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Quisnam Sum Ego? Crises of Identity in Comparative Education and the Call for a Comparison of Comparative Studies

Comparative Sciences: Interdisciplinary Approaches

ISBN: 978-1-78350-455-8, eISBN: 978-1-78350-456-5

Publication date: 7 May 2015

Abstract

Comparative Education is conceptually difficult to define. It has been described as having an unusually wide terrain. It suffers from a host of identity crises, and this chapter enumerates and explains 10: deciding whether Comparative Education is a discipline, a field or a method, what does ‘comparison’ in Comparative Education denote?, the minuscule place of the comparative method in Comparative Education, the dominance of single unit studies, the dearth of taxonomies, the problem that globalization makes Comparative Education seems like a field past its shelf-life, the question as to whether Comparative Education should graduate to International Education, the fact that it can show very little evidence of achieving the lofty goals it purports to pursue, the many pitfalls in practicing Comparative Education and the lack of autochthonous Comparative Education theory. The chapter concludes by indicating the potential from other comparative sciences, in order to address this problem.

Keywords

Citation

Wolhuter, C.C. (2015), " Quisnam Sum Ego? Crises of Identity in Comparative Education and the Call for a Comparison of Comparative Studies", Comparative Sciences: Interdisciplinary Approaches (International Perspectives on Education and Society, Vol. 26), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 15-35. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-367920140000026002

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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