Living in an era of comparisons: comparative research on policy, curriculum and teaching

ABSTRACT

The articles in this special issue include different perspectives on comparative policy studies with an aim to understand transnational education policies in relation to the logic of national educational systems and to grasp the ongoing reframing of teacher identity and teaching as a result of the policy activities of ‘new’ and coordinated international actors. This special issue aims to contribute to a continued qualified investigation in curriculum issues at the various levels within the public education system, as well as in the international policy movements, affecting public education differently in different nations. A ‘comparative curriculum research’ inspired by theories and methods from comparative education might be helpful in this endeavour.

KEYWORDS:

• Comparative research
• educational policy
• curriculum research
• classroom research
• ethnographic research

Introduction

In this special issue, questions of comparative research methodology and content are brought to the fore. The comparative research approach is viewed as a response to the internationalization of education policy while simultaneously recognizing that education is a highly regional and local activity. The contributing authors have chosen different foci of content and different levels of comparison. However, they have in common an interest in understanding how research on implications of transnational education policy on national, regional and local levels can contribute to a more nuanced and multifaceted understanding of the condition for education. This special issue draws on the second conference of Teachers Matter¹, this time presenting traditions and trends in comparative education with teachers as empirical objects of study. Phenomena such as globalization and transnational policy are explored from a national/local perspective in all the articles in this issue by discussing the implications of school systems, curricula and classroom teaching.

The variety of the contributions also illustrates the diversity in the field of comparative education research regarding different paradigms of methodological thinking. In this special issue, Gita Steiner-Khamsi and Leonora Dugonjic-Rodwin represent policy research, taking a transnational perspective on educational policy. Kathryn Anderson-Levitt and Barbara Schulte instead use ethnographic approaches for understanding how general policy concepts of education are understood differently in varied geographical and cultural contexts. Comparative research is also related to large international knowledge measurements. Such knowledge measurements in mathematics provide the basis for the construction of indicators of teacher competence in Germany and China, developed by Xinrong Yang, Gabriele Kaiser, Johannes König and Sigrid Blömeke. Finally, Ninni Wahlström explores the implications of transnational policy reaching the classroom in a comparative study of six different classrooms. Although applying different methodologies, all studies share an interest in determining how public education is shaped in relation to transnational policies and the impact of time and space. Time relates to the historical dimension when we try to understand how public education has been formed in a specific tradition instead of another. Space refers to local, national and global contexts where ideas on education emerge, travel and are enacted. In sum, all the contributions to this issue illustrate the contingency in the intersection between the global and the local, facilitating our understanding of current curriculum development and research.

International policy actors on the educational arena

International external pressure on education policy has been significant and intense during the first two decades of the twenty-first century, although it had already begun during the 1990s. Regarding Western countries, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is one of the most prominent actors in the international policy field. While the OECD has long been acknowledged for its expertise on economics, it was primarily through the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) that the organization achieved its status as an authority in education during the 2000s. As a consequence of the OECD policy on education, several school systems in the Western member states and beyond were transformed based on human capital theory. The implication of following this theory is that education is perceived as being a functional subsystem of the economy wherein the economy is the dominant system (Bank, 2012). One of the several consequences of the primacy economics is centralization, both in terms of school examinations for accountability reasons and in the implementation of education standards in curriculums, which has become one of the main themes in the adaptation of national school systems to international policy requirements.

Hopmann (2008) understands the dominating discourse of accountability as resulting from the need to manage expectations. International policies of standards, benchmarks and centralized exams are examples of attempts to transform complex and ill-defined problems by means of seemingly better-defined and measurable goals. For Western countries, this policy task is mainly handled by international organizations such as the OECD and the European Union (EU). For countries in South America, Africa and Asia, the World Bank is a major international actor.

The accountability doctrine of educational standards and international knowledge tests paved the way for the comparison of national school systems. However, a consequence of the accountability discourse is that all aspects that do not fit into the accountability regime risk becoming marginalized (Hopmann, 2008). From this aspect, comparative research offers important insights by widening the knowledge regarding how different conditions and recontextualization processes are set in motion when international standards and accountability doctrines encounter the traditions in different national school systems.

Recognizing globalization, but from what perspective?

The interaction between the international and the national is complicated, and several different perspectives exist for analysing convergences and divergences between national and international education policies. Overall, two main perspectives can be discerned: (a) research that takes globalization as a starting point for pointing out similarities in policy and vocabulary in different countries’ curricula and education strategies; and (b) research that recognizes globalization as a forming force, yet examines education based on local conditions. Common to the two lines of research is that each uses some form of comparative methodology to investigate how international policy influences education at the national and local levels. The research approach can be based on comparisons between different countries’ school systems against the common backdrop of international policy flows, or it can be based on evaluations of the effects on one or more national/local actors, such as how nations or local actors respond to recommendations from international policy actors on how to design national school policies.

The ‘Stanford School’ of global analysis of ‘world society’ argues that organizations shape models for society at a global level and fashion the identity, structure and actions of individual nations through the diffusion of global cultural-interactive processes that lead to nations changing in a similar direction. As countries are continuously exposed to an external world-cultural press, they act in a more coordinated and predictable way than they would have if they only were perceived as being responsible for their own citizens (Meyer, Boli, Thomas, & Ramirez, 1997). According to Schriewer (2016), this coordination of policy, or ‘world polity’, argued for by the Stanford School, should rather be understood in constructivist cultural terms, where a common understanding of the world is constituted by reciprocal communication based on a common view of ‘reality’. In addition to economic changes resulting from globalization, Ramirez, Suárez, and Meyer (2006) suggest that globalization also created conditions for cultural and political movements in terms of human rights education. The human rights global movement is characterized by an emphasis on human rights being superior to civic rights and by an emphasis on individuals’ rights being superior to states’ rights. In this respect, human rights create the basis for expanding education worldwide. Previously, especially in continental Europe, the concept of citizenship was related to national citizenship guaranteed by a state, yet citizenship under the watch of human rights has gained a more universal and generalized meaning associated with individuals’ rights (Ramirez et al., 2006). According to Meyer (2006), the discourse surrounding the individual as a bearer of rights has legitimized decentralization in the governing of schools. International organizations, such as the World Bank, have motivated the decentralization of schools to allow parents and local communities to influence the curriculum and school governance. In this context, curricula should allow for individual choices and should prepare individuals for the global community wherein their own nation is perceived as part of a larger global whole.

Unlike the overarching analyses of the Stanford School, comparative research highlights the importance of territorial boundaries, historical traditions and social cultures. Policy research inspired by ‘world culture’ can be described as essentially trans-sectoral because of its interest in comparing different sectors of society. On the other hand, comparative policy research can be described as transnational because of its interest in how policies move within and across borders, including the interactions between different levels of policy and territorial areas (Steiner-Khamsi, 2012). Instead of relying on world-culture theory and large-scale analyses, educational researchers in comparative studies have taken an interest in local, multifaceted responses to global policy pressure. The field of comparative research does not deny that transnational organizations disseminate specific policy solutions and governing models of education, but the focus is on the encounters among policy discourses, national regulations, traditions and social and political realities. Thus, comparative research is interested in on-going recontextualization processes at different levels and arenas between and within transnational and national policies that influence national school systems. According to comparative research, transnational policy reforms are not as universal as they appear; rather, they are ‘socio-culturally particular as soon as one systematically scrutinizes the multiple interrelationships’ (Schriewer, 2016, p. 6). The challenge for comparative research is (with reference to Schriewer, 2016) to find theory-based models complex enough to capture both a global interconnectedness and a local complexity in the translation and recontextualization processes in interpreting and relating to transnational policy concepts. The concepts may sound alike, but they can nevertheless take many different expressions and be interpreted in several ways when adapting to sociocultural norms in national and local contexts.

Political transnational ideas and discourses largely formed within international organizations, such as the World Bank, OECD and EU, need both linguistic channels to be conveyed and actual places from where they can exert influence. In this respect, many globalization processes take place deep within national institutions that are connected to trans-boundary networks and actors, thereby linking multiple national and local actors. Thus, it is quite possible, as Sassen (2013) suggests, for educational researchers to engage the transnational and the global from the types of knowledge they are already involved in. The challenge is to make familiar concepts and terminology globally sensitive enough to capture a wider range of influences than those that are merely national. For example, Wahlström and Sundberg (2018a) propose a theoretical framework to allow curricular theory and discursive institutionalism to inform one another in the study of curricular reforms being partly shaped and regulated by transnational educational policies. To avoid ‘methodological nationalism’ and the exclusion of transnational processes, Sassen (2013) claims that the national and subnational can be viewed as partly denationalized because of the influence of global processes on the national. Such a starting point opens the possibility of reframing processes that were historically understood as national into partially denationalized processes.

Furthermore, studies on the effects of globalization might involve studies of national and local actors who participate in global politics without actually crossing borders. State and local authorities enable particular global dynamics without acting from a global standpoint in all of their activities. In international organizations, the members and participants are often politicians representing states or representatives from national authorities. Thus, the agreements that approve transnational policies represent both the political decision and a number of national institutions from each country. Due to the magnitude of actors involved, educational agreements not only represent decisions but also entail common discourses and changes in state practices. This denationalization process of seemingly national responsibilities highlights that, at the same time, nation-states and their sub-institutions are places where transnational processes occur within the context of globalization (Robertson, 2012; Sassen, 2011).

Different approaches in comparative education research

As a consequence of the dominating global neo-liberal policy paradigm, comparative research has emerged as one way to grasp the complex processes of policy framing at the international, national, regional and local levels. The field of comparative educational research is now moving beyond simplified discussions of national differences and is beginning to recognize how global discourses of neo-liberalism are expressed and constituted through re-articulation and recontextualization in spaces of local struggles over traditions, culture and politics (Takayama, 2009). The focus is then directed towards local conditions, variations and facets as well as seemingly similar responses to shared transnational policy ideas and ideologies. Additionally, the transfer of education models is not taken for granted but, rather, is rooted in the interactions of experts from different parts of the world (Steiner-Khamsi, 2012). Consequently, the actual impacts of different education systems remain an empirical question (Wahlström & Sundberg, 2018b). Thus, the context needs to be taken into consideration in comparative methodologies. This special issue gives valuable examples of how this can be done. From a methodological perspective, comparative education studies share certain similarities. As a prerequisite, at least two units must exist for comparison, for example, comparing two countries or comparing a national arena and an international policy organization. Comparative research includes a case where a certain factor that is absent/present is compared with another case where a certain factor is absent/present to investigate particular phenomena and relations. Different mechanisms may reinforce or neutralize each other, and a potential chain of cause and effect may take different forms in different arenas. The theme of this special issue is to study possible educational causes and effects in preschool and school education by illuminating translation and recontextualization processes of ‘moving’ phenomena and concepts in different contexts. The comparative approach thus contributes to curriculum studies through its methodology of detailed comparisons of certain phenomena in different arenas, especially at different levels in an educational policy system with consequences for national and local curricula.

Comparative education research copes with time and space for understanding particular educational phenomena, causing the context and its implication for educational understandings to be brought to the fore. Three broad theoretical traditions can be identified in comparative education research: (a) borrowing and lending, (b) the world culture approach and (c) the functional-cum-configurational model. The different theories are interested in the same object of study, but they differ in terms of understanding how to gain knowledge (Kauko & Wermke, 2018). The borrowing and lending approach directs its main interest in cross-national attraction and how external ideas are borrowed and recontextualized to suit national policy purposes. The world culture approach takes its starting point from a macro-level, focusing on convergences and adaptations of national policies to adjust to a global culture. Finally, the functional-cum-configurational model (see Schriewer, 1999) acknowledges that problems are ‘problems’ because of their positions in certain interrelated systems and not because of the phenomenon itself. A distinct problem-solution from a functional perspective thus relates to a specific sociocultural setting, comprehending existing relations as contingent and diverse relations as comparable.

Comparative research on policy, curriculum and teaching

The articles in this issue include different perspectives on comparative policy studies. The articles aim to understand transnational education policies in relation to the logic of national educational systems and to grasp the on-going reframing of teacher identity and teaching as a result of the policy activities of ‘new’ and coordinated international actors.

In the article ‘Transnational Accreditation for Public Schools: IB, PISA and other Public-Private Partnerships’, Gita Steiner-Khamsi and Leonora Dugonjic-Rodwin examine a particular type of public–private partnership (PPP) against the backdrop of a ‘crisis of public education’ notion discursively generated by the private sector and by international education organizations. In response to the talk of educational crisis—and as a critique of state institutions for being public (rather than private) and for being national (rather than transnational)—governments in different parts of the world have actively started to engage in the practice of transnational accreditation and to fund privately run schools. Examples of this movement are International Baccalaureate, Cambridge Assessment International Education and Teach for All, which aim to improve the quality of education in public schools. In developing countries, a new type of pilot school—International Standard Schools—has emerged over the past few years. These schools are associated with the use of English as the language of instruction in selected subjects, student-centred teaching, critical/creative thinking, periodical assessment of twenty-first century skills and the extensive use of technology in instruction. Different from many other pilot projects, the International Standard Schools are not donor driven but are government initiated. Transnational accreditation has also gained prominence in OECD countries, such as the USA and Japan, which have engaged in a partnership with International Baccalaureate to raise the learning standards in public schools. Of course, this type of PPP is not without its problems. The PPP scheme has been criticized for exacerbating inequality between the schools. Governments have, therefore, learned to speak two languages: the ‘global talk’, which is geared towards the elites and emphasizes international student mobility, and a ‘national talk’ that is meant for the masses and includes promises of spilling over and scaling up innovation (from the private to the public sector). The article presents examples of privately run schools in the USA (Chicago), Mongolia, Japan, Kazakhstan and Indonesia that are used as hubs of innovation for the surrounding public schools.

In the second article, ‘Comparing Ethnographies of Teaching When Comparison Seems Impossible’, Kathryn Anderson-Levitt takes on the question of whether comparison from an ethnographical point of view is actually possible. As an expert in the field of ethnographic research, Anderson-Levitt draws attention to the problems that arise when comparing cross-national ethnographic research conducted on objects of study from varying social contexts. She also points at the role of the scholar and the need to be aware of how the specific academic context may shape the understanding and interpretation of ethnographic studies. Anderson-Levitt argues that ‘comparing is essential’ and by elaborating on Noblit and Hare’s ideas on ‘meta-ethnography’ and applying small-scale comparisons, she offers a fresh approach for researchers who grapple with methodological and epistemological issues of cross-national comparison. Meta-ethnography is not interested in aggregating findings or making generalizations on large sets of data. Rather, it emphasizes the necessity to look at and interpret the interpretations of previous research and especially to be attentive to conflicting as well as aligning interpretations. The researcher ought to select and use small but different cases to study and must stay true to the specific contextual aspects. In Anderson-Levitt’s article, the empirical cases explored are focused on teachers’ work and knowledge. By comparing ethnographies of, for instance, preschool pedagogy in Japan and Denmark, she illustrates how meta-ethnography may contribute to ‘theoretical generalization’. Furthermore, Anderson-Levitt elaborates on concepts such as ‘reciprocal translation’, ‘refutational synthesis’ and ‘line-of-argument synthesis’ as analytical and methodological tools for comparing ethnographic studies across national borders without losing the particularities of the local context and without losing the distinctive theoretical perspective of ethnographers operating within different national traditions.

Drawing on fieldwork carried out in urban Chinese schools, the article ‘Envisioned and Enacted Practices: Educational Policies and the “Politics of Use” in Schools’ by Barbara Schulte focuses on ‘innovation’ and ‘creativity’ as teaching aims. The examples of innovation and creativity can illustrate, on one side, the dilemmas arising from the policy-practice divergence and, on the other side, the challenges of comparing local implementations of innovative or creative learning across different contexts. Ethnographic (and other) studies on teachers often rely on two kinds of material: observations of teaching practices in the classroom and statements about teaching practices. These are both extracted as experiences and judgments from practitioners (eg through teacher interviews) or as visions and prescriptions from policy actors (eg through expert interviews, educational policy documents or teaching manuals). Many scholars agree that a discrepancy exists between, first, what is envisioned, or desired, prescribed or scripted; second, what is enacted in the actual classroom situation; and third, how involved actors make sense of and communicate their perceptions of these enactments. While there may be more ad hoc and pragmatic reasons for this divergence, this article wants to draw attention to the ‘politics of use’ in teachers work, especially how teachers mobilize larger political narratives when implementing curriculum reform.

Xinrong Yang, Gabriele Kaiser, Johannes König and Sigrid Blömeke present a research study on international knowledge measurements and their implications: ‘Measuring Chinese Mathematics Teachers’ Professional Competence: Adapting and Validating a German Framework in China’. At the turn of this century, many countries, including Germany and China, launched a curricular reform of mathematics with the main aim of reshaping traditional ways of learning and teaching to improve the effectiveness of mathematics education. Teachers’ professional competence, undoubtedly, is central to successfully implementing such educational reform initiatives. Against such a background, there has been an increasing interest in theoretically derived models of teachers’ professional competence. However, a majority of models and assessment instruments available in the literature have so far been developed in Western countries, such as Germany. The article reports on a project where a competence model developed in Germany is validated in the Chinese context. Mathematics teachers’ competences in Germany and China are compared through a common evaluation model. The data from China and Germany are jointly evaluated for validating a structure of teachers’ professional competence model. The results are discussed from the aspect of the complexity of transferring theoretical frameworks and instruments developed in one continent to other parts of the world.

In the final article, ‘When Curriculum Policy Reaches Classrooms—Teaching as Directed Exploration’, Ninni Wahlström explores how education policy is both enabled and constrained by transnational policy flows as well as national policy built by social, cultural and historical traditions that are enacted through curriculum at the classroom level. The study focuses on how international policy rationality, embedded in the structure and content of a national curriculum, is transformed into certain rationalities in classroom teaching at the local level. By understanding lessons as curriculum events, the study reveals a dominant classroom discourse of recitation with similar triadic communication patterns as previous classroom studies. However, in this article, Wahlström argues that this form of teaching actually make sense when being interpreted within the broader context of the international standards movement. From this perspective, recitation is understood as ‘directed exploration’, in which teachers fulfil the role of explorer, examining what students know, think and understand in relation to the acquisition of the knowledge requirements prescribed in the curriculum. Even though the communication pattern of recitation is very well known, the reasons for choosing this teaching repertoire are partly ‘new’. Choosing recitation as a rational form of classroom discourse can be related to teachers authoring a basic oral text in accordance with prescribed assessment standards, supported by a transnational policy discourse.

To sum up, curriculum studies often deal with the content of schooling and the implications for the pedagogical recontextualization processes in the classroom arena. In this field of study, the specific contexts are crucial. Curricula differ significantly between national arenas because different national contexts offer various traditions and structures, influencing the way particular international phenomena take on certain forms and meaning in different national contexts. In the world of today, curriculum studies need to explore new borders and spaces appearing in a globalized world. We need to consider how the world we live in mirrors the development, enactment and achievement of curricula. This special issue aims to contribute to a continued qualified investigation in curriculum issues at the various levels within the public education system, as well as in the international policy movements, affecting public education differently in different nations. A ‘comparative curriculum research’ inspired by theories and methods from comparative education might be helpful in this endeavour.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The articles in this special issue are based on papers presented at the second conference on the theme of ‘Teachers matter’, Teachers Matter—but Where, When and Why?, arranged by the Linnaeus University in May, 2017, with financial support from the Swedish Research Council. The first conference, Teachers Matter—but How? in 2014 is reported in a special issue in Journal of Curriculum Studies 49(1) and in the book Teachers Matter—but How? (Routledge 2018).