Comparative education in an age of competition and collaboration

ABSTRACT

Comparative education relies on experiences, expertise, data, and criticism derived from multiple contexts and diverse levels to generate insights, facilitate understanding, and explain change. Marked by connectivity, our contemporary era vastly increases the (potential) diffusion of ideas essential for scientific advance. Three interlocking trends emphasise the growing relevance of comparative educational research. Firstly, competition has become more potent – among scholars, their organisations, and within as across countries. Secondly, educational studies, as science more generally, are increasingly conducted in collaboration – across disciplinary, cultural, linguistic, and organisational boundaries – enhancing the potential for discovery while producing influential scholarship. Thirdly, while educational research and policymaking are increasingly comparative, comparative knowledge stores are often only selectively used. To counter such reductionism, in-depth comparative institutional analysis across divides of academy, politics, and practice remain crucial. The multidisciplinary field must claim its relevance more persuasively, even as scholarly exchange, mobilities, and cultural knowledge endure as vital foundations.

KEYWORDS:

• Comparative education
• competition
• collaboration
• ideas
• diffusion
• policy
• comparative institutional analysis

Acknowledgements

I express deep gratitude to my mentors, collaborators, and students as well as to the organisations and foundations that have enabled my educational career and scholarly contributions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on the contributor

Justin J. W. Powell has been Professor of Sociology of Education in the Institute of Education and Society at the University of Luxembourg since 2012. His comparative institutional analyses chart persistence and change in special and inclusive education, vocational training, higher education and science systems, and research policy. He holds a BA from Swarthmore College (USA), an MA from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany, and a doctorate in sociology from the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. Among diverse publications in English and German in educational and social science journals, his books include Soziale Ungleichheit. Klassische Texte zur Sozialstrukturanalyse (Campus Verlag, 2009; co-edited with H. Solga and P.A. Berger); Barriers to Inclusion: Special Education in the US and Germany (Routledge, 2011/2016; Irving K. Zola Award); Comparing Special Education: Origins to Contemporary Paradoxes (Stanford University Press, 2011; co-authored with J.G. Richardson; AERA Division B Outstanding Book Award); The Century of Science: The Global Triumph of the Research University (Emerald, 2017, co-edited with D.P. Baker and F. Fernandez; ASHE Award for Significant Research on International Higher Education); and European Educational Research (Re)Constructed: Institutional Change in Germany, the UK, Norway and the EU (Oxford: Symposium Books, 2018; co-authored with M. Zapp and M. Marques).

ORCID

Justin J. W. Powell http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6567-6189

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Université du Luxembourg [R-AGR-0221].