'Poverty' and 'Learning': The Function and Malfunction of These Terms in the Language of Comparative Education Research (A Study in Analytical Educology).

This paper inquires analytically about the connotative meaning of the terms poverty and learning as they function in the language of comparative education research. In the analysis of concepts, the analytical techniques used are the techniques of definition, explication, illustration, and substitution. Four conceptions of the term learning and five conceptions of the term poverty are discussed. When these conceptions (or definitions) are substituted into statements it was found that malfunctions in language occur. Such a language malfunction is an ambiguity in meaning in which a single term simultaneously connotes two or more meanings. The problem, then, is a systematic ambiguity in the language of educational researchers. In order to dissolve the problem of ambiguity in their language, comparative education researchers, and researchers in general, must learn to distinguish among analytical, empirical, and valuative inquiry. That is, they must attend to the analyticity of their language and adhere to the rules of inquiry which are necessarily implied by the type of inquiry that is intended by the researchers. (PN)