and particularly celebrates sustained research that has had a substantive impact nationally and internationally (Faculty of Education, Australian Catholic University), Australian Award for University Teaching – July 2011 Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning. Citation Wording: For an innovative, influential and sustained contribution to teacher education through scholarship and publication. Synopsis: The applicant has pioneered an innovative approach in teacher education, where he uses global pedagogy and “teacher as a researcher” model, and Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, Australian Catholic University. The award was  

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About the Authors

presented at the April 2005 Graduation Ceremony at the Melbourne Town Hall. It was the sole award for the whole university and its 6 campuses. He delivered invitational keynote address ‘Centralisation and Decentralisation in Education: Implications for Standards and Quality’ at the International Conference on Educational Paradigms and Local Governance, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, 6–7 July 2009. The keynote address was translated in Chinese and published in the Conference Proceedings in Taiwan. His visit was sponsored by the Ministry of Education, National Science Council. He was a visiting professor at the University of the Russian Academy of Education, Moscow, and delivered lecture in Russian on globalisation, social inequality and implication to social justice (20 September 2011). He was also a visiting professor at the University of London, Helsinki University, University of Stockholm (January 2005) and the Russian Academy of Education (1990–2011). Dr Zajda was chair of World Education Research Association International Research Network (WERA-IRN) ‘The Impact of Globalization on Higher Education’ (2013–2015). He completed the UNESCO report (with Prof Dervin, University of Helsinki) Governance in education: Diversity and effectiveness. BRICS countries. Paris: UNESCO (2021). He was ERA reviewer for 2012 (reviewed education research output from 6 universities across Australia) and ARC Grants reviewer from 2015 to 2020. His scholarly works can be found in 480 publications in 4 languages and 10,987 university library holdings globally. Dr Zajda was awarded an ARC Discovery Grant ($315,000) for globalising studies of the politics of history education: a comparative analysis of history national curriculum implementation in Russia and Australia (with Monash University, 2011–2015). Further, he is an elected fellow of the Australian College of Education (FACE). Dr Zajda is also secretary of the Australian Council for Human Rights Education. Val Rust is professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received his PhD from the University of Michigan. Prof Rust completed his research at Deutsches Institut für Internationale Pädagogische Forschung in Frankfurt, Germany, and his postdoctoral studies at the University of Oslo. He was the UCLA Education Abroad Program Director and was the associate editor of the Comparative Education Review (1998–2003). His diverse body of work includes: The Unification of German Education (1995), The Democratic Tradition and the Evolution of Schooling in Norway (1989), Alternatives in Education: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives (1977), Education and the Values Crisis in Central and Eastern Europe, Toward Schooling for the Twenty-first Century and ‘Theory in Comparative Education’ (World Studies in Education, 4, 1), Omwami, E. & Rust, V. (2020). Globalization, Nationalism, and Inclusive Education for All: A Reflection on the Ideological Shifts in Education Reform. In J. Zajda (Ed). (2020a). Globalisation, ideology and neo-liberal higher education reform. Dordrecht: Springer. Rust has also given a number of lectures emphasising the relevance of postmodernism to the field, most notably his 1990 presidential address to the CIES and his  

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2004 Eggertsen Lecture titled ‘Postmodernism and Globalization: The State of the Debate’. At UCLA, Val Rust has been faculty chair of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, director of the International Education Office, and associate director of CIDE. He has also served as a guest professor at institutions such as Padagogische Hochschule in Freiburg, Germany; Khazar University in Baku, Azerbaijan; Humboldt University of Berlin; and the University of Oslo. He has received Honorary Doctorate from Khazar University. Prof Rust’s professional service included key positions with the Comparative and International Education Society (board of directors 1979–82; president, 1990–91); the Higher Education Special Interest Group (founding co-chair, 2008–2013). In addition to his scholarly contributions, Val Rust is also co-founder and associate director of UCLA’s Center for International and Development Education (CIDE), founded in April 2002, serving as a hub for researchers and organisations from a wide range of disciplines. The centre’s mission is to provide quality information through a series of publications, research programs and practical initiatives. CIDE engages in educational development projects around the world in areas such as teacher education, higher educational change, educational finance and international educational leadership.

Chapter 1

Globalization and Comparative Education

During the past four decades globalization has been widely researched in comparative education and other academic circles. The forum of debate among comparative educators has penetrated to all corners of the world. Earlier, Lynn Davies (2004) argued that comparative education has possibly never had such an important function than in this age of different globalisations. She identified two complementary roles for comparative education for global pedagogies: ‘destroying myths and fighting simplistic or dangerous universalisms; and extracting signs of hope which show how education – both within and regardless of culture, could contribute to a better world’ (Davies 2004, p. 1). In addition, Epstein (2006) suggested that ‘comparative education applies the intellectual tools of history and social sciences to advance our understanding of international issues in education’ (Epstein 2006, p. 579). Numerous books by comparative educators on the subject have been authored and edited not only in the intellectual centers of the world but by scholars in the UK, USA, Sweden, Norway, Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and elsewhere (Daun 2002; Daun 2020; Tjeldvoll and Holmesland 1997; Hawkins and Rust 2001; Zajda 2005a, b; Zajda and Rust 2009; Zajda 2020a; Bray 2003a, b; Bray et  al. 2007; Hung 2001). Movements usually have a clear context and emerge out of the broader forces that define the direction societies take. In the United States, for example, the curriculum reform movement, with the emergence of the new math, PSSE physics, and chemical-­bond chemistry of the late 1950s, was in direct response to the launching of Sputnik on 4 October 1957 by the USSR, and the attempt on the part of the United States to recapture its technological superiority. The educational movement, known variously as humanistic education, the free school movement or ‘alternatives in education’, was an outgrowth of the Vietnam War and the student protest movement of the 1960s.

© Springer Nature B.V. 2021 J. Zajda, V. Rust, Globalisation and Comparative Education, Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2054-8_1

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Comparative Education and Policy: The History Jurgen Schriewer (1999) argued that the link between comparative education and economic growth is not very clear. Having examined the findings of comparative education research on the connections between education, modernisation and development, he concluded that the links between education, economic growth and employment, for example, were highly complex, indirect and certainly not linear. Furthermore, he noted they did not produce the same economic and technological outcomes in different societies: Such studies have taught us to thoroughly distrust the thesis – posited by industrial sociology and the economics of education – stating that qualification-requirements and educational structures are largely determined by technological change, economic development, and the exigencies of a universal rationality purportedly intrinsic to industrialism… Instead they are as a rule not very pronounced, only partially effective, basically dysfunctional, or simply counter-productive’ (Schriewer 1999, pp 39–40).

This related, according to Davies (2004) to ‘the old and obvious point about education’, being simultaneously the necessary agent of upward social mobility and an agent for cultural reproduction. If this is not the case, we may have the failure of grand theory of the Grand Narratives. One example of complexity was the impact of vocational education on jobs. Schriewer reported on the increasingly extensive body of comparative research dealing with the interconnections between vocational education and training, qualification structures of the labour force, and work organisation in large-scale manufacturing units. Instead, the studies have insistently shown us that vocational education and training is to a large extent determined by social and cultural factors.

Globalization as a Construct The usual types of globalization investigation, cited in comparative education and policy research were: • The spread of common world culture, or the homogenisation of culture and language • The ascendancy of a particular form of capitalism, championed in North America and parts of western Europe as the attainment of ideals of free trade liberalism • Knowledge transfer and increased ICT • More personal mobility • The spread of democracy, human rights and environmental concerns (Davies 2004; Zajda 2020b). Jones (2000) also distinguished between globalization and internationalism – the former was defined as the emergence of a world economy and the latter was thought to be the development of global solidarity through democracy and peace.

Economic Dimensions of Globalization

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Globalization as a theoretical construct was a response to the transformation of time and space and increasingly engaged large-scale systems. Global relations implied that economic, political and cultural activities had disengaged themselves from territorial authority and jurisdictions (Hobsbawm 1994; Giddens 1995; Waters 1995), and functioned according to their own imperatives and interests. Little consensus was found in the field, as books, research articles and essays had championed and critiqued globalization. Supporters claimed globalization was generating fresh economic opportunities, political democratization, and was establishing a new world order, while detractors saw it as yet another attempt on the part of America and Europe to dominate, control and exploit the world. In addition, Davies (2004) argued that globalisation should be seen as not ‘decentered, but as having definite points of origin’, initiated by advanced industrial countries. She believed modern globalisation ‘seeks the union of science and industry; the apoliticisation of unions; the organisational fragmentation in the production process; the globalisation of cultural, information and business networks; and the unification and standardisation of pleasure and consumption’ (Davies 2004, p. 3). To Davies, globalization, with reference to education policy, resulted in standardization of educational structures and policies: Globalisation is felt in education largely through the uncontested adoption of initiatives in developed countries along such lines as decentralisation, privatisation, the assessment of student performance and the development of tighter connections between education and the business sector (Stromquist 1990). We should also not ignore the power of regional blocs: NAFTA left out explicit references to education, which meant it could be defined as ‘any other tradeable good or service (Davies 2004, p. 3, see also Zajda 2020a).

Economic Dimensions of Globalization The greatest interest had been shown toward economic globalization, which some researchers claimed emerged after the end of the 1960s. Economic globalization advocates pushed for a global free-market economic system (Hirst and Thompson 1996a, b) and a pervasive technological system giving instant access to every corner of the globe through the use of electronic signals, paper, wheels, and wings. The global economy was seen to have transcended national economies and was dominated by market forces run by ‘transnational corporations that owe allegiance to no nation state and locate wherever in the globe market advantage dictates’ (Hirst and Thompson 1996a, b). In addition, some researchers claimed that the economy of the world was now driven by some 600 mega-firms that account for more than 20 percent of the world’s economic production. Few of these firms were nationally based. Let us take a single example: Japanese auto firms. Ford owned 25 percent of Mazda; Honda cars were increasingly built in the US and shipped even to Japan; General Motors was the largest single stockholder of Isuzu. (Toffler 1990). As such, economic globalization was intrinsically bound up with capitalist development and

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had been variously described as “McDonaldization,” “Coca-Colaization,” “Toyotism,” “Post-Fordism”. These characterizations, however, referred mainly to the value system behind economic globalization, including an emphasis on economic efficiency and a tendency toward homogenizing practices (see, for example Barber 1995; Wilms 1996). These developments were able to put competitiveness pressures on nation states, whose businesses and industries had to compete with them. They had to continually adjust social services (education and health) and programs (pensions, unemployment benefits, family allowances) to remain competitive in terms of cost with the international products and services (Garrett 2000). Parallel with the development of multinational industries and competition was the development of a global electronic finance market that exchanged more than a trillion dollars a day in 2000 alone. The latest BIS Triennial Survey (8th December, 2019) shows that global foreign exchange trading increased to more than $6 trillion per day (https://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt1912f.htm). This is up from $5.1 trillion per day in April 2016 and marked a return to the long-term upward trend in turnover. This market had little to do with trade but was oriented almost entirely toward speculation in currency and paper money (Bergsten 1988). The financial markets were pushing giant mergers of financial institutions as well as a surge in new charters of local institutions that addressed specialist needs and small businesses.

Political Dimensions of Globalization Malcolm Waters (1995) reminded us that a global economy was accompanied by political globalization based on global political liberalism and declining national autonomy. Since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, on December 25, 1991, a consensus had occurred in the world, in the eyes of some interpreters, concerning the legitimacy of liberal democracy. In the early years after the Soviet Union was dissolved, people assumed that rival ideologies, including fascism, theocracies, communism, and hereditary monarchies had proven to be ill equipped to compete with liberal democracy. In fact, Francis Fukuyama (1992) went so far as to proclaim that liberal democracy had won the battle and that it had proven itself to be the ‘final form of human government.’ His book was aptly entitled, The End of History, because he proclaimed the historical struggle to find a form of government that was free of fundamental contradictions and flaws had been won. Liberal democracy was the only option remaining, because it was the only form of government that could not be improved on (Fukuyama 1992). Nationalism continued to be reinforced by a number of forces. On the one hand, international and global political bodies had relatively little formal authority, which remained in the hands of the nation state (see Zajda 2017). On the other hand, local forces reinforced the status of the nation state in that they attempted to divide states into smaller ‘national’ units, as had occurred in Czechoslovakia, the

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Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia, or they attempted to gain a greater share of power and influence over policy in the existing nation state. The World Wide Web page of the Zapatista Front of National Liberation in Mexico illustrated how a small group of guerillas in the jungles of Chiapas, Mexico, were able to mobilize the world against an entire nation state in favor of their national agenda. However, that effort did not signal the death of Mexico, but a power struggle over who was to control Mexico. Globalization had been allied with political liberalism, but it has also assumed the emergence of political units whose boundaries would beyond those of nation states (Held 1991). This signaled the surrender of sovereignty on the part of nation states and the emergence of larger political units (European Union), multilateral treaties (NAFTA), and international organizations (UN, IMF), as well as many inter-governmental organizations and non-government organizations. The rational consequence of these trends would be a system of global governance with the decline of state powers and authority (Held 1991). While state autonomy was in decline, as yet no global political unit was in place that would regulate and coordinate economic globalism. Further, if one judges the current orientation of the European Union, it is not always clear if regional political units are consistent with economic globalism or if globalization has imposed overwhelming constraints on national economic policies (Garrett 2000). Of course, governmental units have been accompanied by a phenomenal development of thousands of international non-­ governmental organizations (Iriye 2002). In fact, John Boli and George Thomas contended that the emergence of international non-governmental organizations between 1875 and 1973 was an important indicator of the emergence of a global polity (Boli and Thomas 1999).

Educational Dimensions of Globalization In education, the important role of the nonformal sector has long been known. Philip Coombs (Coombs 1964) provided a working paper for the International Institute for Educational Planning, a UNESCO organization in Paris. He drew a picture of the world that had engaged in a ‘sharp increase in popular aspirations in education’ at a time when there was an ‘acute scarcity of resources’. He maintained that formal education prevented the ‘optimum use of education and educated manpower’ necessary to foster national development (Coombs 1964). Coombs solution to the problem was nonformal education, which was more cost effective, according to the studies of nonformal programs in American industries. Studies of nonformal education became a major industry for the next decade, and important studies continued to be conducted concerning the nonformal sector.

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Cultural Dimensions of Globalization Globalism also included the notion of cultural globalization, as globalization had changed the very fabric of cultural experience and what we mean by culture.1 (see also Zajda 2015). For the first time in human history, the world was seen as a single cultural setting. It was seen more and more as a single place and an ever increasing network of interconnections, an interconnectedness of a global cultural system (King 1997; Tomlinson 1999; Zajda 2020a). Roland Robertson reminded us that the global village does not imply uniformity; rather it represents a global human condition, an overarching human collectivity melded into a single human system (Robertson 1992). We speak now of a global village, with its intimate variety of neighborhoods that can be visited in person through the web or the television screen. The internet now represents the most dramatic globalization phenomena. In 1990 it was barely known, and by 1993 three million people made use of it, and by the turn of the century approximately 400 million people had access to it. At the end of 2002, at least 55 percent of Great Britain households, 25.2 million adults, had access to the internet (Statistics 2002), while in 2001 165,2 million Americans (58 percent of the adult population) had direct home or office access to the internet (Stations 2001). Global Reach had calculated that in 2004 at least 729.2 million people around the world had access to the internet. Of these, 35.8 percent speak English, 14.1 percent speak Chinese, 9.5 percent Japanese, 9 percent Spanish, 7.3 percent German, 4.1 percent Korean, and 3.8 percent French (Reach 2004). In education, by 2000 some 77 percent of United States’ public schools were connected to the Internet using dedicated lines (Statistics 2002). In spite of these numbers, only about six percent of the world’s population had access to the internet at the turn of the century, but it was estimated that by 2010 half the world will have access (Almanac 2003). In terms of television, in the U.S. more than 99 percent of all households had at least one television set, with an average of 2.24 televisions sets per household, which were viewed an average of 6 hours and 47 minutes per day (Science). Now via the internet we can visit the Haiti International Boutique at the Haiti Global Village International Mall or buy handwoven clothes from Guatemala. Or we can attend Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral Church service on television while we are working in Azerbaijan. Or from our living rooms we can find people of like mind and heart, and in neighborly fashion, show them how to bake a pie or fix a leaking roof. Besides having instant access to the virtual world, through global travel we can visit these neighborhoods in person. By 1989 one billion passengers had traveled each year by air; by the turn of the century this figure had been exceeded by the United States alone (Aburdene and Naisbitt 1990).

1  For example, Lisa Laumann (2000) examined the rich educational programs for girls being conducted in nongovernmental organizaions in Pakistan. See Laumann, L. (2000). Teaching gender: Pakistani nongovernmental organizations and their gender pedagogies. Education. Los Angeles, University of California, Los Angeles.

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The Origins of Globalization Throughout human history educational ideas have been borrowed or imposed on others, all of which led to the melding of educational ideas and structures (Phillips 2015). Comparative education was and continues to be a mirror for attempts to extend options and learn from other areas. Harold Noah and Max Eckstein had identified five major types of historical inquiry taking place in the West (Noah and Eckstein 1969). Throughout most of its history comparative education studies consisted mainly of what they call travelers’ tales, in that they were prompted by curiosity and interest in the exotic (Brickman 1968). There had also been a strong international education focus stressing world harmony a mutual cooperation among peoples of the world. International understanding had become a major focus of the field of international education, which was, at the time, a relatively recent development in the academy. In all of these activities, there were some serious attempts to develop comparative education as an academic enterprise. The most important of these attempts came during the years between the two world wars, and they focused generally on the kinship between education and the society where that education was practiced. Education was seen as a microcosm of the larger society hosting it, and it was deemed important to describe education within the context of the larger society. The main contributors to this notion were scholars located in England, Germany, and the United States (Kandel 1933; Hans 1955; Schneider 1961a, b). Noah and Eckstein (1969) claimed the final type of comparative education inquiry was the attempt to create a social science base of the field. The mechanism for this would be to adopt broader social science research constructs, including quantitative research methods, theory-base inquiry, and focus on the larger issues of universals and social laws, rather than the individual, the unique, and the idiosyncratic event or story. Even though Noah and Eckstein discussed these five developments as historical stages, each of them continues to remain aspects of attempts to move our sights beyond our own neighborhood and local culture. They are attempts to help us be less parochial and more attuned to the broader world, and in this regard they have supported the globalization of human perspective. However, there have been specific historical developments that are more directly tied to contemporary globalization motives, and these have been linked to different theories of the global system. Historical theoretical constructs that are most often connected with comparative education work are colonialism, world system theory, dependency, and modernization.

Colonialism The colonial period provided a setting for a peculiar kind of globalization in education in that colonial powers carried their particular model of education to the regions where they held colonies. Even though there was variation in the process,

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with the French treating its colonies as if they would become French, the British engaging in indirect rule, the Belgians treating their colonies somewhere between the French and British, and the Dutch acting as absentee landlords. According to Joel Samoff (2003), the educational exchange process in the colonies usually worked as follows: Emulations, models, replicas, or overseas branches, these institutions often reproduced not only the curriculum, pedagogy, and hierarchical organization of their European models but even their architecture and staff and student codes of conduct. Both the intentions of the colonizers and the aspirations of the colonized elite they socialized insisted that the new education institutions appear to resemble as closely as possible their models (Samoff 2003).

A number of theories were developed to explain colonialism, the most common concept was that the major powers sought new markets and sources of raw materials, and they wanted to create opportunities to extend their influence to new parts of the world and to new cultures (Sklair 1991). This was a theoretical framework that placed capitalism at its core. Colonialism represented not only economic motives, but the imposition of Western ideas of individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liberty, free markets, and democracy on the rest of the world. It represented a world which was dominated by the West, which took for granted that the values of the West were superior to those of the rest of the world.

Cultural Imperialism The colonial powers paid little attention to the historical educational processes that took place in their colonies. They assumed that the young learned little from their elders of value to them. Whereas the children had learned how to live by living, much of what they learned was systematic, chronological, and intentional (Chesterfield 1974). Parents would alert their children to the different plants around them that were useful for snake-bites, spider-bites and remedies for sickness. They would teach their children which plants were useful for their livestock and which were dangerous and detrimental. They would learn which were poisonous and which were healthy. They learned especially the stories that defined their culture and directed their spiritual and moral lives, and they participated systematically in the rites and practices of their cultures. All of that changed with the advent of formal schooling, set up by the colonial powers and the missionaries. The missionaries were particularly concerned for the salvation of the colonial subjects so they focused on those things that were essential to eternal welfare, which meant Christianity and conversion to the Christian faith. Those aspects of colonial education which did not relate directly to salvation were seen as the handmaiden of administration. Educated people were needed to satisfy the lower levels of colonial administration and to provide for education. However, all education that was worthy of the name mirrored the educational practices of the colonial powers themselves (Kinsey 1971; Schwartz 1971; Clignet and Foster

World System Theory

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1981). Even after colonialism died the colonial attitude persisted though what is commonly known as ‘cultural imperialism’ scholars identified a new form of imperialism that perpetuated the idea of capitalist subjugation of the third world (Carnoy 1977; Schiller 1989; Gómez García and Birkinbine 2018). In other words, even after colonial powers lost their political legitimacy, they continued to dominate their former colonies by symbolic and psychological means. This included mass media, radio, television, and newspapers, but also more formal aid packages for formal education (Schiller 1976, 1992; Mattelart 1976; Boyd-Barrett 1977, 1998; Demont-­ Heinrich 2011; van Elteren 2014).

World System Theory Even though Marx did not deal systematically with a global system, he has had great influence on a number of theories related to globalization. One of these is the world system approach, founded by Immanuel Wallerstein (1974), from the State University of New York at Binghamton. He and his colleagues have developed a far-reaching analysis of unequal relations between the core, peripheral and semi-­ peripheral countries. Working on the assumption that capitalism is at the heart of the world system, Wallerstein attempted to explain the rise of Western Europe to world supremacy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He argued that Europe established a capitalist economy, which required expansion into the world for raw materials and markets for its products. It was not an empire in the technical sense of the term, because it had no defined boundaries. The core regions of Europe benefited from this world economy, while the areas of the world most exploited were those on the periphery. They lacked strong central governments or were controlled by the core states, which demanded that they export raw materials to the core, and they exercised coercive labor practices. Between the two extremes were the semi-­ peripheries areas, which acted as buffers between the core and the peripheries. The semi-peripheries were exploited by the core but they were often were exploiters of peripheries themselves. The capitalist world economy has always been seen as a dynamic system that adjusts to particular conditions, although certain features remain constant. The core regions of Europe have always benefited most from the relationships, and on the periphery certain enterprising people gained great wealth by cooperating with those in the core. It is the rural inhabitants in the periphery whose standard of living suffered and even declined as a consequence of these unequal relationships. Wallerstein asserted that the capitalist world system has skewed development and has increased economic and social disparities in the world. At least two main shortcomings of the world system theory have been explained. While it represents an extension of the idea of the ruling class and the working class by creating a ruling set of countries and a working set of countries, the theory neglects the social class struggle in its analysis. The second challenge is that the

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analysis distorts the actual history of capitalism, particularly the progressive nature of capitalism (Brenner 1977). This is particularly the case where countries that were defined as being on the periphery have increased their standard of living and become competitors in the fold of the core countries, even while they have not participated in the exploitation of the rest of the periphery. The theory seems stuck in the mold of not allowing genuine economic development to take place on the periphery, even while there is ample evidence that some areas were and continue to be in a state of rapid development. The theory was also criticized for the idea of a semi-periphery, which is seen as: an ad hoc invention to deal with those cases that do not fit neatly into the core-periphery framework. This criticism is strengthened to some extent by the observation that much creative work in this genre in recent years has been precisely in the elaboration of dependent development in the countries of the semi-periphery (Sklair 1991).

In comparative education, Robert Arnove (1980, 2015) has been particularly prominent in demanding that those in the field engage more actively in a global approach to educational research and analysis. He reminded his readers that comparative education has almost always relied on the nation state as the unit of analysis, but he insisted that education was becoming a global phenomenon that was not amenable to isolated country studies. The relations between nations could only explain many educational issues, and he argued that ‘world-systems analysis restores the international dimension to the field of comparative and international education’ (Arnove 1980). This insight became almost a mantra of many comparative education specialists. For example, Ramirez and Boli-Bennett (1982) argued that ‘educational systems cannot be explained by standard comparative education discussions that treat national systems as essentially autonomous units developing in accordance with endogenous social and political forces’ (Ramirez and Boli-­ Bennett 1982). Some educational research had substantiated certain world system characteristics. John W.  Meyer et  al. (1977) and his colleagues, for example, examined the shifts in education from 1950 to 1970 and they found that the relative number of students expanded everywhere during this time. They explained this expansion by declaring that a world educational system was at work that it was affecting all nations simultaneously. There has been a definite global convergence in terms of the abstract value of schooling, but particularly using the school to create national citizens, as well as in the organizational structure, tending toward a 6-3-3 format of primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary schooling; (Meyer et  al. 1977). Some scholars have found convergence of schooling interests in helping young people develop the social and technical skills necessary to function in a developed society. These skills would include the ability to work together, coming to work on time, changing work stations according to work plans, etc. (Inkles and Sirowy 1984; Zajda 2012).

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Dependency Another contemporary variant of colonial and world systems theory comes from Latin American scholars. Their globalization explanation had been that well-­ developed core countries have established exploitative relationships with lesser developed countries on the periphery, which have led to obstacles to economic development on their part. Latin American scholars explained the low level of economic development in Latin America, by suggesting that less developed countries are prevented from developing because of their reliance or dependence on economically developed countries (Arnove 2015). These countries were not simply undeveloped and in the process of catching up with the metropolitan countries. They were poor and have remained poor because they have been integrated into the European economic system only to be producers of raw materials or to provide cheap labor. They have systematically been denied the opportunity to grow and develop along with the core countries. The scholar most responsible for popularizing dependency notions had been Andre Gunder Frank, whose version of dependency was the idea of the development of underdevelopment (Frank 1967). The major difficulty in Frank’s account was to explain why some countries on the periphery do develop. Fernando Henrique Cardoso had taken a somewhat different path than Frank in that he attempted to account for development by emphasizing the periphery remains in a state of dependence even while it develops. These countries were unable to break away from the developed world and so their development always remained conditional and limited (Cardoso 1972; Cardoso and Faletto 1979). Those involved in educational reform from a dependency perspective emphasized that the world was dominated by capitalism (and continues to be so), and that educational policy and practice were ‘largely conditioned by the world system of capitalist production, by the way that the particular country’s production has developed in the world economy, and by the way class conflict has developed in that context’ (Carnoy and Levin 1976). In other words, there existed clear limits to educational reform (Zajda 2003; Zajda 2020a). Reforms were dependent on the political power relations and economic structures where the systems operate. The only way to change the educational system was to change the economy that dictated the types of attitudes and capabilities available in society (Carnoy and Levin 1976). Any educational reform undertaken in a dependent country would require the support of economic elites in that country, as well as those forces in the core countries engaged in the country (Carnoy and Levin 1976). The connection between broader economic conditions and education was well illustrated in the study of Jose Maria Coutinho, who examined the industrialization of Espirito Santo County in Brazil and concluded that a new form of dependent industrial modernization had occurred involving the triple alliance among the Brazilian state, the national bourgeoisie, and multinational corporations (Coutinho 1988). Espirito Santo was an impoverished Brazilian county about 300 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro, which underwent fundamental economic revitalization in that the old agrarian structure was transformed by the introduction of multinational

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corporations that bought up the agricultural land and planted Eucalyptus trees to provide raw material for the production of white cellulose pulp for paper. The farmers lost their land, the fishermen lost their fishing because the pulp plant so polluted the water that they were unable to fish any longer. The occupational structure of the county was absolutely transformed, but no educational and training provisions were available to help the locals adjust to the new economic imperatives, so they ended up worse off than before industrial modernization took place. Dependence in the case just noted, illustrated the necessity that education accompany economic changes so that human resources and adequate working conditions be insured so that local citizens can adjust to the changes taking place. Even higher levels of education were necessary so that the local citizens could also participate in the higher, technical aspects of economic reform.

Modernization Without question, modernization was the major paradigmatic force in international work at the time comparative education became a formal academic field of study. Because it is so central to the development of comparative education, we shall give greater attention to it than the other theoretical constructs. Even though important inroads could be found in the academy prior to World War II, particularly in America and Germany, comparative education is by and large a post World War II phenomenon. Its entrance into the academy is closely tied to modernization theory that pervaded higher education. During the 1950s and 60s social scientists devoted great energy to the construction of a comprehensive paradigm of modernity.2 Even though certain social scientists such as Daniel Lerner and David McClelland emphasized one or two critical modernization variables, all recognized that it was a paradigm possessing multiple variables (Lerner 1958; McClelland 1961). The paradigm was attractive because it inevitably took on the character of the best developed European and North American nations and implied an emptiness or lack of development in most other nations. The United States was usually the model modern nation due to its enormous gross national product, its pluralistic life style, and its optimistic attitude that the rest of the world could be transformed into its image. The paradigm which emerged consisted of a described or implied dichotomous social construct, the modern forming one ‘ideal type’ extreme of the construct (in the Weber’s sense) and the traditional forming the other.3 This framework is 2  A number of people have developed typologies of theories. Leslie Skair, for example, discusses five different theories of the global system: (i) imperialist (colonialist); (ii) modernization and neoevolutionist; (iii) neo-Marxist including dependency; (iv) world system theory; and (v) modes of production theory. 3  Ideal types come from Max Weber and makes reference to an analytical construct that serves the investigator as a measuring rod to ascertain similarities as well as deviations in concrete cases. It provides the basic method for comparative study. See Weber (1947).

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reminiscent of Herbert Spencer’s ‘homogeneity and differentiation’, Max Weber’s ‘traditionalism and rationalism’, Emile Durkheim’s ‘mechanical and organic organization’, and Ferdinand Tőnnies’ ‘community (Gemeinschaft) and society (Gesellschaft)’. Attempts were made to develop a comprehensive catalogue of descriptors distinguishing the traditional from the modern, such as low-need achievement versus high-need achievement, religious versus secular beliefs, agrarian versus industrial economies, stable social structure versus high social mobility. Implicit in the theory is a linear movement between two extremes. A nation was believed to modernize when it emulated model nations such as the United States, Germany, England, or Sweden. In the 1960s a number of studies appeared which began to provide empirical evidence that relationships between modernization variables did exist. Karl Deutsch coined the term social mobilization, suggesting that a number of specific processes were bracketed together as a population moves into modernity. He compiled partial data for nineteen countries, which indicated a correlational relationship between GNP and other economic factors, population, radio audience, newspaper readers, literacy rates, work force in non-agriculture, and urban population (Deutsch 1961). A number of other studies substantiated these and other relationships, including complex and specialized political institutions and the political participation level, the number of pieces of domestic mail per capita, seating capacity at movie theaters, the number of telephones and literacy rates, urbanization, labor force movement away from agricultural employment and economic development (Lipset 1959, 1963; Almond and Coleman 1960; Cutright 1963; Lerner 1958). Of crucial importance to the development of comparative education was the focus given to educational development. Modernization specialists inevitably believed education to be a solution to efforts to help a traditional culture modernize (Brembeck 1962; Curle 1964; Hunt 1969). The starting point for educationists was to support social science attempts to find relationships between education and other variables. For example, Ralph Harbison and C. Myers in their study encompassing 136 countries found a positive relationship between human resource development a composite of factors such as number of teachers, school enrolments at various levels, number of scientists and engineers, and economic development - a composite of GNP and percentage of active population engaged in agricultural occupations (Harbison and Myers 1964). Mary Jean Bowman and C. Arnold Anderson found positive correlations between the level of spread of education and economic levels. They found that indicators of the spread of primary education were better economic predictors than the extent of post-primary schooling. Literacy rates and post-­primary enrolments were also positively correlated (Bowman and Anderson 1967). The empirical studies being conducted were within the framework of a general picture of modern society (Hall 1965). Politically, political roles were allocated on the basis of achievement rather than ascription; decision making takes place according to rational, scientific and secular techniques; mass popular interests were considered in the decision-making process; functionally specific roles were organized in professionalized bureaucracies; government regulate the economic and social aspects of individual and group life; government functions were increasingly

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centralized; and regulations and techniques were based on an impersonal system of law. Socially, the population was urbanized; social groups were organized to perform specific functions; a wider range of individual choice was available; choice was regulated according to impersonal laws; individuals tended to identify with large impersonal groups; individual and group roles were specialized; achievement was the basis for assigning roles; relationships were contractual rather than assigned by birth. Economically, production of goods and services were based on science and technology; labor was increasingly specialized; human skills required increasingly higher levels and increasing efficiency; capital was more connected with institutions than individual productivity; production, transport and marketing was increasingly large scale; innovation and growth were valued; economic inequalities were reduced; the labor force were devoted more to services than manufacturing; wage labor was the chief form of employment; and natural hazards were replaced by technological change, market uncertainties, and human relations. Intellectually, verifiable knowledge replace religious and cultural dogmas; social change and the individual were valued; vocational, social, and intellectual training took priority; secularization and material goods were valued; mass communications were expand; individuals expanded their involvement beyond family and neighborhood; and ideas of everyone were disseminated.

Evaluation The above analysis and explanation of modern variables suggests rather abstract elements, with no reference to political economy, dominant ideologies, or hegemonies. For example, economic variables are broad enough to allow both capitalism and socialism a place within the modernization scheme, or political variables encompass both individual and communal tendencies. In addition, science and rationality were assumed to be sacred values. In spite of the empirical studies which emerged, the whole modernization paradigm became questioned, because in their enthusiasm social scientists had tended to develop a straw man concept. ‘The modern ideal is set forth’, suggested Samuel Huntington (1971), ‘and then everything which is not modern is labeled traditional. (Huntington 1971). Worse yet, the modern was often described and the traditional became its opposite, violating or disregarding all the variations which existed in the Third World (Wehler 1975). These scholars noted that the traditional usually has quite a different meaning in different contexts even though movement was in the direction of similar modernization characteristics. This situation alone brought protest, because it implied that all nations are destined to move toward a colossal homogeneity of social processes and structures, or if they did not, they condemned themselves to an inferior primitive state of existence.

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There were, of course, variations even in the Western world. The paradigm which social scientists developed is no longer viewed as utopian in nature but is seen as an historical era having provided enormous advantages but also a shadow side. Certain commentators continued to advocate specific aspects of the modernization paradigm. Habermas (1990), for example, agreed that Enlightenment reason has been exhausted, but that it can only be made good by advancing reason, not giving it up (Habermas 1990). Today, under the umbrella and the sign of globalization, many of the old modernization issues are being raised again as relevant to development projects. When globalization is discussed in the literature, reference to the modern is inevitable, but new issues have emerged that were at best only implicit in the modern paradigm but they now take center stage.

Modernity and Education Some scholars argue for a reassessment of the nation state in the context of modernization. The argument is that the nation state has been so taken for granted in modernization theory, that it has not been possible to rise above the specific issues of political participation, decision making, professional bureaucracies, government regulation, and impersonal systems of law and ask what role the nation state itself plays in the global context (Carnoy 1984; Morrow and Torres 2003; Zajda 2020a). There are some scholars who argued that globalization has made the nation state invalid, at least in terms of economics, because the real work was done from the perspective of a global economy (Bhalla 2002).

Modernity and Its Impact on Modern Consciousness If being postmodern is being part of a universe where, as Marx said: ‘All that is solid melts into air’ (1848, p. 487), how would it affect one’s construction of social identity in the global culture? This new dimension of cultural transformation was explored by Marshall Berman (1988) in his book All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity. The book was an exploration of modern consciousness. Berman examined critically the social changes that swept millions of people into the capitalist world and the resultant impact of modernism on societies, art, literature, architecture, music, cinema, history and politics: In All That Is Solid Melts Into Air, I define modernism as any attempt by modern men and women to become subjects as well as objects of modernization, to get a grip on the modern world and make themselves at home in it. This is a broader and more inclusive idea of modernism than those generally found in scholarly books. It implies an open and expansive way of understanding culture; very different from the curatorial approach that breaks up human activity into fragments and locks the fragments into separate cases, labeled by time, place, language, genre and academic discipline (Berman 1988, p. 5).

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Another issue that was missing from the earlier modernization literature was political and cultural dimensions of cultural pluralism. At the time modernization theory was being developed there was an assumption of stable populations within a specific geographic space and social pluralism was not taken into account. Migrations of people across borders have taken on such a dramatic force in social life that it has become a major factor in analyzing modernization in nation states and in the broader world (Gibson and Ogbu 1978; LaBelle and Hawkins 1991). According to Benjamin Barber, less than ten percent of the world’s states came close to being homogeneous, and even these states were increasingly racked with multicultural issues (Barber 1995). In Norway, for example, the presence of about 5000 Pakistani migrants almost brought the nation’s social welfare system to a halt, because they did not understand or honor the basis on which it was founded (Rust 1989). Closely related to multiculturalism is the gender issue. At the time modernization theory was being framed, the relationships between men and women were so taken for granted, that they were not a part of modernization considerations. Today, they are of prime importance and the modern world cannot be discussed without consideration of the changing roles of men and women (Harding 1987; Haraway 1988; Stromquist 1990; Wolf 1996; Zajda and Freeman 2009). Perhaps the greatest challenge to modernization theory is the suggestion that modernity be seen a historical period and that the Modern Age has been supplanted by something else. The most popular voice for this point of view is that of postmodernism, Val Rust (1991), for example, argued that an era shift was under way, that the “pervasive ideology of modernism and modernity has been ruptured and it is undergoing radical reconstruction” (Rust 1991, see also Zajda and Rust 2009). Most comparative educators challenged this point of view, in part, because the field of comparative education had been structured around modernity and modernization, and many comparative education scholars played an important role in the development of modernization models (Anderson and Bowman 1965; Foster 1965; Hanson and Brembeck 1966; Kazamias 1966; Adams and Bjork 1971). The modernity paradigm shift—from structuralism to post-structuralism was captured by Berman (1988), when he argued for a broader, multi-dimensional and more inclusive concept of modernity: If we think of modernism as a struggle to make ourselves at home in a constantly changing world, we will realize that no one mode of modernism can ever be definitive. Our most creative constructions and achievements are bound to turn into prisons and white sepulchers that we, or our children, will have to escape or transcend if life is to go on. (Berman 1988, p. 6).

There are some scholars today, who even reject the notion that globalization is an extension of modernization or modernity and the term ‘global’ has evolved into the Global Age. Martin Albrow argued that globalization had supplanted the Modern Age: ‘If the Modern Age is a period in history, surely like any other it can end’, and scholars only fail to see the signs of a new age struggling to clarify its identity (Albrow 1997). While critics, from diverse school of thoughts contribute to a growing epistemological debate about the meanings of globalization and its location in

Conclusion

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our traditional concept maps, the signs of globalization are ubiquitous. A multi-­ dimensional model of globalization, which goes beyond traditional dichotomies, offers a post-structuralist and post-modern concept map, where tradition, modernity and globalization exist side by side. In a spiral-like fashion (using Bruner’s metaphor of the ‘spiral curriculum’) civilizations, time, history, ideologies, social space, and borders collapse into one, creating a new vision of the unity of human beings on the space ship Earth: The broad and open way is only one of many possible ways, but it has advantages. It enables us to see all sorts of artistic, intellectual, religious and political activities as part of one dialectical process, and to develop creative interplay among them. It creates conditions for dialogue among the past, the present and the future. It cuts across physical and social space, and reveals solidarities between great artists and ordinary people, and between residents of what we clumsily call the Old, the New and the Third Worlds. It unites people across the bounds of ethnicity and nationality, of sex and class and race. It enlarges our vision of our own experience, shows that there is more to our lives than we thought, gives our days a new resonance and depth… (Berman 1988, pp. 5–6).

Conclusion As above demonstrates, that comparative education research has investigated various diverse and competing cultural, social, economic and political dimension of multi-faceted globalization. As an epistemological and ontological construct it denotes a quantum-like shift in time and space, due to the intensification of worldwide social, economic and cultural relations, which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring both locally and globally. The key features of globalisation explored in comparative education research included standardization of curricula, global standards of excellence, global academic achievement syndrome (OECD, World Bank), global academic elitism, and increasing global inequality, due to the unequal distribution of socially valued commodities such as power, wealth, income, status, and education.

Chapter 2

Globalization as a Multidimensional Construct

Globalization is as an idea is a complex, contradictory, and ambiguous theoretical construct. As social scientists have attempted to separate out the categories identified with globalization, their very multidimensionality connects these categories to all the fields which are connected with the social sciences, including the economic, the political, the social, the anthropological and subsets of these fields, such as the technological, the environmental, the educational, the ecological (Appadurai 1990a, b; Zajda and Rust 2009; Zajda 2020a). Because scholars approaching globalization come from such varied traditions, with their different perspectives, informing principles, and priorities they tend to draw back from its multidimensionality and misrepresent globalization by linking it to capitalism, the nation state, political liberalism, etc. (Tomlinson 1999). Ludwig Wittgenstein once likened a complex theoretical construct to a landscape, and he explained that a single interpretation of anything is partial, and to gain the fullest picture of that landscape requires one to “criss-cross in every direction.”1 All too many interpretations, both positive and negative, are reductive, undialectical, and one-sidedly for or against globalization (Kellner 2005). They are one dimensional, and deterministic, usually focusing only on their selective discipline/ area specialization. Paul Hirst and Graham Thompson, for example, considered globalization as an economic phenomenon (Hirst and Thompson 1996a, b). Leslie Sklair treated it from a sociological perspective (Sklair 1991). John Keane considered what he called the global civil society, a sub-topic of sociology and political science (Keane 2003). If comparative educators are to capture the fullest possible novelty and ambiguity of the present moment in our discourse, we must explore as many dimensions of globalization as possible (Zajda and Rust 2016a, b; Zajda 2020c). Globalization combines economic, technological, social and cultural factors in a unique matrix, and we analyse here such topics as massification and 1  Wittgenstein, L. (1958). Philosophical Investigations. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Simon and Schuster Company.

© Springer Nature B.V. 2021 J. Zajda, V. Rust, Globalisation and Comparative Education, Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2054-8_2

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hybridity, homogeneity and heterogeneity, integration and fragmentation, order and violence/crime, capitalism and democracy, the center and periphery, and the nexus between the global and local (Omwami and Rust 2020).

Homogenization and Hybridity One of the potential contradictions of the globalization paradigm is that it is seen by some to be a homogenizing process, making the world one, while others see it as a process that creates ever greater complexity in the world. This discussion can be traced to 1844, when Ralph Waldo Emerson championed the homogenization process in America, noting that “the locomotive and the steamboat, like enormous shuttles, shoot every day across the thousand various threads of national descent and employment,” annihilating distance and binding the people “fast in one web,” so that “an hourly assimilation goes forward, and there is no danger that local peculiarities and hostilities should be preserved” (Emerson 1844). Globalization, by definition, seems to be homogenizing in nature, in that it attempts to displace differing local activities and institutions with globally defined activities, images and institutions. Globalization advocates wish to institute a similar political and economic ideology everywhere. It wishes to yank people everywhere out of their “traditional” mindsets and modernize them so that they think scientifically and rationally. They must recognize the value of efficiency as well as independent thinking. The list goes on and on. Both the positive and negative extremes toward globalization are usually based on a so-called “global homogenization paradigm.” It assumes the wholesale erosion of cultural differences and local perspectives through the world-wide colonization by the West (McLaren 2001). Extreme advocates of globalization anticipate an inevitable take-over of free-market capitalism and argue that only American and European hegemony can safeguard the world. Opponents indict globalization for encouraging “a homogenizing effect on societies around the world,” or for propagating “decadent Westernized values and lifestyles,” and supporting “an American project for world domination” (Falk and Kanach 2002). In technology, those lauding globalization are the techno-utopianists, who see an unproblematized version of information highways leading off into every corner of the world, lowering barriers that impede access to education, saving money, reaching the hard to reach, and binding diverse cultures together, at once fostering mutual understanding and preventing wars (Boshier and Onn 2000; Zajda and Gibbs 2009a, b). At the other extreme are those who claim electronic technology is a tool to dominate the world and to overwhelm the communications system as a public good, making it subservient to capitalistic imperatives and logic. There is evidence of increasing uniformities developing in the world. Janet Abu-­ Lughod gives a vivid and dwonderful account of the traditional medieval city of Tunis, which has two major bazaars. The one specializes in Tunisian handicrafts and arts and as one walks through it, one finds Arabic music, exotic architecture, and

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traditionally dressed merchants, designed to entertain the customers, almost all of whom are foreigners. The second bazaar is packed Tunisians, old and young, who are entertained by rock and roll music as people push their way to pushcarts piled high with transistor radios, watches, blue jeans, rayon scarves, and fragrant soaps (Abu-Lughod 1997). Anyone who has traveled around the world knows that the airports where they land are almost indistinguishable one from the other. At some abstract level we might speak of integration at least in terms of the means of communication and interaction and what Roland Robertson described as the compression of the world and an intensified consciousness of the whole (Robertson 1992).

Globalization as a Homogenization Process in Education In education clearly a certain type of homogenization is evident. When one looks at schools across time and space, one sees such commonalities. Today, all countries are committed to creating national citizens, by having children attend school for extended periods of time and inducting them into the values and content deemed important of all state citizens (Ramirez and Boli-Bennett 1982; Zajda et al. 2006; Kovalchuk and Rapoport 2019). All nation states were committed to increasing the number of children attending school, and empirical data indicate this had occurred, at least over a brief span of time between 1950 and 1970 (Ramirez and Rubinson 1979). Further, all nations wish to develop a professionalized teaching corps, and structurally they wish to institute the graded classroom (Ramirez and Boli-Bennett 1982; Inkles and Sirowy 1984). Homogenization also takes more subtle forms. In the former Soviet Union and its sphere of influence in Central Europe, the educational adjustments that were taking place throughout the region in the decade prior to the turn of the century were significant, though somewhat varied. Most countries began moving from a command and distribution state paradigm to various versions of representative democracy, stressing self-realizing participation in social life. In spite of this, there has been a striking uniformity of educational changes taking place, all related in one way or another to a rejection of the communist ideology that has dominated education for at least four decades (Zajda 2008a, b, c, d, e). In addition, there has been a uniformity even in the language of reform. It is clear that a good deal of sharing occurred in the various countries of the former Soviet block, as they have attempted to work out their individual reform agendas and join with the Western educational models (Rust 1992; Rust et al. 1994; Zajda 2017). In the European Union, even though education has never been a central concern, there has been a clear homogenization in terms of testing, certification, and technical standards. At the higher education level, all national systems have grown massively in terms of student numbers, institutions, faculties and courses. Until recently reforms been few, limited in scope and rarely applied, but fundamental changes are now beginning to occur. The most far-reaching university reform agenda was related to the so-called Bologna Declaration of 1999, signed by 29 European countries,

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which aimed to establish by 1010 a common framework of readable and comparable university degrees, having both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, that are relevant to the labor market, have compatible credit systems, and ensure a European dimension. Each country is working to establish such a system (Zajda 2016). In Italy, for example, the new higher education system has a first cycle lasting three years leading to an undergraduate degree, a second cycle lasting two years leading to a postgraduate degree, and a final three-year program leading to a doctorate. Within these general constrains, the universities were given great autonomy in terms of programs and administration (Rust and Wells 2003; Zajda and Rust 2016a, b). Another major innovation was the development of a European Course Transfer System (ECTS). It was embryonic and completely voluntary but suggested the development of a complicated process for determining equivalences of degrees and diplomas. A number of so-called ‘Euro’ degrees were already offered by universities or academic/industrial consortia, even though external recognition remained virtually non-existent (Rust and Wells 2003). However, there was also evidence of growing differences throughout the world. Frank Lechner and John Boli provided three reasons to challenge the assumption that globalization lead to a homogeneous world. First, they argued that general rules and models were inevitably interpreted in light of local circumstances so that regions responded to similar political and economic initiatives in different ways. Second, imposition always provoked reactions; indigenous peoples become conscious of their cultural traditions and attempted to put forth a distinctive model to counter the global. Third, difference itself had become a global value and local peoples took pride in their difference (Lechner and Boli 2001 pp. 2–3). There was also growing evidence that uniformities on a global scale were superficial and that cultures were growing and changing in substantially different directions. According to Hannertz (1990) the world “is marked by an organization of diversity rather than by a replication of uniformity. No total homogenization of systems of meaning and expression has occurred, nor does it appear likely that there will be one at any time soon” (Hannertz 1990). Some scholars were putting labels on the modifications and transformations taking place. Most often scholars stressed that the dialectic of the local and the global was one of “resistance” on the part of the local. In fact, much more was at work. Even when the local buys into the global, they transform the globalization innovations to suit their traditions and customs by way of what David Howes (1996) called a “creolization paradigm.” Howes (1996) analyzed the consumption of goods produced in the West, such as Coca Cola, and he explained that as these products were distributed throughout the world, they were “contextualized.” The creolization paradigm sensitizes one to all the ruptures and deflections, rejections and subversions that take place in the globalization process. Creolization is an integral dimension of cross-cultural transfer and borrowing (Howes 1996). The creolization is joined by the notion of hybridity, which suggests an intermingling, a combining of cultures. As a result, Homi Bhabha (1989) discussed the “contradiction, antagonism, the hybridities of cultural influence, the boundaries of nations,” in the way local politics translate global imperatives (Bhabha 1989). Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo included a number of essays in

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their reader, that discussed the hybridity that occurred with Arab immigrants coming to France, the Japanese attempts to Westernize, etc. (Inda and Rosaldo 2002).

Globalization as a Hybridization Process in Education If we take seriously the idea of creolization or hybridization, the superficial homogenizing effects taking place on a global scale are leading to an ever greater variety of educational expressions rather than to a narrowing of expressions. Many comparative educators see the homogenization paradigm as limited. In the book by Robert Arnove and Carlos Torres (Arnove and Torres 1999), Comparative Education: The Dialectic of the Global and the Local, the authors stressed that the globalization forces at work were interacting with national and local forces in such a way that globalization efforts are modified and even transformed (Arnove and Torres 1999). This evidence was also accompanied by a number of theoretical orientations, including complexification theory, self-organization theory, the theory of fractal sets, and chaos theory, that all suggested substantial local variation within the framework of broader, universal developments (Jantsch 1980; Schieve and Allen 1982; Prigogine and Stengers 1984; Gleick 1987; Casti 1994). A few examples of this hybridization process in education will suffice. Individual and cultural needs were incorporated into the abstractly uniform school curriculum in such a way that diversity and uniqueness were encouraged. Local narratives and stories were highlighted as much as universal narratives and stories. Various learning styles were not only recognized but increasingly appreciated. Difference was encouraged and rewarded (Mander and Goldsmith 1992). In Azerbaijan, a former republic of the Soviet Union. Since independence, the country had attempted to align itself with Western values and educational practices. And so it gave up its socialist-orientated education, including a history curriculum that reflected an epochal history of the world, as framed by Marx and Lenin, who believed humankind had progressed through a series of epochs: original society, slave society, feudal society, early capitalism, imperialistic capitalism, and finally socialism. Azerbaijan’s new curriculum had ostensibly undergone tremendous change in that it was no longer focused on the Soviet Union, but on the Middle East; however, even though the names, dates, and events have all changed in the textbooks, the basic framework continued to be epochal in nature, and those epochs remained identical with that framed by Marx and Lenin. In Mongolia, Western models have been imported since the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Included in these reforms have been attempts to institute vouchers, Gita Steiner-Khamshi has documented the process of Mongolizing the notion of vouchers, which have been adapted to the local cultural context. Vouchers had been necessitated because of migration patterns that do not allow settled schools to be the norm. Vouchers provided one mechanism for a mobile population to be schooled (Steiner-Khamsi 2006).

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Another example comes from Kenya. Edith Omwami (2010, 2018), devoted a good deal of time to the issue of female education and development (Omwami 2010). Clearly the educational reforms in Africa are driven by external forces, such as the World Bank. In spite of the homogenizing formulas of international agencies, Edith warned against blanket assessments about the experiences females receive. The programs for females are extremely varied and are usually focused on the environments where women work and live. This was especially the case for women who entered higher education. Women were not being “homogenized” but education allowed them to advance in various ways in terms economic independence and life choices.

Resistance, Receptivity and Restoration Discourses related to globalization reveal contradictory needs and processes. Nowhere is this more evident than regarding receptivity and resistance. Historically social relations range from conquest to active borrowing, and such relations continue during this period of globalization. Two quite different interests have occupied comparative education scholars. One the one hand, those opposed to capitalism and the advance of neo-liberalism in the world have focused on attempts to resist the advance of globalism, while those interested in the further development of international relations are interested in the attraction foreign systems have to those interested in educational reform.

Resistance At the one extreme today, radical theorists label the modifications and transformations taking place under globalization as a dialectic of the local and the global where the local ought to “resistance” the global. That is, they see a new phase of history to be under way in which the working class and poor “victims of the world system” are engaged in a struggle against neoliberalism’s capitalist globalization project (Zajda 2020b). Groups such as Globalize Resistance in the United Kingdom and the Network for Global Economic Justice in the United States have come into being with the intent of thwarting efforts to globalize corporate power and privatize aspects of society that have heretofore been considered part of society’s common good.. Efforts by those pushing for economic, political, and cultural integration on a global scale are being increasingly resisted by efforts to mobilize a number of social movements intending to counter the aims of neoliberalism, when they perceive them to harm their well being and values (Rosenau 2003; Omwami and Rust 2020). In fact, resistance activities of social movements throughout the world are themselves taking on traits of globalization in that they have a number of similarities. Marco G.  Giugni describes three process that bring them together. First,

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because globalization is creating increasing interconnectedness in the world, so the phenomenon being resisted is similar everywhere. Second, because the movements to counteract globalization are attacking similar structures and processes their activities are convergent. Third, there are so many “cross-national flows of information” that a diffusion of resistance activities is inevitable (Giugni 2002). Resistance is a powerful force in this age of globalization. According to Foucault, just as we never have a complete view of powers of oppression and domination, we can never be fully aware of resistance against these powers. Resistance groups emerge and die as they attempt to cope with these powers. For every power that is exercised there are corresponding forms of resistance. Because power is general and diffuse, there is also a plurality of resistances. Where power shows itself, there is also resistance (Foucault 1980a, b, c). The primary power of globalization is its totalizing discourse, which subsumes everything into it. However, Foucault argues that this totalizing discourse must be resisted by marginalized discourses that free humankind. In fact, differences are not only to be found, but celebrated. Just as in the system of language, where difference is inescapable, cultural differences are not only to be recognized as fundamental but to be celebrated. A distinguishing feature of resistance is that modern communications technology, one of the contradictions of globalization, is that this tool of oppression is also being used to resist other aspects of globalization. The internet, websites, and other means of communication were used to mobilize people against perceived threats of globalization (Rosenau 2003; Zajda and Gibbs 2009a, b). In education, resistance theory comes mainly from critical theory and critical pedagogy. Henry Giroux has been a powerful voice in raising to a level of consciousness the structures of domination that pervade schooling, as they do all facets of everyday life. Giroux sets out to provide educators with a way to critique this domination and to oppose it. In the process, he is determined to create a radical theory of pedagogy (Giroux 1983). He has been joined by Stanley Aronowitz, who finds that liberal voices supporting individualism and capitalism fail to see the contradictions in these positive values in that they are blind to the corruptions implicit in them. Critical theorists analyzed “how school as a cultural and social terrain organizes, legitimates, sustains, and refuses particular forms of student experience” (Aronowitz and Giroux 1985). Risistance can be connected with education at a number of levels. A number of neo-Marxist studies of schooling have contributed to the growing critical pedagogy literature on resistance. In departments of education at universities, a number of scholars have demanded that Marxism be revisited. They rail against schools of thought, such as postmodernism, that are seen as little more than attempts by the leisure class to discredit grand theories that attempt to unite feminists, anti-racists, and the working classes in order to create a political movement of human resistance. Marxist educationists such as Peter McLaren at the University of California, Los Angeles, Paula Allman at the University of Nottingham, Glenn Rikowski at the University of Central England in Birmingham, Mike Cole at the University of Brighton in England, and Dave Hill at the University College Northampton are attempting to restore the notion that Marx and the social class struggle remain

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relevant to the problems of contemporary education.2 Perhaps the most popular Marxist study of the schools is that of Paul Willis on the antagonistic experiences of students in Britain who resist attempts on the part of schools to act as institutes of social reproduction (Willis 1977). Comparative education studies related to resistance have also been conducted on teachers and teaching and teacher training (Popkewitz 1993; Steiner-Khamsi 1999; Fischman 2000). Some comparative educators feel critical pedagogy has not been altogether successful in part because it has been cultivated by academics sitting in their ivory towers and has failed to attach itself to social and political movements that resist hegemonic efforts of nation states (Morrow and Torres 2003).

Receptivity While resistance is a focus of comparative education attention, there has historically been as much cross-national attraction and borrowing as resistance. After the rise of the nation state, accounts consisted mainly of those interested in learning lessons from foreign practices. Educators took advantage of developments elsewhere to challenge their countrymen to find systems that would contribute the development of their particular nation state. Harry Armytage, for example, has written four books tracing the influence of America, France, Germany, and Russia on English education (Armytage 1967, 1968, 1969a, b). Frederick Schneider devoted most of his period of exile in Nazi Germany tracing the influences of German education on other countries (Schneider 1943). Val Rust and David Phillips have focused on the reciprocal influences on education between G ermans, the English, and Americans (Rust 1968, 1997) (Phillips 2000). A fascinating example of borrowing is the report of the French scholar, Victor Cousin, on Prussian education in 1831. Cousin had visited Frankfort and Saxony, and spent some time in Berlin and he then wrote a series of reports to the minister, afterwards published as Rapport sur Vital de I’instruction puUique dans quelques pays de V Allemagne et particulierement en Prusse that served as a model for the French as they attempted to reform their national system of primary education. The report also contributed to the establishment of the American common school. In 1834 Sarah Austin translated Cousin’s report into English and copies of this English translation fell into American hands and was a trumpet call for a general exodus of educators and statesmen to Prussia, including Calvin E. Stowe, Alexander Dallas Bache, Horace Mann, and Henry Barnard. (Bache 1839; Mann 1844; Barnard 1854; Stowe 1930) Consequently, the American common school was almost an exact copy 2  Postmodernism is a popular whipping boy for Marxists. See, for example, Whitty, G. (1999). Recent educational reform: Is it a postmodern phenomenon? The politics, sociology, and economics of education. R.  F. Farnen and H.  Sunker. London, Macmillan, Hill, D., P.  McLaren, et  al. (2002). Marxism against Postmodernism in educational theory. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group.

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of the Prussian Volksschule. Curiously, these American reformers often retained the French terms used by Cousin. Consequently, the American normal school is a replica of the German teacher training seminar, though the term Americans use is French. Comparative education researchers at Oxford University, under the leadership of David Phillips had engaged in a process of conceptualizing what goes on in the “borrowing” process between nations, particularly as they relate to policy formation and implementation (Phillips and Ochs 2003). Phillips involvement in the borrowing process was serendipitous in that he published some years ago an article about cross-national attraction in education that attracted so much attention that he was drawn by external influences into making it a major life’s project (Phillips 1989). Phillips had attempted to conceptualize the borrowing policy process and he has developed a full diagrammatic account of the various phases of the educational policy development and implementation. The process usually begins with various impulses that inspire a search for foreign models which might solve specific internal educational problems. Governments and agencies then go through a process of making a decision to adopt a specific model. This involves theoretical and practical decisions. One a model has been selected; it must be implemented, which requires adaptation of the model to fit the context. Finally, once, the implementation process is complete, there is a stage of internalization/indigenisation, which means in becomes a part of the national system. The Oxford framework is not dissimilar to that developed by Rust in his study of educational policy formation and implementation process in Norway, which involve an initiation phase, a study phase, a consensus building phase, a legal framework phase and an implementation phase (Rust 1989). Phillips and his colleagues had engaged in a large number of case studies, both geographically and historically that demonstrate part or all of the borrowing process (Phillips 2004). These have been joined by people such as Gita Steiner-Khamsi at Teachers College, Columbia University, who is concerned not only with the borrowing process but the lending process (Steiner-Khamsi 2004). The borrowing process has gone on as long as there have been separate administrative units that have maintained relations with each other. It is not clear how globalization provides special contextual and circumstantial issues to be dealt with. Most of the borrowing that has been documented has been between nation states or between systems of education in the modern age. (Nir et al. 2018). With the emergence of transnational conditions within the context of globalization, new models are yet to be developed that illuminate the borrowing and lending process in education (Phillips 2015).

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Restoration and Renewal There are between 6000 and 10,000 different cultures in the world, and each is contending in one way or another with globalization. We have seen that some respond through resistance, others by embracing what globalization offers. Still others are awakened to the importance of their own indigenous knowledge. This awakening has occurred initially on a local level as people exposed to globalization began confronting their own ways of thinking, building, and working in contrast to the things that were being imported from external sources. Quickly, small groups began to ban together, and by the end of the century more than 50 networks were active assisting these local groups in their quest not only to retain their indigenous knowledges, but to begin restoring those knowledges that had begun to disappear from their culture (Semali and Kincheloe 1999). Many of these networks came from the developed world, where resources were readily available, but the main work of preservation and restoration has taken place within the local groups themselves. Indigenous knowledge is closely related to historical colonial relationships between local groups and European conquerors (Semali and Kincheloe 1999). Inevitably the conquerors aimed at cultural assimilation at least insofar as the local peoples would satisfy their quest for raw materials and political domination. This amounted to the destruction of the local cultures through what is generally known as cultural imperialism. Because of this historical connection with colonialism the idea of indigenous knowledges is often mistakenly associated with “primitive” third world cultures. At issue is the assumption on the part of core areas of the world, that their way of knowing is the only legitimate way. That is, the core areas of the world take for granted that mainstream science, with its practice of negotiating nature through a sequential process of problem identification, hypothesis setting, experimentation, and prediction is the only valid means of creating knowledge, while the knowledge produced by other ways of knowing are usually so intuitive, accidental, and based on guesswork, that they are not legitimate. Mainstream science assumes that their knowledge has universal validity, while indigenous knowledge is usually community based and context specific. There is no tradition in much of the world that their knowledge is universal. It is so closely connected with the cultural and spiritual traditions out of which it emerges that it is difficult to apply universally. Michael Cole’s encounter with the Kpelle in Liberia illustrates the issue. He was sent to Africa to teach the new math to the people of the Kpelle. After explaining what he wanted to do, their response was inevitably that it was nice to see how the Americans do math, but they wanted to show him how they did math and assumed he would be just as interested in learning how they did it as he expected them to be interested in the way the Americans did it (Cole and Gay 1965). The rediscovery of indigenous knowledge on the part of those in the developing world has great implications for schooling and the curriculum. Even though colonialism is a formal thing of the past in the third world, there remains a tradition of

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disinformation embedded in post-colonial schooling, because it is often carried over from the colonial period, where the knowledge of the core countries was deemed the only legitimate knowledge. Curiously, the stress on modern ways of knowing is on creativity and problem solving abilities, but this is rarely seen in the context of asking students to inquire about their own traditions and to challenge the traditions that have been given to them by the former colonial powers. And so the Muslim/Malays in Thailand, the Samis of the north, the Sioux of South Dakota, the Maori of New Zealand, The Katchins of Burma, the Kurds of Iran, the Bedouins of Africa reject the assumptions that theirs is little more than barbaric superstition. There is a growing awareness that “ethnoscience” has a legitimate place in scientific knowledge. An awakening of indigenous knowledge is coming full circle, in that it has become increasingly apparent that the quest to retain and restore indigenous knowledge is a global phenomenon, including the developed world. One well known program in the United States, for example, is Foxfire, a project begun in a Georgian town of the Southern Appalacians. A high school teacher inspired his students to begin collecting folkways, crafts, and reminiscences from local peoples. This led to the Foxfire journal that has become a rich source of folk practices in that region of America (Wigginton 1972–1982). Through the urging of scholars such as Paulo Freire and and Antonio Faudez, who argued passionately that indigenous knowledge is not only a rich source of understanding the world but also a source of social change intended to bring about greater social justice (Freire and Faundez 1989). A number of education scholars, including several comparative educators, are devoting their lives to the development of educational programs that promote indigenous knowledge. Pennsylvania State University is an active participant of the Inter-­ institutional Consortium for Indigenous Knowledge. Among its scholars are Ladislaus Samali, who looks at indigenous gendered spaces in Africa (Semali and Kincheloe 1999), and Madhu Suri Prakash, who calls for social justice and ecological sustainability, through greater recognition of the potential of localization and the restoration of local knowledge, rather than through globalization (Prakash and Esteva 1998). Seana McGovern, the director of study abroad at Providence College and a product of Pennsylvania State University, has produced one of the major education books on indigenous knowledge (McGovern 1999). At the University of Alaska Fairbanks Ray Barnhardt and Oscar Kawagley lamented that indigenous studies were so rare that indigenous peoples have been required to go beyond mainstream institutions and create their own centers to meet the needs of indigenous peoples. They were actively pushing for greater recognition of the knowledge held by Eskimos in Alaska (Barnhardt and Kawagley 1999). The Ontario Institute of Educational Studies (OISE) in Toronto, Canada, had a number of people working on indigenous knowledge studies. George Dei and Njoki Wane, both from Africa, examined the relevance and implications of indigenous knowledge, values, and spirituality for postcolonial Africa. They were joined at OISE by a number of researchers who dealt in one way or another with the topic including Judy Iseke Barnes and Eileen Antone. In Australia, comparative educator researcher Peter Ninnes (2000), at the School of Education, University of New England, Armidale, Australia, had written on indigenous knowledge and secondary science

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textbooks (Ninnes 2000). Ninnes worked closely with Preeti Shroff-Mehta, at the University of Maryland, who taught courses on indigenous knowledge. Jill Abdullah and Ernie Stringer were scholars at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, who drew our attention to the needs and community developments of aboriginals. M. Fernanda Astiz of Canisius College studied the impact of indigenous knowledge on the changes that were taking place in Brazilian schooling (see also Astiz and Akiba 2016).

Integration and Fragmentation Another potential contradiction of the globalization paradigm is its promise of creating a world of greater peace and security, while at the same time creating a world characterized by increasing fragmentation through crime, civil wars and terrorism. International economic and political integration promote a long term world-system trend. Even though globalization has been the focus of theoretical attention for the past two decades, the process of an economically and politically integrated world has been under way since the beginning of the modern age in the sixteenth century. However, international trade and investment have increased markedly in the recent past and those involved in this integration process claim it decreases the probability of war among core powers because it makes these states dependent on one another and therefore raises the costs of conflict. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) three important factors contribute to economic integration. First, trade liberalization provide, with decreasing tariff rates, provide market access for different countries, particularly between developed and developing countries. Second, when developing countries reduce restrictions of foreign investments, capital flows from the developed world increase. Third, free movement of people across borders make a great contribution to poverty reduction. The World Bank supports OECD efforts to open borders, claiming that the tragedy of population concentrations is that people living on the least productive areas and not allowed to abandon them in pursuit of better economic opportunities. Economic integration has been accompanied by growing international political integration, a process under way since the early nineteenth century. This process eventuated in the establishment of the League of Nations, which was succeeded by the United Nations. There are those who champion the growth of global governance by international organizations led by a liberal bourgeoisie. Craig Murphy, for example, contends that international liberalism over the past two centuries has not only been a force for international political integration but it has helped decrease the likelihood of warfare among developed states (Murphy 1994). Even though the United Nations remains relatively weak in providing collective security, it has made strides at least since the end of the Cold War in its ability to mediate conflicts and to reduce the probability of warfare. The growth of international organizations has been geometric since World War II, and many observers

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speak of the formation of a truly global polity that integrates separate groups of capitalists into a single global class. Such positive assessments about the integrative processes taking place around the world were shattered on 11 September 2001, which moved everyone to reexamine his/her orientation toward the world. That event has necessitated the creation of a new globalization category of analysis: terrorism. Globalization has entered a critical period, and it faces a mounting backlash against it that has drawn attention to the “dark side of globalization.” (Love 2003). Specialists are finally beginning to take terrorism into consideration as a part of globalization, but other downsides of globalization are beginning to surface. We are beginning to recognize that global activities have destructive and dark as well as constructive effects (Kellner 2005).

Crime While terrorism has been the catalyst for this new category, we are finally becoming aware that capitalism brings with it, wherever it operates, an illicit world of crime and terror. In the wake of globalization illegal activity has tremendously increased, and it has taken on all of the characteristics we usually attribute to globalization. Those engaged in it have disengaged themselves from national identity and they operate outside the boundaries of national laws and norms. The new technologies have given those engaged in crime advantages never before known. Criminal groups from various nations operate together for mutual advantage. And crime operates in such a way that it destabilizes nation states and subverts civil norms. As globalization expands, the capacity of states to deal with crime within their borders is reduced. Criminals favor transnational crime, because they are able to operate outside the boundaries of state capacity to combat it and deal with it. States have not been able to establish legitimate institutions to deal with it, because it is global in nature and operates in diffuse networks and outside the sphere of conventional crime. In addition, it is by definition a covert activity. The implications of global crime for education are not so obvious. In the first place, it must become a part of the perspective of comparative educators. It destabilizes and reshapes national capacity to operate ongoing systems, including the educational system. It blurs national distinctions and creates avenues for communication and information that are not part of the conventional system. It takes advantage of emerging technologies. But most directly, criminal activity is a learned activity. Comparative educators must ask in what way formal educational systems contribute to or impede criminal activity. What are the formal and informal educational systems used by global organized crime for training and preparing people to participate in the operations?

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Terrorism Just as crime exposes the downside of globalization, terrorism has exposed powerful networks of people intent on disrupting conventional life. The catastrophe at the World Trade Center was just the beginning of global terrorism, and the 2004 bombings in Madrid remind us it can take place anywhere. Richard Rorty recently noted that we ought to be grateful that “the attack in Madrid involved only conventional explosives. Within a year or two, suitcase-sized nuclear weapons (crafted in Pakistan or North Korea) may be commercially available. Eager customers will include not only rich playboys like Osama bin Laden but also the leaders of various irredentist movements that have metamorphosed into well-financed criminal gangs” (Rorty 2004). Terrorism is the clearest demonstration that globalization divides as well as unites, it clearly facilitates communication and understanding but at the same time it fragments and disrupts the world. It is the clearest demonstration of the contradictions and ambiguities of globalization. Indeed the world has become interconnected and interdependent but that very connectedness provides the opportunity for individuals and small groups of people to disrupt life on a global scale. The dilemma for stable nations is how to respond to terrorism. By behaving as the terrorists, these nations take on the values terrorism itself. Terrorism has, if it is possible to draw a positive lesson from it, drawn attention to the fact that peoples of the world are not well understood. It reinforces the necessity to commit ourselves to understanding others, to learn their languages, to study their religions, to know their schools and what they are taught. This necessity is no longer a matter of enlightened interest. It is now more than ever a survival issue. However, the way the world responds to terrorism may be more dangerous than terrorism itself. Those of us living in stable democracies are seeing the rise of racial profiling, of racism and other forms of discrimination in response to terrorist threats. Security measures and attempts to prevent terrorism lead to terrible abuses of civil liberties and the pleasures people in stable democracies have long taken for granted. The victories that have been won related to equality of opportunity in education and the work world could easily be eroded in the name of necessary security measures. This issue no longer relates only to the United States. The most direct implication for educators is the involvement of nations and international agencies in areas where terrorism is active. A number of comparative education scholars and educational experts have been involved in the redevelopment of Afghanistan education, which demands being in the field for long periods of time. In Iraq immediately after U.S. occupation, universities became directly involved in reconstruction of the school system and the university. Such activities are often carried out at great risk to those who are participating in these efforts, and the tendency is to avoid redevelopment activities in areas that are at high risk. A single example of educational research must suffice. In the 1980s, Farshad Rastegar attempted to study the educational programs that had developed in Pakistan refugee camps where the largest concentration of refugees in the world were housed. He found an extensive network of traditional schooling programs, but more

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particularly a systematic effort to create Islamic revolutionaries, who would give their lives to the reestablishment of an Islamic social and political order in Afghanistan. Of course, schools followed both a madrassah (religious) and a secular model, but the seeds of revolutionary activity were clearly to be seen almost two decades before Afghanistan was brought under the umbrella of Western influence (Rastegar 1988).

Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons The contemporary world is increasingly in a state of crisis, or a state where “many members of a social system fail to receive expected conditions of life from the system” (Barton 1969) The most significant consequence of social crisis and disasters is the growing numbers of people who are in flight for their lives. The consequences are growing numbers of refugees, internally displaced persons, and immigrants. A refugee was defined by the United Nations 1951 Convention as a person who leaves the country of nationality “owing to a well-founded fear of persecution.” Social scientists tend to think of refugees in somewhat broader terms, in that they are seen as people fleeing from persecution and violence, so they “break ties with their home state and seek protection from a host state through migration” (Hein 1993 244).3 The number of refugees in the world has doubled recently and it has increased by a factor of six since the beginning of the 1980s. More than 20 million people are currently officially designated as refugees, while as many others, not officially designated as refugees, are “forced migrants in refugee-like situations”. According to UNICEF approximately half of all refugees are children. While the number of refugees is sharply up, the number of people displaced within the borders of their own nations, known generally as internally displaced persons (IDPs), is growing even more rapidly. IDPs are those who have a similar status as refugees, but who remain within the borders of their homeland. The fact that their numbers are growing even more rapidly than refugees portends a significant increase in refugees themselves, because internal migration is a common first phase prior to international migration. Nicaragua, Salvador (Mozo and Basquez 1988), and Vietnam (Desbarts 1986) are examples of this two-phase migration taking place. Presently more than 26 million IDPs are found in the world. Presently more than 125 million people live outside their country of birth.

3  The emotional connotations of the term “refugee” have shifted over time. In colonial America, for example, refugees were often looked on as people to be admired and having a special strength of conviction. Those seeking refuge from religious persecution in England, sought freedom of expression and were looking for a more hospitable place to do this Bellah, R. (1985). Habits of the Heart. New York, Harper and Row. With few frontiers available today, the refugee is rarely seen in a positive light and often does not always find a home that is more hospitable than the home being left behind.

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Four overlapping factors appear to account for such a crisis state. First, wars between nations have brought about significant turbulence. We recall that approximately ten million people were killed (1.6 million French, 800,000 British, 1.8 million Germans) and about 20 million were injured in World War I and those figures multiplied by a factor of three to five in World War II (Foster 1995). Even though the world has avoided a third world war, the numbers of people killed and injured in wars has continued at an alarming rate. In addition, civil wars and internal strife within countries account for a significant proportion of contemporary crisis situations. One of the most alarming recent ethnic conflicts is between the Hutus and Tutsis in two small nations of Rwanda and Burundi in Central Africa. Since 1992, in Rwanda more than 1 million of the 7.1 million inhabitants have died. Third, some areas of the world have experienced long-term deterioration of their social and physical conditions, through drought and famine, and such deterioration has finally reached catastrophic proportions. These disasters are taking an alarming toll on certain areas of the world. Almost 30% of Angola's 10 million people are suffering from famine. Almost 2 million of the 27 million people in Sudan have died from war, disease, and starvation. Fourth, the impact of cataclysmic natural disasters has brought large numbers of peoples to the point of crisis. Cataclysmic disasters are commonly thought of as large-scale single events that bring about immediate, serious damage and destruction. They include earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, fires, cyclone storms, avalanches, tidal waves, and floods. These types of natural disasters do not appear to be increasing in frequency. In spite of this, the impact of such disasters appears to be steadily mounting, because of a number of factors. First, the world’s population is growing and people are tending to concentrate in cities and towns, where they are more vulnerable to disasters. Second, ecological factors are increasingly out of balance through deforestation, overgrazing of land, industrial pollution, etc., to the point that the earth is less capable of restoring itself when a disaster occurs. Third, a new type of disaster has emerged, which is technological in nature. Recall the mass poisoning that occurred in Morocco in 1959, the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident, the 1989 Valdes, Alaska oil spill, which have contributed to the human cost of disasters. Finally, the major disasters in the world tend to occur in Africa, South and East Asia and Latin America, in countries that are among the world’s poorest. These countries are unable to respond adequately and require extensive international assistance if recovery is to take place.

Conclusion Globalization, as demonstrated above, is a widely used construct in educational discourses and needs to be perceived as a multilayered construct of our particular Zeitgeist. As such, it needs to be seen as being grounded in competing and contesting ideologies, values, knowledge systems and rivaling economies, depicting a battle for power, control and domination in the global village (Zajda and Rust

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2016a, b). We need to continue to evaluate critically a neo-liberal and neoconservative education policy reforms globally, especially its meta-ideological hegemony and paradigm shifts in education and policy. Globalization processes have impacted on education and policy reforms, both locally and globally, and which were designed to promote economic competitiveness, national identity and social equity through education reforms (Omwami and Rust 2020; Zajda 2020a).

Chapter 3

Theory in Comparative Education

Theory is fundamental to the cognitive structure of a field of study (Wells and Picou 1981). The nature and roles of theory have generated a great deal of debate, both within the field of comparative education specifically and within the general academic community. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the place of theory in comparative education, at least among comparative educators who publish in research journals (Rust 2003a, b). The contextual backdrop for the discussion will be globalization (Zajda 2020a). There are important theoretical differences in the field of comparative education, particularly during this period of globalization (Zajda and Rust 2016a, b). In fact, theory itself is a complex issue that requires some historical discussion to frame its many meanings.

Theory Meaning The term “theory” is derived from the Greek theoria, meaning contemplation or speculation. Originally connected with the “passionate sympathetic contemplation” of Theoros, who attended Greek public celebrations and abandoned himself to the sacred events (Russell 1945), theoria was converted in the philosophical language of Greece to contemplation of the cosmos. Viewing the immortal order, the philosopher internalized the ordered motion of the cosmos; theory molded both life and conduct to eternal, unchanging cosmic forms. This contemplation contained an element of ecstatic revelation; it was connected with passionate involvement and commitment. Thus, early religious theory evolved into social philosophy and came to refer not only to the act of contemplation but to guidelines for behavior. In this sense, theory was normative in nature. The continuation of this tradition can be found in philosophical orientations which look inward and deal with inner life, the world of mind, culture, and spirit. It is today associated with fields such as hermeneutics, phenomenology, and existentialism. © Springer Nature B.V. 2021 J. Zajda, V. Rust, Globalisation and Comparative Education, Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2054-8_3

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A more recent perspective on theory derives from the philosophical tradition closely associated with the empirical sciences. The social sciences, guided by Auguste Compte’s notion of a “positive philosophy” intended to create new definitions of the nature of knowledge and society (Compte 1988). The social sciences assumed the existence of discoverable and exploitable laws, which could be organized into particular fields of study such as sociology, political science, and economics. Induction and empiricism was assumed to lead to the development of causal laws and explanation, predictability, and generalizability (Brown 1989). Contemporary logical positivism links sensory- or observation-based empiricism with clear and consequential arguments meeting clear criteria; the study of social behavior has also led to an interest in probabilistic relationships in data and inductive explanations of law-like generalizations. In this approach, factual observations are explained by laws or hypotheses, which are explained by theories describing unseen elements behind the observable and which enable us to distinguish between spurious and causal relationships (Bredo and Feinberg 1982).

Comparative Education and Theory The early founders of comparative education as an academic field adopted a social philosophy orientation in that they were concerned with normative theory of education in various national settings. Comparative researchers, such as R. H. Eckelberry and Isaac Kandel, understood theory to be connected to different national traditions, and they saw their task to be to compare and understand educational theory and practice in different countries (Kandel 1937; Eckelberry 1950). They saw theory as an object of national study rather than something that drives inquiry, and they assumed various nations adopted different normative theoretical orientations. The work of the early comparative educator was to understand these as foundational norms of a given educational system. As science became a cornerstone of comparative education the social philosophy notion of theory was quickly overshadowed by the concept that theory makes reference to a set of concepts, hypotheses or propositions plus the interrelationships that are assumed to exist between them (Hawkins and Rust 2001). While the quest to turn comparative education into a science was eminently successful, the last thirty years might be characterized as a vigorous challenge to its dominance.

Studying Theory in Comparative Education In comparative education journals a number of scholars have been involved in efforts to illuminate certain aspects of theory in comparative education. Some studies of theory have focused on individual theorists, particularly historical figures in the field, such as Michael Sadler, Philip Foster, K. D. Ushinsky, and Robert Ulich

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(Bereday 1964) (Devon 1975; Hans 1962) (Nash 1977). Scholars such as Brian Holmes, Rolland Paulston, and Vandra Masemann are especially well known for their focus on paradigms and paradigm change in comparative education (Holmes 1984; Paulston 1993; Masemann 1990; Rust 2002).1 Other studies have outlined the various types of theories and theoretical divisions in the field (Epstein 1983; Khoi 1986; Samonte 1963; Templeton 1958; Thomas 1986). Finally, some comparative educators have challenged the field for being too theoretical and failing to give sufficient attention to educational practice (Psacharopoulos 1990).2 Writers, such as Lawrence Stenhouse and Richard Heyman claim comparative education ought to be less concerned with scientific generalizations and predictions than with understanding the everyday life of the school (Stenhouse 1979; Heyman 1979). Scholars such as Rolland Paulston and Erwin Epstein have been especially active attempting to classify and compare subgroups in the comparative education community. Paulston’s work characterizes texts influential in comparative education according to four ideological-paradigmatic approaches: the functionalist, humanist, radical functionalist, and radical humanist approaches (Paulston 1993, 1997). Epstein identifies three major ideological tendencies in comparative education, the neopositivist, neomarxist, and neorelativist points of view. While Paulston proposes that the approaches he identifies are not necessarily mutually exclusive, Epstein argues that his groupings are incommensurable (Epstein 1983).3

1  The major challenge to the social science dominated field came from approaches oriented around the notion that societies are in conflict, who claimed the social sciences were based on ideology more than objectivity (Altbach 1991) (Epstein 1983). In fact, the term “positivism” soon took on an odious reputation among certain scholars. Conflict theorists were soon joined by other theoretical, ideological and disciplinary orientations, including various feminist theories (Kelly and Nihlen 1982; Stromquist 1990), post-structural theories (Cherryholmes 1988), and postmodern theories (Rust 1991), which have entered comparative education discourse. Interpreters of the field suggest that challenges have helped shift the field away from its positivistic perspective and have broadened the scope of theoretical orientations considered to be legitimate (e.g., Morrow and Torres 2003). 2  In an essay serving as the basis for a “Colloquy on Comparative Theory” published in the Comparative Education Review (vol. 34, no.3, August 1990) Psacharopoulos challenges “semantics” and argues that what matters in comparative education is the positions taken on “substantive issues”. His four respondents, Don Adams, J.  Kenneth Benson, Edmund King, and Rolland G. Paulston, offer several challenges to his point of view, including reminding Psacharopoulos that his own “practical” recommendations were based on human capital theory. 3  For a debate on Epstein’s characterization, see commentaries in the February 1983 Comparative Education Review.

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Theory Perspectives in Comparative Education In Rust et al. (2000) study, authors of research articles were asked to indicate the theoretical orientations of their work.4 (See also Hawkins and Rust 2001; Rust 2003a, 2003b; Rust et al. (2009). UCLA researchers surveyed authors asking for their perspective, because they recognized every study is open to multiple interpretations, and the researcher’s reading of a text would likely not always correspond with that of the author. Such an observation does not suggest that one or the other reading would be the only correct reading. Rather, it assumes that all reality and truth claims are problematic and that there are few universal unsituated knowledge claims. The purpose of the project was to gain greater clarity how comparative education authors associate themselves with commonly identified theoretical perspectives. The unit of analysis of this study was an individual journal article not an individual author. In other words, it would be inappropriate to categorization an author associated with an orientation because author views and use of theory change over time, whereas an article is representative of a fixed point in time. The UCLA study assessed the theoretical orientation of comparative education by surveying articles appearing in three specific journals: the Comparative Education Review (CER), Comparative Education (CE), and the International Journal of Educational Development (IJED) published in 1985, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995, and 1997.

Discipline Base of Theory Theories are associated greatly with one or more social science disciplines. Each discipline has unique traditions that define what problems are warranted to study, what constitutes knowledge to understand such problems, and what are appropriate models. It is therefore crucial to identify the discipline identity of those publishing in comparative education journals. We recognize that the contribution of various disciplines has created a variegation that defines the nature of the comparative education community, e.g. it’s theoretical orientations and biases. Authors generally indicated that multiple disciplinary orientations were represented in their study. The study found that 3.4 percent of the authors indicated a single discipline orientation, 27.0 percent indicated two disciplines, 35.6 percent three disciplines, and 27.5 four disciplines. These numbers suggest that comparative education authors tend to identify their work as multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary in nature. We discuss below the 6.5% of authors who indicated no discipline orientation. Authors were invited to indicate the degree to which a discipline was reflected in their research article. Even a two on a five point-Likert scale would indicate some level of reliance on a discipline. More than 80 percent of the authors indicated some reliance on sociology, while almost 70 percent indicated some reliance on political  A complete account of the study is found in (Rust et al. 2000).

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Specific Theory Orientations

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science. Almost 63 percent of the responding authors reported drawing on history, while approximately one half of the authors relied to some degree on economics. Clearly, the social sciences, particularly sociology, political science, and economics dominate comparative education in these journals. Psychology is barely represented in the field, and even professional education outside the social science disciplines is not well represented. With the social sciences as disciplinary bases, it is not surprising that the specific theories reflected in the journals can generally be identified with sociology, political science, and economics.

Specific Theory Orientations Authors were invited to indicate with which theories they identified their article. Only 18.6 percent of the authors argued that their article should not be identified with any specific theory. Almost all of the others indicated their article was identified with one (39 percent), two (20 percent), three (15.5 percent), or four (10.3 percent) theories. The average number of theories reflected in each article was 2.8. Thus, the UCLA authors found that writers publishing in comparative education journals are generally multi-perspectival in their approach to theory. They would likely argue, as did Friedrich Nietzsche, that a single theory provides, at best, a partial and limited scope of knowledge, and that multiple perspectives give a fuller frame of knowledge (Nehamas 1985). A total of 26 different theories were identified by authors. Most theories were easily identified with sociology and political science, though an occasional theory representing other disciplines is indicated, such as behaviorism and organizational theory. Critical theory was the most cited, as 41 studies (11.1 percent of all studies) were so identified by their authors, while human capital (23, or 6.2 percent of all studies), modernization (26, or 7.0 percent), structural functionalism (20, or 5.4 percent), political pluralism (23, or 6.2 percent), dependency (26, or 7.0 percent), Marxian and neo-Marxian (26, or 7.0 percent), world systems (25, or 6.8 percent), ethnography (30, or 8.1 percent), and constructionist (27, or 7.3 percent) were also often cited by authors. In other words, ten theories account for 72.2 percent of all theories cited by authors, which represents a rather narrow band of theoretical frameworks in comparative education. Five of these theoretical frameworks decreased from the 1980s to the 90s, while four increased, and one indicated no change. All five of those significant orientations which decreased were what we define as functionalist in orientation. This brings us to the issue of paradigm orientations.

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Paradigm Orientations The UCLA study clustered the 26 cited theories into meaningful groups using Paulston’s intellectual map of the field of comparative education (Paulston 1993).5 Paulston relied on map coordinates, where the vertical dimension relates to textual dispositions toward social and educational change (transformation vs. equilibrium), and the horizontal dimension relates to textual characterizations of reality (objective-­ realist vs. idealist-subjectivist). From these coordinates Paulston created four major meta-theoretical orientations: functionalist, radical functionalist, humanist, and radical humanist. The two functionalist orientations are based on a worldview that assumes regularities and lawfulness both of the natural world and the social world, and assumes that people are capable of grasping its underlying structures. Theories in the humanist quadrants assume an evolutionary orientation toward change. Functionalist theories were most often cited (33.2 percent of all options) by our respondents, followed by radical humanist theories (26.5 percent), radical functionalist theories (20.8 percent), and humanist theories (19.4 percent). The greatest decrease taking place in theories from the 1980s to the 1990s was in the functionalist quadrant (13.4 percent decrease), which includes theories of human capital, modernization, systems theory, structural-functionalism, rational choice, political pluralism, and behaviorism, with a notable decrease in references to rational choice theory. Radical functionalist theories, which argue for radical and transformative change, including dependency, Marxian/neo-Marxian, and world systems theories, showed a negligible negative change, though an increase in dependency theory has offset a decrease in Marxian/neo-Marxian theory. Important increases in theory citations occurred from the 1980s to the 1990s in the two humanist quadrants, which account for 45.9 percent of all the theoretical orientations in this study. Humanist theories, which assume that epistemology goes far beyond the realm of naturalism/realism and may involve philosophy, intuition, spiritual insight, and various forms of thought, include approaches such as ethnography, symbolic interactionism, hermaneutics, and phenomenology. Prior to the 1980s, studies from a humanist perspective were rarely mentioned in comparative education literature, and we have a substantial literature of complaint in the 1970s in the field about such orientations missing from the field (e.g., see (Masemann 1976; Stenhouse 1979; Heyman 1979). This apparent shortcoming is being rectified. Radical humanist theories, which argue which for radical change and transformation (critical theory, cultural revitalization, feminism, post-structuralism, post-modernism, pragmatic interactionism, and neo-colonialism), have recently gained increasing visibility in the field, and are now strongly represented in comparative education. More than one quarter (26.5 percent) of all theories cited fall

5  A small number of theoretical perspectives are not found on Paulston’s map, and researchers used their our own judgment as to their placement on the map.

Level of Abstraction of Theories

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into this category and a strong increase in this theoretical orientation (7.1 percent increase) has taken place between the 1980s and the 1990s. Thus, we find a theoretical shift taking place in the field, as it moves from a functionalist toward a humanist orientation. A crucial insight of the UCLA study is that comparative education may be less dominated by functionalist orientations than had been anticipated. While the two functionalist quadrants account for 54 percent of all theories referenced by respondents, as opposed to about 46 percent in the two humanist quadrants, the theories in the two functionalist quadrants represent only 51 percent of total references to theory use in the 1990s. This indicates that humanist orientations provide a strong counterbalance to functionalist ones.

Level of Abstraction of Theories One of the crucial issues confronting comparative education has to do with comparable categories. Credible comparison requires categories that transcend any particular system so that the variables under investigation are common to all systems being compared and they have the same meaning in all systems. It is no easy task to insure that variables and their relations are consistent with the systems and cultures under study. In fact, certain scholars argue that the task is not even possible. They claim all categories a researcher adopts are either bound to certain cultures or systems and are therefore inappropriate to use in drawing comparisons with other cultures or systems, or they are unrelated to any culture and only pertain to the thought construct of the researcher. There is, of course, argument on the other side, that cultural variations are so limited by physical and psychological regularities of human beings that well conceived categories are appropriate to all cultures. The middle ground position between these two extremes is that certain clusters of cultures, systems or theories are sufficiently related to categories for comparison are identical or at least nearly so, within these clusters. Because of this middle ground belief, educational and cultural studies very often concentrate on specific regions, closely related tribes, or levels of national development. Our own position is that comparability is achieved by moving to higher and higher levels of abstraction in our theoretical constructs; however, a price is always paid by doing this. The higher the stratification process the fewer the contact points our analytical constructs have with sense experience and social reality. Comparativists were faced with a tough balancing act as they attempt to remain connected with social reality but remain abstractly theoretical and scientific and we wished to see where those in the field of comparative education stood in this regard. We posed four statements to the authors. The authors, who claimed their article was theory based, were invited to indicate which of the following levels of abstraction their article reflected: (a) It deals mainly with direct, concrete, sense experience involving specific times, institutions, systems, names, and places; (b) it attempts to make empirical generalizations and/or find causal relations of concrete data; (c) it

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deals with middle-range propositions or theory; and (d) it deals with grand theory or meta-theoretical schemes. Clearly, most of the theory orientations in the UCLA study were associated with the second level of abstraction noted (n = 71, 39.7 percent) above, though strong representations from strictly sense experience oriented studies (n  =  50, 27.9 percent) and middle-range propositions (n = 45, 25.1 percent) were also given. Very few authors identified their work with grand theory or meta-theoretical schemes (n = 13, 7.3 percent). Does a paradigmatic orientation suggest a different level of abstraction? In fact, each of the four paradigmatic orientations constructed by Paulston followed the general pattern of levels of abstraction. Functionalists, radical functionalists, humanists, and radical humanistic orientations all tend to be focused on the second level of abstraction. This is somewhat counter-intuitive, in that one might have expected, for example, that humanists would be more prone toward concrete sense experience, but they were no more prone toward this level of abstraction than were those of other orientations. In looking at the trends over time, the greatest increase from the 1980s to the 1990s was with regard to generalizations. Whereas the use of mid-range theory decreased by 10.6 percent, the percentage of authors attempting to make generalizations from their data increased by 14.9 percent from the one decade to the other.

The Commitment of Comparative Educators to Science UCLA researchers wished to examine both the degree to which respondents felt their work reflected a commitment to science and how a commitment to science had changed in time. The tendency from the 1980s through the 1990s was that authors increasingly claimed their comparative education publication reflected a commitment to science. This was demonstrated by clustering values in the two time periods. Conservative clustering for the combined ranks of 4 and 5 yields 45% related for 1980’s and 53% related for 1990’s, or an eight percent increase. The increased commitment to science may lead one to believe that a historically dominant positivist approach to comparative education research still acts as a guiding force regardless of recent theoretical challenges to its underlying premises. However, our results provide a finer grained analysis on the dynamic shift in theory use over the last two decades. There are two ways in which the claim to commitment to science can be analyzed further. Authors reported that they used both multiple disciplines and multiple theories to inform to inform their research. The objective of the UCLA study was to assess the role of theory in comparative education. The study came up with a number of insights. First, researchers found that comparative education is not completely theory oriented, but that it is become increasingly theory oriented. Second, they found that authors ground their studies on a large number of different theories. These theories are almost exclusively associated with the social science disciplines of political science, economics,

The Commitment of Comparative Educators to Science

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anthropology, and particularly sociology. In addition, most of the studies were judged by their authors to be identified with more than one theory. In other words, they took a multi-perspective or interdisciplinary theoretical approach to their study. However, very few comparative education authors wished to identify their study with a single discipline and the average number of disciplines identified was more than three. This suggests that studies in comparative education journals are not only multi-theoretical, but multi-disciplinary in terms of fields of study. A major interest of this study was to identify in a quantitative way the scope and dynamics of the theoretical range of comparative education. Although 26 theories were identified in our sample the authors predominantly identified their work with just 10 major theories, critical theory being the most popular among the authors of this study. Authors were multi-theoretical and the field appears to be rather tightly clustered around a limited constellation of theories. Third, researchers wished to see what kind of paradigmatic shifts were taking place in the field of comparative education. Prior to the 1970s, the functionalist paradigm exercised hegemony over the field and the UCLA researchers wished to trace its expansion toward radical structuralism, humanism, and radical humanism. Radical structuralism (Marxism and neo-Marxism) apparently experienced its major jump in activity in the 1970s and early 80s, but it has not grown since that time. However, humanism and radical humanism have both grown significantly from the 1980s through the 1990s and now challenge the previous paradigms in the field. Radical humanism has been particularly active with 26.5 percent of the studies associated with it. Fourth, the researchers found that authors who claimed their work reflected a commitment to science had increased from the 1980s to the 1990s. These shifting theoretical changes taking place in comparative education require some assessment of newer ways in which the field conducts its theoretical work. Anthony Welch suggests hermeneutics and critical theory hold the keys for the future. They both challenged the ‘scientific pretentions to objectivity,’ ‘universal validity,’ and ‘value free’ perspectives that have formed the old scientism. They both reject the dualisms that are so prevalent in Western philosophy, such as “science versus speculation, male versus female, fact versus value, mind versus body.” They both espouse a relational kind of existence where knowledge is closely connected with lived social life. Welch is more sympathetic with critical theory than hermeneutics, because he feels hermeneutics has conservative forms that are not consistent with contemporary educational thinking. He feels critical theory shows the way to emancipation because it illuminates oppressive power structures and supports mutuality and reciprocity. Welch agrees with Jürgen Habermas, a German critical theorist, who sides with eighteenth century Enlightenment thinkers who endeavored to create a rational organization of everyday social life that would contribute to an understanding of the world and self, moral progress, the justice of institutions, and even the happiness of human beings (Habermas 1983). Welch recognizes that even though the project has not been very successful, modernism should not be turned over to postmodernism, but scholars should further the work of a “reconstructed modernity.” Welch stresses the implications critical reflection has for education, in that an insightful educator can no longer remain an “impartial and uncommitted

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observer,” standing apart and unaffected but united with the oppressed, whether that person be a “teacher, student, ethnic minority, or street child.” The comparative educator must resist the temptation to remain silent in the face of “social and economic differentiation and exclusion” (Welch 2003a, b). In advocating that critical theory play a central role in comparative education, Welch joins with others in the field, in that critical theory remains the most popular of the theoretical orientations. There is an apparent contradiction in that many comparative educators identify both with science and critical theory. However, such a contradiction requires some discussion, in that science is a general term that includes a number of ways to deal with epistemology, truth claims, and even philosophy. In spite of the fact that comparative education researchers appear to identify more and more with science, that identity appears to have moved away from what might be described as an essentialist commitment, as reflected in structuralism. On the one hand, essentialists in the field see globalization as little more than an extension of modernization. On the other hand, those in the field who argue for non-linear epistemologies challenge the dominant theoretical orientations of the field. In contrast to essentialist claims that social reality is “out there,” separate from the human mind, interpretive scholars claim that the social scientist is an active agent in analyzing social reality. And both claimed to be scientific in their work. Philosophers speak of good turkey carvers cutting up turkeys at the joints (Hacking 1999). The question is where are the joints of social reality? Emile Durkheim, an essentialist, would have argued that the joints of social reality can be just as apparent as the joints of a turkey (Durkheim 1958). Max Weber, the interpretivist, would have argued that they are not as apparent as turkey joints, that how we divide up social reality depends, in part, on the experience and background of the investigator (Weber 1969). The Durkheimian and Weberian points of view are clearly based on important philosophical differences about the source and nature of social knowledge.6 Essentialists assume scholars can be in touch in an unadulterated way with social reality, at least in the same way a physicist or chemist is in touch with physical reality. Durkheim, for instance, argues that social reality has properties that are not dependent on the individual mind but are out there in the nature of things. He also assumes that this reality presses itself on the uncluttered mind of the investigator, who knows the meaning of that reality directly and surely. For Durkheim, the task of the investigator is to free the self from preoccupations and prejudices and allow empirical facts to press themselves on the investigator. Max Weber, on the other hand, emphasizes the sociologist as an active agent in the process of investigation of other societies by investigating the symbolic constructs these other societies use. According to Weber, our categories are not only tools or instruments which we use to describe the social world, but our categories serve as symbolic constructs of social reality. Such a position is in accord with Joseph Farrell, who is one of the

 For an extended elaboration of the differences between Durkheim and Weber, see (Smelser 1976).

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ardent contemporary advocates of a science of comparative education. In discussing comparability Farrell explains, “Similarity is not something which inheres in the data. It is a characteristic of the relationships between the observer and the data, and depends upon the conceptual structures within the mind of the observer” (Farrell 1979). Both Durkheim and Weber and eventually revised their theoretical orientations so that they moved toward a middle-ground position (Smelser 1976).

Conclusion We can conclude that the movement of comparative education theory might be viewed as moving away from the essentialist, modernization paradigm toward a more post-modern and post-structuralist theoretical framework. This involved coalescence of thinking away from quantitative research toward qualitative research, but also toward historical and interpretive traditions, at least insofar as the world was seen as decentered and intersubjective (Crossley and Watson 2003; Rust et al. 2009; Zajda and Rust 2016a, b; Zajda 2020a).

Chapter 4

Methods and Methodologies in Comparative Education

In this chapter we concentrate on methods of data collection; however, some consideration will be given to data analysis.1 When one decides on the methods of data collection, one is asking the following questions: What kind of information is being sought, from what sources, and under what circumstances? When one decides on the how to analyze the data, one is deciding how to make sense out of the data that has been collected. Methodology and theory are fundamental to the cognitive structure of any field of study (Creswell and Creswell 2018). Their nature and roles have generated a great deal of debate, both within the field of comparative education specifically and within academic community more generally. The purpose of this chapter is to examine how research strategies have evolved among comparative educators, who publish in research journals. The contextual backdrop for the discussion will be globalization, which has fundamentally ‘challenged the scope and nature of the field’ of comparative education (Crossley and Watson 2003). Whereas comparative education has defined itself as a field that focuses on national systems of education, globalization has multiplied the elements of a global culture while at the same time stimulating tremendous diversity at the local, community level (Zajda and Rust 2016a; Zajda 2020a). We do not attempt to assess here how globalization has defined comparative education methods, but to provide insight as to how comparative education research reflects or does not reflect harmony with globalization. In this chapter we also examine a number of issues. First, a central intention has been to gain some perspective on the actual research strategies used by those who publish in the field of comparative education. In this regard, we began our study with an interest in clarifying the degree to which discussions of so-called “comparative education methodology” are a part of the actual research strategies scholars rely on as they define their own research agendas. We suspected that these strategies would parallel the full array of strategies reflected in the social sciences in 1  Much of this chapter is taken directly from an earlier published study by Val D Rust and some associates at UCLA. See Rust 2003a; Rust et al. 2009.

© Springer Nature B.V. 2021 J. Zajda, V. Rust, Globalisation and Comparative Education, Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2054-8_4

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general. We make no claim that comparative studies is fundamentally different from social sciences in general. In fact, all social sciences is comparative in nature, at least insofar as all thought and especially scientific thought is comparative in nature. Research strategies are connection with the terms method and methodology. These have been so intertwined that it is difficult to sort them out in a meaningful way. And yet, it is crucial that we begin to do this in order to make better sense of our understanding of the field of comparative education and its research enterprise (Rust 2003a; Rust et al. 2009). Methods and methodology in comparative education must be considered in the context of the broad landscape of academics and mainly in the context of science. Research methodologies provide a larger context for the methods being applied. They usually provide theories of how research does or should proceed, and include accounts of how the general structure of theory finds its application in particular scientific disciplines. There is a long methodological tradition in comparative education. The first academic comparative education scholars, such as Isaac Kandel, Nicholas Hans, and Friedrich Schneider, argued that education can only be understood within the context of broad economic, political, cultural, and social forces of a country. And their methodology demanded that educational systems not only be described in detail, but that the meaning of educational phenomena be derived by interpreting the economic, political, cultural, and social conditions that defined the educational systems (Hans 1955; Kandel 1933; Schneider 1961a). As education came to be caught up in the drive to be more scientific the methodological debates shifted to issues of the social sciences. One of the main issues comparative education scholars such as Brian Holmes and George Bereday argued over was whether research should proceed inductively or deductively (Holmes 1984 #2, Bereday 1964 #5). The early scholars noted in the paragraph above took for granted that the process was inductive. Educational systems were described, then these systems were interpreted from the broader economic, political, cultural, and social context. Bereday’s comparative methodology was also inductive in that it began with descriptions of two or more countries, then these systems were interpreted from the broader context. The next phase was to juxtapose the data for the countries. Finally, this data was compared. Brian Holmes challenged this tradition by relying on people such as John Dewey and Karl Popper to expound on his so-­ called hypothetico-deductive approach to research and he criticized his colleagues for their tendency to begin the research process with descriptions of educational phenomena and only arrive at theory at a later stage in the process. This discussion is not dead and continues as a methodological issue in the debate over so-called grounded theory. Methodologies also relate to the selection of research methods. The choice of data collection ought to be made on theoretical grounds and what data sources provide the most compelling evidence. The choice of data analysis also ought to be made on theoretical grounds. This is particularly the case with regard to when and to what degree research ought to be qualitative or quantitative in nature. This issue focuses on the uses put to research. Robert Stake explains the different orientations of those doing qualitative research as opposed to those doing quantitative research:

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“Quantitative researchers have pressed for explanation and control; qualitative researchers have pressed for understanding the complex interrelationships among all that exists.” Comparative education methodological issues also deal with the degree to which studies ought to be descriptive, interpretive or prescriptive, or whether it ought to be melioristic, ideological, or strictly neutral, or the degree to which studies ought to be problem based (Bereday 1964 #5). Other methodological concerns involve the relationship between action and research, the relationship between the researcher and the object of research, or whether one perspective or multiple perspectives are more appropriate. Many of these issues begin to overlap into the sphere of epistemology.

Epistemological Issues Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the study of knowledge, how we know what is real and what truth is. One’s epistemological perspective is closely related to the assumptions one holds. Those taking different philosophical positions will have different answers to epistemological questions. Those who believe in naturalism claim knowledge is gained by identifying natural causes and effects, and testing given explanations to see if they hold true, while the neo-realist sees a dualistic reality and truth exists when what is in the mind is identical to what is out there. In comparative education and other social science disciplines, one of the most popular theoretical orientations today is critical theory, and supporters of that orientations object to claims of value-free objectivity, requirements of replicability, and aims for universal truths on the part of positivists.2 Positivists, for example, engage in methodologies for scientific investigation that provide empirical evidence and logical reasoning behind phenomena deemed to be brute facts. Such a scheme would likely rely heavily on quantitative research, involving numbers and mathematical operations. In a study by economist, Joan B. Anderson wished to determine which special interventions are effective in improving learning in Latin American public primary schools. These interventions include food aid programs, distribution of free textbooks, classroom libraries, in-service teacher training, extra classes and extra school sessions, tutors and mentors and scholarships. She collected rather large outcome data on children and schools in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico, and through statistical analysis she was able to make empirical quantitative estimates of the effects of these interventions on language and math achievement and on the likelihood of promotion, both at the school level and at the level of individual children. Language and math achievement was measured by scores on UNESCO

2  Carlos Torres & Raymond A. Morrow (1995). Critical theory and education: From the Frankfurt School to Poststructuralism. Albany: SUNY Press.

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developed language and math examinations administered to 2048 children, who were selected through a sampling technique that ensured they were representative of the total school populations. She also addressed whether a particular intervention is equally effective in poor and non-poor environments and whether these compensatory interventions are in fact targeted toward those who need them most. Empirical findings suggested that the most effective programs of those considered are classroom libraries, distribution of textbooks, distribution of food and teacher training. The research also concludes that for these programs to be compensatory, better targeting of scarce resources toward low income schools and children is needed. The pragmatist does not work in conventional modes, including rational vs. empirical, or inductive vs. deductive thinking. For the pragmatists, knowledge is a hypothesis that works, though it is tentative and ever changing. For example, there is an epistemological orientation known as constructivism, based on the assumption that knowledge is constructed rather than discovered. According to this view, the world we know is a human construction in that we come to know what the world is by being told what is around us and we come to know the world by our social environment helping us to interpret what we experience. Take the school reform issue. Joel Andreas, in the Department of Sociology at UCLA is interested in the college entrance examination tradition in China. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–76) this examination was eliminated but was restored because the state was determined to define educational reform as something that improves the performance of students on standardized tests. The state decided that the elimination of examinations greatly disrupted the educational system and engendered serious problems, including the motivation of students. Andreas took quite a different attitude and wondered how the rural areas of China define educational reform and the criteria they set for improving education. So what did he do? There are a number of methodological issues he faced. He could have done a large survey of schools and asked teachers a set of questions, but as a constructivist, he was not inclined to go in that direction. So he choose a single rural area. He could certainly engage either in a qualitative or a quantitative study. Andreas’ constructive epistemology inclined him toward understanding rather than control and he decided to engage in qualitative research, where he spent considerable time talking with people in open-ended interviews or participant/observation. And he came to quite a different conclusion than did the Chinese state. Of course, he did find that the elimination of the examination system had disrupted the system, but his insights were much more complex that the state insight, in that he found obvious positive elements in the elimination of examinations. The system expanded greatly and local curricula began to take hold and become a part of the classroom programs. People took a greater interest in the school and felt empowered by their participation in school life. The idealist knows mainly through reason and deductive logic. The validity of knowledge is confirmed by its coherence with other knowledge. It is true if the construct under consideration is internally consistent. To cite a hypothetical example Jane is a student, who comes from a Christian Science background. She agrees with

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the founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, that there is no objective material world, rather reality is completely spiritual, either for good or evil. Thus, physical health is a matter of spiritual enlightenment and divine understanding, while illness is little more than falling prey to evil influences. Each person is a child of God; the spiritually enlightened can draw directly from God’s spiritual forces. Jane wishes to do research on Christian Science and its connection with comparative pedagogy, but she distrusts empirical data related to sense impressions, so she plans to engage in an analysis of the word of God. Her method will be text analysis, where she analyzes Scripture taken from the Bible concerning the teaching approach taken by Christ and compares it with passages taken from the most famous text written by Eddy, Science and Health and Key to the Scripture. The major complication of comparative studies is that it involves the analysis of “dissimilar units” (different societies and cultures) (Smelser 1976 #253 @2–3). In comparative education the unit of analysis is usually the educational system or a subset of that system in two or more nation states. Some might complain that a restrictive definition of comparative studies has been made, because the claim might be that even single country studies that are deemed worthy of including in comparative education journals are comparative in that they make reference to other countries or they are case studies of a more general theory. If we had adopted this more general definition, we would likely have concluded that all citations in comparative education journals are comparative in nature, and a category that makes no distinctions at all is not helpful in analyzing the situation in the field. Second, we recognize that no single research method or methodology has ever characterized the field of comparative education. Isaac Kandel, in his classic work, Comparative Education, explained that “the methodology of comparative education is determined by the purpose that the study is to fulfill.” In other words, Kandel assumed that different questions require somewhat different ways of answering them. We agree with Kandel; however, we must also assume that the types of research strategies available to people such as Kandel were rather limited and that a much wider range of research strategies would now be found in the field. Third, our reading of the development of the field of comparative education suggested that the early stage of comparative research had concentrated heavily on the so-called developed world. With the introduction of development education into the field, the expansion of communications possibilities, and the emergence of globalization we were fairly certain that the field had expanded its frame of reference into a global activity, and we wished to see if there was any empirical evidence for that belief. Fourth, we were aware that the early stages of the field had been characterized largely a qualitative analytic research orientation, and it was assumed that quantitative analytic strategies had become more common in the field. However, we also assumed that the field had remained, by and large, qualitative-research oriented, and we wished to test that assumption.

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Data Source Data Collection Research Strategies in the Journal Articles Comparative education researchers publish primarily, though not exclusively, in journals devoted to the field. In this study we analyzed three data sets drawn from the Comparative Education Review (CER), Comparative Education (CE), and the International Journal of Education Development (IJED). Our primary data sets consisted of three journals 427 studies appearing in the CER, CE and IJED in 1985, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, and 1995. To gain some historical sense we created a second data set consisting of 112 studies drawn from the CER and CE for the 1964–1966 period.3 The unit of analysis of our study was a individual journal article. The major task was to identify the data collection research strategy and the data analysis research strategy in each article in the data set.

Comparative Education as a Social Science An assumption of our inquiry was that comparative education research has become a subset of social science research, or the systematic observation of social and educational life for the purpose of finding and understanding patterns in what researchers observe. We therefore conjectured that the research strategies of those in comparative education would correspond with conventional research strategies in the social sciences. We began our inquiry by identifying the various data collection research strategies that characterize the social sciences in general by reviewing a number of recent works that deal with social science research design (Creswell and Creswell 2018). We accumulated all of the strategies noted by these authors and arrived at a tentative comprehensive typology of what might be generally considered to be the dominant data collection research strategies in the social sciences. We modified our comprehensive typology and eventually settled on the following categories: 1. Theoretical or Conceptual Studies: While most studies in comparative education have a theoretical framework in that they are embedded in theory and test hypotheses related to that theory, the studies in this category are devoted exclusively to theory or conceptual issues in the field. Included in this category are articles that discuss comparative methodology. This research strategy rarely includes data collection in the conventional sense, and it is included here mainly to reflect the relative space in journals devoted mainly to theory.

3  Because IJED began publication only in 1981, we were not able to include articles from that journal.

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2. Experimental Studies: Experimental studies analyze cause and effect relationships by manipulating one or more independent variables and marking the degree to which this manipulation accounts for outcome variance. A wide range of experimental designs exist, including pretest-posttest designs, experimental and control group designs, and time-series designs. 3. Existing Data Search: Many studies rely on numeric data sets that come from larger national surveys, census data, and international agency surveys, that go far beyond the means and interests of a single journal article. 4. Literature Reviews of Contemporary Conditions: Many studies are based on secondary literature and are therefore characterized mainly as interpretive essays based on a discrete body of literature. 5. Historical Studies: A number of studies focus on broad historical processes related to education and society. We define historical studies as those which give primary emphasis on periods of time other than the contemporary world. 6. Comparative Research Studies: Many studies investigate educational issues and conditions that exist in more than one national educational system, in a region that encompasses a number of national educational systems, in an entire continent, or in the world. (Studies that analyze different time periods in a single system of education are not defined here as comparative but as historical). 7. Project Evaluations: Certain research is focused on the evaluation of specific educational projects. Research strategies related to project evaluation usually have their own peculiar data collection techniques and interpretations. 8. Content Analysis Studies: Many studies engage in an analysis of the contents of particular artifacts, including textbooks, journal articles, curricula, tests, reports, newspaper editorials, etc. 9. Field Research Studies: A variety of studies are based on field work. Three of the most common are as follows: (a) Participation/Observation: Many studies involve active participation and observation of social life in its natural habitat. Certain data-collection activities are quantitative but they are more typically qualitative in nature. (b) Interviews: Many studies involved face-to-face data collection in which the researcher asks questions of another. These may range from open-ended to tightly structured sets of questions. (c) Questionnaires: Questionnaires are data-collection instruments used in survey research studies that describe a population or a subset of a population, that involve independent, dependent and/or mediating variables, as well as numeric data analysis.

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Overview of Data Collection Research Strategies A total of 112 studies were analyzed for the 1964 to 1966 period and we found that a total of 158 strategies were adopted. In other words certain studies used more than one data collection strategy. The simple conclusion we may draw is that a narrow band of data collection strategies was identified. Studies rarely included data from existing data sets, such as census data, UNESCO data, etc. Nor did studies indicate involvement in conventional field work, which required some combination of participant/observation, formal interviews, and questionnaires. Common sense, anecdotal accounts, and personal experience dictate that researchers have always been in the field. Comparative educators have long insisted that “being there” is essential not only to collect data but to interpret data, and to write articles and books. However, some of the early articles were written as if they were literature reviews of materials available about educational conditions and the authors of some of these articles failed to provide any indication of the contribution “being there” made to the manuscript. Finally, studies did not include what coders judged to be project evaluations or content analysis of textbooks and other texts. If this initial survey reflects the field at large, we must conclude that those publishing in the field during the 1960s, which would represent an early period of the field as an academic discipline, relied heavily on contemporary and historical literature, which we might describe as interpretive studies, and rarely adopted other data collection strategies. Consistent with the scientific approach during this age of globalization, a wide variety of strategies was adopted by comparative educators. By far, the most common research strategy remained that of literature review. More than half (50.8 percent) of the articles were exclusively of literature reviews or included literature review with some other strategy. However, this also represents a statistically significant decrease in this type of study from the period of the mid-sixties (x2  45.4, df = 1, p