Critical challenges in approaches and experience in comparative education research
A School of Education seminar presented on March 27th 2019 by Dr Brian Denman
This presentation rehashes the apparent dichotomy between qualitative and quantitative research with an inductive lens, as current research specific to comparative and international education tends to be reverting back to more prescriptive and scientific inquiry with emphasis placed on inputs and outcomes, due in part to institutional, international and global forces. There is still question, however, as to whether comparative and international education is favouring the idea that scientific knowledge should be used for the solution of political goals or agendas (Mitter 1977, p. 96) or for the pursuit of truths and knowledge advancement.
Using a combination of Mårtensson et al’s hierarchy of research quality (2016, p. 599) and Paulston’s conceptual map of perspectives (1997, p. 118), attempts are made to map paradigmatic methodological approaches and modes of discourse by a select set of comparative and international education scholars with the aim of differentiating philosophical and methodological frames of reference and translating them into ‘specialised research’ trajectories. Attention is then given to shelf life, sustainability, scope, mutuality, and research rigour in an attempt to argue that there is no one-size-fits-all, and that the practices of adhering to a set of generalizable guidelines specific to research evidence and impact may be necessary to avoid the pitfalls of potential research construed as haphazard, dilatory, or lacking rigour.
A further exercise will attempt to demonstrate how comparative education research reflects either an underutilised complementarity between qualitative and quantitative studies or an undervalued mutuality of importance and usefulness of the research in question. By investigating ‘evidence’, ‘quality’, and ‘impact’, the commonality of approaches undertaken across cultures and at specific times but without prior knowledge or interaction amongst scholars seem to reflect the essence of an unfolding, a theoretical area study based on discovery, which is to be celebrated and respected as an evolutionary development of knowledge production and advancement.
