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The chapter discusses Comparative and International Education (CIE) in Germany and reviews some recent developments that are seen to impact the field in important ways. The current state of CIE in Germany is characterized by three major developments. First, there are visible signs of intensified interest in comparative knowledge – both from policy and academic circles – as illustrated by external indicators such as publications, activities in academic-professional societies, etc. Second, there is an increasing diversification of CIE, with intercultural, international and development education attracting much attention. Finally, since the early 2000s, there has been growing significance and reception of large-scale international comparative assessment studies. The essay discusses these current developments in turn and poses questions as to their relevance and potential impact for CIE in Germany.

Consistent and systematic reflective practice is a key element of professionalization. Reflecting on the current status and trends highlights areas of success and areas for further examination within the field of comparative and international education (CIE). This research examines the characteristics of articles in peer-reviewed comparative and international education journals from the last three years in order to identify how the field has changed. Data explored include number of authors, author(s) institutional location(s), research methodology, content or context of analysis, and keywords. Results were compared to questions and recommendations posed by Bereday in 1964 and in the initial Annual Review in 2013. Single-country studies continued to dominate the field for the third year; however, there has been a shift in methodological approaches, with more balance between qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Collaboration, evidenced by an increase in co-authored articles, has increased across the field. Findings from keyword analysis show that although six keywords have remained at the top of the field across the three years, there are few topics which unite the field. These results indicate that although one strength of the field has been cited as its diversity, CIE lacks a common focus on methods, theories, or contents that set it apart from other education-affiliated disciplines. Scholars are encouraged to continue consistent and systematic reflection in determining future directions of the field by identifying unique approaches to distinguish CIE.

Many researchers and practitioners in the field of comparative and international education (CIE) also work as educators, teaching CIE courses to cadres of students across various levels. In teaching these courses, CIE educators play a significant role in shaping the field’s future: the perspectives they privilege and the pedagogies they utilize arguably leave lasting impressions on students, who themselves go on to become teachers, researchers, policymakers, international development practitioners, and more. However, scant attention has been paid to the teaching of CIE. This chapter explores the possibilities and potential benefits of linking the teaching of CIE more deeply with both the emerging scholarship on it and the current debates and dilemmas with which the Comparative and International Education Society and CIE journals have engaged in the past few years such as decolonizing development and education. The chapter raises questions about the future of teaching CIE and concludes with a renewed call for additional research on the scholarship of teaching CIE.

Increasing awareness around the world of the environmental impact of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions resulting from human activities such as air travel warrants consideration of the effects of research and activities within the field of Comparative and International Education (CIE). The authors hypothesize that consideration of CIE research’s environmental impact is seldom, if ever, discussed in the literature. To test this hypothesis, the authors conduct a content analysis of articles published in selected major CIE journals to analyze how researchers account for their environmental impact. In addition to presenting the findings of this analysis, the authors provide a selection of queries for examining one’s own practices as a CIE researcher in relation to environmental sustainability. The authors provide preliminary suggestions for ways to reduce GHG production and the environmental impact of continued CIE research and call for acknowledgement of these impacts in publications. Ultimately, the authors suggest that more needs be done to examine CIE scholars’ ecological impact in conducting research and use this chapter as a starting point for conversations in this vein.

In this chapter, the authors provide a historical overview of the development of comparative and international education in North America from 1920s to the beginning of the twenty-first century. The authors document the significant role some of the most influential leaders played to help lay the foundation for comparative education societies in Canada, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, and the United States. Using historical comparative research technique, the authors examine the many interconnections of current and past leaders. The authors conclude with recommendations on how knowing the history can help strengthen comparative and international education development well into the future.

The Annual Review of Comparative and International Education (ARCIE) represents a forum and an opportunity for scholars worldwide to discuss and examine trends and directions in comparative/international education, highlighting relevant developments in these fields, related to educational contexts, climates, and reforms in these contexts. Changes and reforms within these contexts and areas can have significant impacts on various education stakeholders, agents, and societies. Given the need to identify and prepare for these changes, the objective of this chapter is to discuss recent trends and directions in the field of Comparative and International Education (CIE). The method employed to identify these trends was a meta-analysis of the 23 chapters published in the 2020 edition of ARCIE. The 23 chapters composed the corpus of texts analyzed in this study, with the support of an online platform for corpora processing. Results of the analysis were contrasted with relevant literature in the field and suggest that (among the three main missions of universities) teaching and research received more attention than outreach/services, considering the corpus analyzed. In addition, teachers and students received more attention than administrative staff. Therefore, we conclude that more attention is necessary toward these aspects (outreach and administrative staff) in the pursuit of social justice and UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs). Finally, the prevalence of topics related to language and sustainability suggests a need for more representativeness, in terms of regions and languages studied in the field of CIE.

The Annual Review of Comparative and International Education 2014 provides an opportunity for reflection and debate of current issues in the field. Central among these is how comparative and international education (CIE) is defined by scholars and practitioners, and how these understandings contribute to the field’s sense of professional and academic identity. The work of teachers and teaching in classrooms worldwide comprises much of the CIE field’s technical core and focus of policymaking as well as other relevant activity. As a result, the education of teachers and their professional development are key, and often undervalued, components. Based upon this foundation, the 2014 Annual Review highlights ways that teacher education and professional development impact CIE research and professional activity, and vice versa.

Osmosis is the movement of particles across a boundary until the saturation of particles has been equalized on both sides of the boundary. Although this term is most often used in biology, it is a relevant metaphor for comparative and international education (CIE), as the boundaries which define the field are permeable, with few limitations on what is and is not considered CIE. Previous introductory chapters to the Annual Review of Comparative and International Education have examined the professionalization of the field through the characteristics of articles published in prominent CIE journals. While drawing on a similar framework, this chapter, rather than examining CIE from the inside, examines the development of the field from the outside by considering what, where, and why CIE-related articles appear in journals outside of the field. In addition to data on articles from CIE journals for 2017, education-related articles from domestic and international journals with the highest impact factor from the fields of sociology, political science, economics, anthropology, psychology, and education are also included. These components will provide multiple points of comparison and discussion to examine how non-CIE journals include CIE related topics to identify which themes permeate the CIE boundary.

In recent years, the field of comparative and international education (CIE) has experienced an outburst of self-reflective papers wherein comparativists study the nature of the field and map its content. This study contributes to this trend by drawing attention to a previously unstudied aspect of CIE: its purpose. Using Arnove’s dimensions as a starting point to create five new purpose categories, four prominent CIE journals are surveyed to test whether the pragmatic history of CIE is evident in its current body of research. In this process, a complete and clear genetic mapping of the journals is created, which explores their similarities and differences, as well as the changes in their content over time. Findings indicate that the pragmatic purpose of CIE dominates, though it is primarily emancipatory and transformative in its prescription. Furthermore, articles rooted in specific situational contexts were more prominent than expected considering the comparative and international nature of the field.

This chapter defines comparative and international education (CIE), and outlines the broader societal and historical context that connects teacher education to CIE. A historical perspective is deployed for explaining current shifts in the field of CIE. The analysis presented interrogates purposes and conventions in CIE. How CIE matters for the preparation of teachers is best understood in relation to the political agendas CIE has served in the past and the agendas it serves in the contemporary context. The chapter concludes with a discussion on different stances regarding the relationship of research to practice that the author encountered in her research on teacher education and in her work with experts in teacher training and education development, in the past few years.