Publisher's Synopsis
Issues of methodology have been at the centre of debate among Comparative Educationists for decades. The essays in this volume, written by scholars from Europe, Latin America, and the USA, reflect current interests in the changing metascientific discourse in the field of Comparative Education.A shift in the nature of this discourse from prescription to socio-historical description is particularly clear in the essays in Part I, in which frameworks are developed within which analyses of the field's differing traditions, currents, and paradigms can be made.Theories which direct attention to historical explanations and policy-oriented predictions and which inform conceptual problems in making cross-cultural comparisons are examined in Part II. In these essays reference is made to both the different epistemological premises and the application of such theories to substantive comparative research.The essays in Part III add an unusual dimension to methodological debates in so far as they define the disciplinary status and theoretical functions of Comparative Education within the wider context of Education (or Educology) as the basic discipline.
