Comparative History of Education

Abstract

This article discusses William W. Brickman's historical scholarship on the international circulation of educational ideas and practices by examining the ways Brickman wrote about John Dewey and his international significance as an educational thinker and reformer. The authors argue that Brickman's scholarship was rooted in an "educational transfer" problematic that prioritizes diachronic, influence-oriented studies. The result is to situate Dewey as "an original author" and lose sight of the social and cultural formations that made Dewey's ideas possible. While Brickman's work makes occasional reference to the ways that Dewey's ideas were localized and transformed around the globe, this remained a largely suggestive and undeveloped line of research for him—particularly in contrast the recent interest in the field of comparative education in understanding processes of indigenization, appropriation, and translation.