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The scope and breadth of the field of comparative and international education (CIE) is immense. There are few, if any, limitations on theme, issue, theory, method, or data that are relevant to CIE. In addition, every context or combination of contexts – social, political, economic, cultural – are available for both CIE scholars and professionals to do research on or work in. The flexibility and scope of the field can be a benefit, but create serious challenges to those who work in and study it. It also poses problems for those attempting to professionalize the field by creating areas of specialization or ownership. At the same time, the development of the field has historically been one of push and pull between international educational agendas and organizations with local or stakeholder-driven needs and situations. This chapter highlights those challenges and introduces the volume’s chapters.

As a field of research and practice, comparative and international education addresses many of the same issues, ideas, problems, and policies repeatedly in research articles, policies and policy briefs, and in the implementation of intra- and international projects and programs. But, in order to develop as a field, diversification of these issues, ideas, problems, and policies to address new or different priorities and contexts occurs as well. In comparative and international education, diversification since 2013 has been largely static. This brief chapter suggests that dynamic diversification is needed as well if scholarship in the field is to continue to mature and implementation or practice in the field is to further professionalize.

This chapter discusses the nature of International and Comparative Education in East and South East Asia through the different organizations, networks, and programs formed to cater to the field. It gives an overview of the existing networks in international and comparative education, related activities, and studies instituted to strengthen the field in the region. Given the more developed network in East Asia, this chapter also highlights the increasing importance of international and comparative education in South East Asia, through the broader base of objectives also defined in the Association of South East Asian Nation (ASEAN) Economic Community (AEC) of 2015. Opportunities and policy reorientations (in education) set to present and utilize the field in both regions are also examined.

Research has established that reflective practice is a key to professionalization, but reflective practice requires data upon which to reflect. This research provides a two-year synthesis of data on comparative and international education scholarship, and the institutional, relational, topical, and methodological characteristics of the field producing this scholarship. By examining the scholarship published in comparative and international education journals in 2014 and 2015, analyses empirically examined the researcher characteristics, content coverage, and methodological approach of this published work. The analyses reported here find that about half of the publications in CIE in 2015 were by single authors and focused on single countries. The dominant methodology in the published scholarship continues to be overwhelmingly qualitative. This suggests that scholarship in comparative and international education over this two-year period may be characterized as single-author, single-country, qualitative case studies.

After a decade of comparative and international education research, evaluation, reflection, and introspection, there still may not be a clear answer to the question: What difference does an Annual Review of Comparative and International Education make? Bereday’s questions regarding the field from the 1960s largely remain unanswered, and what answers there are remain relatively unchanged from the initial review of the field in 2013. In this reflective piece, the editor of the Annual Review of Comparative and International Education provides a retrospective look at what the Annual Review of the field has produced as well as what has not been accomplished over the first 10 years of the Annual Review’s publication. Key points are that (1) comparative and international education continues to be an affiliation-oriented rather than independent, well defined field of study and practice; (2) annual reflection on the field is meaningful even when the field seems resistant to change; and (3) comparative and international education scholars and professionals alike tend to under emphasize reflective scholarship and practice and over emphasize critique or critical commentary; (4) there is promise for the field related to unity, debate, clarification, understanding, and encouragement; (5) the field is persistently under-professionalized; (6) the state of the field is largely unchanged since the 1960s; and (7) the organization and content of the Annual Review itself – much like the field itself – is subject to reflection and change.

This chapter introduces readers to the Annual Review of Comparative and International Education and approaches to reviewing the field broadly, by examining the ways that scholars and professionals in the field reflect on comparative and international education (CIE). It begins with a synthesis of the reviews and reflective pieces published since the mid-20th century, and then critiques the field for being neither consistently nor systematically reflective. The chapter then summarizes several of the benefits of consistent and systematic reflection through a process of annual review. The chapter concludes with an overview and synthesis of each of the sections, which provide the structure of the Annual Review, and poses questions that drive systematic reflection through each section of the volume and the field as a whole.

This chapter provides an examination of the characteristics of comparative and international education research published in 2020 as well as an overview of the trends in this research since 2014. This analysis of published research includes a special focus on authors situated in the Global South as well as those authors who are affiliated with organizations outside of academic (i.e., professional, non-teaching organizations). These two focus characteristics reflect the shifting composition of authors and research in comparative and international education in the twenty-first century as well as the professionalization aspirations of the field of comparative and international education more broadly. Evidence from the seven years of data collection suggests that there is a marked shift toward increasingly more co-authored research, a shift from predominantly qualitative methods to non-empirical research content, and a rise in topic oriented research over the otherwise dominant single-country study in comparative and international education research.

Neo-institutional theory has provided a productive perspective on comparative and international education phenomena since the 1970s. Yet, recent critical discourse about educational phenomena investigated through a neo-institutional lens has been somewhat one-sided. The authors reexamine neo-institutional theory and its application to comparative and international education by demonstrating the ways that the theory frames both macro- and micro-level educational phenomena. The ability to shift the discourse about neo-institutional theory from a largely macro-level framework to one capable of investigating educational changes occurring at the micro level is vital to understanding the comprehensiveness of national educational systems and the ways that both world culture and individual agency contribute to these systems. Specifically, using the empirical application of neo-institutional theory to the intersection of information and communication technology (ICT) and internationally comparative educational data, the macro and micro levels of educational phenomena can be productively examined. In so doing, this chapter shifts the discourse on how and why neo-institutional theory reflects cross-national educational trends and micro-contextual effects on education worldwide.

In this chapter, the authors provide a historical overview of the development of comparative and international education societies throughout the earth. In most cases, these societies have gradually grown and continue to thrive; in other cases, some comparative education societies have become dormant and a few no longer exist. A historical analysis that outlines the rise and fall of comparative education societies is provided. An overview of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies is also discussed, including its lead organizational role in serving as a historical hub to help comparative education societies preserve and disseminate their respective histories. The chapter concludes with suggestions on how anyone can get involved to help contribute to the history preservation of comparative education at the individual, national, regional, and global levels.

This chapter synthesizes the key themes and issues from across the Annual Review of Comparative and International Education 2013, and reflects on how the input from the regional society presidents and representatives was developed in each section of the review. Ways to think about making the Annual Review a reflective process for the field as a whole, and to engender input from all corners of the global comparative and international education community are suggested as well.