The transfer, translation and transformation of educational processes: and their shape‐shifting?

Abstract

This article revisits a topic central to the past and the present of comparative education: the theme of ‘transfer’. It outlines four ideas. First, that comparative education as a field of study, having begun in the study of ‘mobilities’, became diverted by other anxieties. Second, the article notes that the theme of ‘transfer’ is far broader than just exporting a quality assurance process or some other ‘fix‐it’ educational technique to another country. Third, the article asks how we may think freshly about ‘mobility’ and ‘transfer’ as a theoretical problematique. The conclusion of the article is that if we, as academics, are going to take themes such as mobilities, border‐crossing, and translation seriously, we have some unexpected challenges to sort out, including complex questions about ‘geometries of insertion’. For questions as difficult as those, ‘more research’ is not the only or even the best initial answer.