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This paper develops the basis of a comparative sociological account of the present state and potential of Comparative Education (CE) as a field of study by examining the mechanisms and contexts generated by three ‘conjunctions’ of power and CE. The first of these concerns issues of poweroverthe field, how it has been, and is being, framed by the operation of ‘power’ of various kinds. Poweroverwhat counts as CE emerges through three forms of strategic selectivity, based on: (1) its missions, locations and wider contexts; (2) its political, discursive, theoretical, methodological and valorisational opportunity structures; and (3) its institutional locations within the structures of university governance and national and international funding bodies, and the conditions of knowledge production that they frame. Next, it addresses issues of powerinCE, how it is and has been conceived, by whom, and with what analytic and political consequences. Finally, the paper directs attention to the potential powerofCE. It focuses on two contrasting forms taken by the outputs of CE, the production ofexpertiseand ofexplanation, which together suggest something of the nature of the dilemmas of the relationships between power and CE.Expertiseconcerns the power of the field as a source of comment and advice on the development of educational policy, based on qualitative and quantitative comparisons of education systems and their performances. The second, by contrast, considers the potential of a comparative approach to theexplanationof social phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses Comparative Education research, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and educational reform policy, focusing on Great Britain. Topics addressed include connections between a country's economic and educational performance, and he expresses concerns regarding linking policies and pupil performance data.

The article explores the potential for a critical realist approach to researching learning in international and comparative education (ICE) with a particular focus on the emerging post-2015 education and development agenda. It provides a critique of existing empiricist and interpretivist approaches to researching learning. It is suggested that whilst both have strengths, they are based on an ontologically reductionist view of learning with implications for research, policy and practice. As a ‘third’ research approach critical realism has the potential to build on the strengths whilst avoiding the pitfalls of both empiricism and interpretivism. Such an approach it is argued needs to start from an ontologically inclusive and laminated view of learning. Further, it is suggested that comparative research should focus on the development of theories of learning that are able to explain the natural and social structures and causal mechanisms that give rise to and inhibit learning at different scales and levels and in different contexts. The development of theory ought to embrace epistemological pluralism drawing critically on, cross-cultural, inter-disciplinary and mixed methods enquiry and making use of abductive and retroductive forms of inference. In this way it is argued it becomes possible to move beyond the dominant ‘what works’ agenda favoured by empiricists to critically consider what works, for who and under what circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates similarities and differences in young children's early numeracy skills related to age, nationality and gender. The participants were five- to seven-year-old children from Finland and Iran. Early numeracy was investigated by using tasks measuring number-related relational skills (e.g. comparison, one-to-one correspondence) and counting skills (e.g. enumeration, number-word sequence skills). A hybrid multigroup, multiple-indicator-multiple-cause (MIMIC) approach to factorial invariance and latent mean differences between groups was used. The results showed that Finnish children had better scores in relational and counting tasks than did children in Iran. There was a gender difference in relational skills favouring girls in both countries. Younger children had weaker early numeracy skills than the older children in both countries. Comparing age groups in both countries shows a bigger difference in counting skills between young Iranian and Finnish children than between older children in both countries. The results are discussed in the context of early mathematics learning and gender equity in schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines students’ procedural and conceptual achievement in fraction addition in England and Taiwan. A total of 1209 participants (561 British students and 648 Taiwanese students) at ages 12 and 13 were recruited from England and Taiwan to take part in the study. A quantitative design by means of a self-designed written test is adopted as central to the methodological considerations. The test has two major parts: the concept part and the skill part. The former is concerned with students’ conceptual knowledge of fraction addition and the latter is interested in students’ procedural competence when adding fractions. There were statistically significant differences both in concept and skill parts between the British and Taiwanese groups with the latter having a higher score. The analysis of the students’ responses to the skill section indicates that the superiority of Taiwanese students’ procedural achievements over those of their British peers is because most of the former are able to apply algorithms to adding fractions far more successfully than the latter. Earlier, Hart [1] reported that around 30% of the British students in their study used an erroneous strategy (adding tops and bottoms, for example, 2/3 + 1/7 = 3/10) while adding fractions. This study also finds that nearly the same percentage of the British group remained using this erroneous strategy to add fractions as Hart found in 1981. The study also provides evidence to show that students’ understanding of fractions is confused and incomplete, even those who are successfully able to perform operations. More research is needed to be done to help students make sense of the operations and eventually attain computational competence with meaningful grounding in the domain of fractions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In order to generate higher levels of interest in politics and participation in political processes, political or citizenship, education in schools must be at the heart of the curriculum and be characterised by active, learner-centred approaches. This paper hypothesises that, when compared with Germany, a more limited form of political education in Irish post-primary schools may be impacting negatively on the extent to which it is achieving such aims. In order to begin to explore this hypothesis, the results for seven items relating to interest in politics and participation in political processes from the most recent (2010) round of the European Social Survey are compared for the Irish and German populations. In addition, the nature and status of political education in the German and the Irish school systems are compared. Conclusions are drawn and the implications for future research in this field and for political education in both countries considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to develop a model for comparing different forms of teacher autonomy in various national contexts and at different times. Understanding and explaining local differences and global similarities in the teaching profession in a globalized world require conceptions that contribute to further theorization of comparative and international education. Drawing on a governance perspective and building on considerations of curriculum evaluation, the study argues that teacher autonomy is a crucial factor that has to be conceptualized in its national and historical contexts. It presents an examination of the teaching profession from both an institutional and service perspective. In both perspectives, teacher autonomy, framed by curriculum evaluation, can be regarded as both extended and restricted, but not necessarily at the same time. This point of view enables us to discuss different forms of autonomy in relation to each other. To support this idea, the study discusses cases of teachers in various contexts of time and space. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The international transfer of educational policy and practice has long been a key theme in comparative research and scholarship. Recent years have seen renewed attention to the processes of international policy transfer, with new understandings emerging from innovative theorising and analysis. This article examines the nature and implications of such work, explores the potential for further theoretical and methodological advances, and considers why and how future comparative research might engage in: critical analyses of the use of findings derived from international comparisons of performance and achievement; socio-cultural contributions to the emerging ‘big data’ debate; and empirically grounded studies of the international transfer of educational research and evaluation modalities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is widely asserted that globalization puts a premium on knowledge, but in fact there is no empirical correlation across countries between globalization and returns to education. One reason for this discrepancy may be that education is not everywhere coequal with knowledge. In this article the overall contribution of education to income is modelled as the sum of the contributions of two components of education, education-as-knowledge and education-as-credential. Assuming that the former dominates in developed countries while the latter dominates in developing countries, it is possible to separate these two effects. In a broadly comparative analysis of returns to education in 80 countries using World Values Survey data, globalization is found to be positively associated with education in developed countries but negatively associated with education in developing countries, consistent with the model. These results are robust in the face of controls for the supply and demand for education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the assumptions and implications of the Malaysian policy for ‘learning from Japan’. The article explores the ways in which this policy has effectively been operated in drawing a new geography of ‘Asia’, dislodging colonial legacies in the region and countering the consolidation of other regional blocs. Cross‐national educational interaction has increasingly been a key issue in international relations. After the end of the Cold War, the traffic of people, commodities and information is blocked less and less by the barriers of state political ideologies, and has begun to hinge on new notions of boundaries. Free trade blocs are formed by agreements among ‘neighbours’, sharing economic advantage and the quality of basic values, such as ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’. Such communal values play a powerful role in the redefinition of ‘us’ and the legitimisation of regional societies. The vigour of cross‐national educational transfer in the past two decades, as will be argued, has effectively been used for the formation of new identities of individual nations and for the promotion of new aspirations for the regional alliances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]