1. The purpose of comparison. What is comparative education
The purpose of comparison. What is comparative education? What is international education?
Fernando Reimers
September 2012

2. Introduction Teaching Team.
Sections
Syllabus on-line
Readings
Communicating with Teaching Team
Assignments
Final Conference
Introduction to the course and structure

3. Objectives
This course is designed to help students develop policy analysis skills and acquire knowledge about the implications of comparative and international education research for policy reform.
Familiarize course participants with the field of comparative and international education and with contemporary global education challenges and policy alternatives to improve education internationally.
Develop an understanding of the process of policy formation, and of methodologies to assess education needs and to formulate policy priorities.
Develop the ability among course participants to draw policy implications from comparative educational research on school purposes and curriculum, teacher quality, school leadership and system reform.

4. Comparing educational opportunities for girls
Education Reform in Finland
A framework to think about educational opportunity
History of Comparative Education
Purposes of comparison and link to different professions
A framework to compare
What institutions are involved
Examining the Expansion of Educational

5. Educating Adolescent Girls
Core argument made by Cynthia Lloyd
Evidence
Concepts

6. Girls Education.
Adolescence key period
Count, Invest, Advocate
Analysis of evidence. Debunking key myths.

7. Need more information on non-formal education
Count
Need more information on non-formal education
Need more information on what programs exist and effects
Invest (Programming)
Expand opportunities to access secondary
Support non formal system
Develop afterschool tutoring and mentoring program
Produce curricula relevant to adolescent girls
Offer post-secondary vocational programs
Provide training and incentives for women teachers
Advocate (Policy)
Promote easy transitions between non-formal and formal schools
Encourage and evaluate innovation

8. Analysis of evidence
Low levels of completion of primary education in most of the developing world
Gender gap in most countries in favor of boys

9. Where are girls?
Myth 1. Not in school.
They are in school, typically primary
Passed age of 15 less girls in school, for those in school most in secondary.
Few complete secondary school
Myth 2. Girls fall behind boys.
Those who remain in school are not behind boys

10. Myth 3. Pregnancy and early marriage leading causes of dropout
Girls drop for other reasons, marriage happens later.
Myth 4. Primary education leads to literacy
Great variation in school effectiveness.
Myth 5. Out of school girls are unschooled and uneducated
Great variation.
Few data on non-formal education

11. Key Concepts Initial access to school Access to school
School attendance
Overage or Repetition
School completion
Learning
Transition to next level
Educational attainment
Formal, Non-Formal, Informal Education

15. What have we learned from examining cross-national evidence?

16. What can we learn from Finland?
Why is Finland interesting?
Sahlberg’s argument?
Evidence
Key Concepts

17. Core argument. Long term commitment to equality of opportunity.
Post world war II. Three phases of reform
Industrialization, expanding educational opportunity.
Creating comprehensive public schools.
1985—present. Improving quality of basic education and expanding higher education. 
Structural change. Comprehensive schooling. Special education. Personalization.

18. Equality of Educational Opportunity
The likelihood that any person in a given country can enroll in an educational institution, be supported to learn at high levels, complete and proceed to the next existing level and type of education, independently of characteristics other than effort and ability, and in particular independently of their social class of origin, race, gender and location of residence.

19. How do we measure progress?
Inputs
Per pupil Spending
Processes
Structures, Curriculum
Outputs
Educational Attainment, Literacy
Outcomes
Employment and Productivity, Political Participation, Social Capital

20. Education Policy Decisions to act or not act with a bearing on:
Who should be educated
For what purpose
In what way –governance, structure, pedagogy, technology—
At what cost
Who should pay

21. Key Indicators Gross Enrollment Rates Net Enrollment Rates
Repetition Rates
Student Flows –completion rates—
Learning
Skills

22. Dimensions of educational inequality:
·        Racial Inequality
·        Gender Inequality
·        Casts Inequality
·        Socio-economic inequality
·        Regional inequality

23. What is equality of educational opportunity?
Conservative Definition (Position in the social structure determines education chances)
Liberal Definition (Equality of Treatment)
Progressive Definition (Equality of Outcomes requires inequality of treatment. Positive Discrimination).

24. Equality of Educational Opportunity
Equality of Outcomes (Social and Cultural Capital) Options in Life.
Equality of Learning Outputs
Equality of Processes
Equality of Inputs
Equality of Access

25. Equality of Inputs Per-Pupil expenditures Teacher characteristics
Instructional Resources
Physical facilities 
Learning outputs and outcomes from prior levels.
The role of school segregation

26. Equality of Processes Instructional Practices Teacher responsiveness
Time on task
Fit between curriculum and student background
Language of instruction

27. Equality of Outputs Results tied to curriculum objectives
Academic Skills
Educational Attainement

28. Equality of Outcomes Equal Freedom
Equal Capabilities (not functionings)
Equal Social Capital
Equal Cultural Capital

29. Opportunity to Learn
Poor children fail to learn when education policies and practices generate instruction of low-quality. In contrast, when education policies generate adequate opportunities, poor children learn at comparable levels to their non-poor counterparts.

30. Opportunity to Learn
First, opportunity to enroll in first grade in school.
Second, the opportunity to learn sufficiently in that first grade to complete it with enough command of basic pre-academic skills to continue learning in school.
Third, the opportunity to complete each education cycle.
Fourth, the opportunity that, having completed the cycle, graduates have skills and knowledge comparable to those of other graduates of the same cycle.
Fifth, that what was learned in the cycle serves the graduate to have other type of social and economic opportunities, to expand their life chances.

31. Commitment to educate all at high levels
Schools that are themselves democratic communities
Relationships between schools and communities
Teachers prepared to value diversity, tolerant and who can model democratic practices
Curriculum for democratic citizenship
Frequent daily opportunities to learn at high levels, to think, choose and be tolerant 1 2 3 4 5 6

32. What is Comparative Education? What is International Education?
a narrow definition
an expanded definition

33. Why do we compare?
Examples of comparison
Why do we look abroad?

34. Educational ideas have been ‘exported’ for a long time…

35. John Amos Comenius 1592 to 1670

36. Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778

38. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, 1746-1827

39. Joseph Lancaster

40. Systematic comparisons are more recent
What is the number of students in the primary schools in the commune or district?
What is the proportion of the total number of these students to the total population?
Approximately how many students are grouped under a single director or teacher?
At which age are children admitted to the primary schools?
Are children of both sexes admited to the same school and until what age?
How are students assessed and for what purpose?
How are students streamed?
Is there peer education?
How much time is devoted to literacy and math instruction?
At what age do children leave primary school?
Marc Antoine Jullien in 1816

41. Comparative Education
The scholarly study of education across different national contexts.
Akin to other comparative scholarly disciplines, such as the comparative study of politics, or the comparative study of business, or the comparative study of culture.
Purpose understanding the relationship between education and social institutions, with understanding the goals societies or groups assign to educational institutions, with the methods used to achieve those goals, with the ways to organize, finance or manage educational institutions.
Because education is not only a scholarly field of study, but principally a profession, comparative education inevitably has a practical side. Interest in impact.

43. Kandel’s argument for comparison
Kandel’s argument for global education
Isaac Kandel

44. International Education
The use of comparative knowledge for the explicit purpose of educational improvement in a particular country, typically a developing country.
The field emerged in the late 1940s when a series of ideas and institutions emerged. Central among them was the field of international development associated to the concept of economic development.
Economic development as a staged process.
Economic development could be planned.
From economic planning to educational planning
This gave rise to the field of international education and development, meaning efforts to support educational planning in developing countries in order to support the economic development in those countries.

45. Torsten Husen
Mapping of the field of international education

46. Comparative education
Comparative studies
Education Abroad
International
Education
Development
Education
Comparative Pedagogy
Intra-educational
And intra-cultural
studies
International
pedagogy
Study of work of
International organizations
Halls typology of comparative education

47. The aims of comparative education
Describes what might be the consequences of certain courses of action, by looking at experiences in various countries
Contributes to the development of education theory
Supports educational planning
Helps to cooperation and mutual understanding among nations

48. Shows what is possible by examining alternatives to provision at home
Offers yardsticks by which to judge the performance of education systems
Describes what might be the consequences of certain courses of action, by looking at experiences in various countries
Provides a body of descriptive and explanatory data which allows us to see various practices and procedures in a very wide context
Contributes to the development of an increasingly sophisticated theoretical framework in which to describe and analyze educational phenomena
Serves to provide authoritative objective data which can be used to put the less objective data of others who use comparisons for a variety of political and other reasons to the test
Has an important supportive and instructional role to play in the development of any plans for educational reform
Helps to foster cooperation and mutual understanding among nations by discussing cultural differences and similarities and offering explanations for them
Is of intrinsic intellectual interest as a scholarly activity as other comparative fields.

49. The Internationalization of Education Policy
In what way is education policy internationalized?
What are the positive effects of internationalization?
What are the negative effects?
What is educational transfer?

50. 1 2 3 4 5 Required Under Constraint Negotiated Under Constraint
Introduced
Through
Influence
Borrowed
Purposely
Imposed 1 2 3 4 5
Totalitarian/authoritarian rule, etc.
Defeated/occupied countries
Required by bilateral and multilateral agreements
Intentional copying of policy/practice observed elsewhere
General influence of educational ideas/methods
Source: Phillips and Schweisfurth 2007

51. Bray and Thomas Entire Population Religious Groups Gender Groups
Ethnic Groups
Religious Groups
Gender Groups
Age Groups
Other Groups
Level 1: World regions/continents
Level 2: Countries
Other aspects
Level 3: States/Provinces
Labor Market
Management Structures
Political Change
Level 4: Districts
Educational Finance
Level 5: Schools
Teaching Methods
Level 6: Classrooms
Curriculum
Level 7: Individuals
Bray and Thomas

52. Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Human Capital
UNESCO

53. PREAMBLE
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

54.
Article 26.
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

56. BIRTH OF THE ‘UNESCO SEMINAR’, SÈVRES
During the summer of 1947 UNESCO organized its first Summer Seminar in Sèvres (France). This seminar focused attention on two main areas of interest:
Ways and means of improving the curriculum, within the educational systems of the Member States, as a means of developing world-mindedness;
The influence of differences in cultural environment on the growth and adjustment of adolescents of various countries
THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, IN BRIEF...
On December 10, 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations meeting in Paris. At that time, Unesco’s Director-General, Jaime Torres Bodet, stressed the importance of this event in these words:
‘The declaration of 10 December 1948 is more than a historical summary, it is a programme. Every paragraph is a call to action, every line a condemnation of apathy, every sentence a repudiation of some moment of our individual or national history; every word forces us to scrutinize more closely the situation in the world today. The destiny of mankind is an indivisible responsibility which we all must share.’

57. Education for All The six goals are:
Goal 1: Expand early childhood care and education
Goal 2: Provide free and compulsory primary education for all
Goal 3: Promote learning and life skills for young people and adults
Goal 4: Increase adult literacy by 50 per cent
Goal 5: Achieve gender parity by 2005, gender equality by 2015
Goal 6: Improve the quality of education

58. Transnational Space
Multilateral (Intergovernmental) Organizations UUNN
Multilateral Development Institutions. World Bank. UNESCO. Regional Banks.
Bilateral Development Agencies (JICA, USAID, CIDA, GTZ)
International Non-Governmental Organizations (Faith based Organizations, Save the Children)
Consulting Firms, Think Tanks and Universities
Interest Groups