Comparative Education 

About: Comparative Education is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Comparative education & Higher education. It has an ISSN identifier of 0305-0068. Over the lifetime, 1554 publications have been published receiving 40472 citations.

Big Policies/Small World: An introduction to international perspectives in education policy

Abstract: In this paper the primary emphasis is upon the general and common elements in contemporary, international education policy, but nonetheless the discussion also considers the processes of translation and recontextualisation involved in the realisation or enactment of policy in specific national and local settings. A set of generic 'problems' which constitute the contemporary social, political and economic conditions for education and social policy making are adumbrated. The emergence of ideological and 'magical' solutions to these problems is identified and the means of the dissemination of these solutions are discussed. A relationship between the global market and the marketisation of education is suggested and explored.

Globalisation, New Managerialism, Academic Capitalism and Entrepreneurialism in Universities: Is the local dimension still important?

Abstract: The paper examines the importance of global and local factors in the current development of universities in Western countries. Globalisation is a fashionable theoretical stance but care needs to be taken in applying it to education, not least because social theorists cannot agree on definitions and implications. Three concepts dealing with recent changes to universities--new managerialism, academic capitalism and entrepreneurial universities--are examined for their usefulness in explaining what is happening to universities in Europe and North America. Following a critical analysis of the theoretical and empirical basis of Slaughter & Leslie's 'Academic Capitalism' and Clark's 'Creating Entrepreneurial Universities', it is suggested that, in searching for similarities and convergence in universities in different countries, more localised factors affecting higher education institutions may be under-emphasised. Furthermore, some of the data used in the comparative case-studies of universities analysed in the...

Returns to education : an updated international comparison

Abstract: The question of the profitability of investing in human capital remains controversial. Three main methods for estimating the rate of return to investment in education are described: the elaborate method, the earnings function method, and the short-cut method. Application of cost-benefit analysis measures in 44 countries yields four patterns that have important policy implications: (i) top priority should be given to primary education as a form of human resource investment due to high returns, both social and private; (ii) secondary and higher education should also be pursued in a program of balanced human resource development; (iii) the larger discrepancy between the private and social returns in higher education indicates room for private finance at the university level; and (iv) falling returns to education that result as a country develops and/or the capacity of its educational system expands are minimal under time-series analysis and do not warrant abandonment of educational expansion.

Processes of Policy Borrowing in Education: some explanatory and analytical devices

Abstract: This paper addresses questions of policy 'borrowing' in education. Building on the authors' previous work, it proposes some explanatory and analytical devices to assist in the exploration of the processes involved in 'cross-national attraction' in educational policy and its consequences in terms of decision making, implementation, and 'internalisation'.

Comparative Research in Education: a mode of governance or a historical journey?

Abstract: This text is not a research paper, nor an epistemological reflection about the field of comparative education. It is an essay in the literal meaning of the word—‘an attempt, trial, that needs to be put to test in order to understand if it is able to fulfil the expectations’—in which we introduce an interpretation of the current condition of the field of comparative education. In the introduction to this essay we discuss the current phenomenon of a regained popularity of comparative educational research. We believe that this situation has both positive and negative consequences: it can contribute to the renewal of the field or it may be no more than a brief fashion. Our reflections focus on the uses of comparative research in education, not on any precise research question. Even so, only for illustrative purposes, we present some examples related to the European Union. We then go on to discuss current comparative practices, arguing that comparative educational studies are used as a political tool creating ...