The field of comparative education has been slow to incorporate poststructuralist concerns due to theoretical bias, the linguistic barrier of postmodernist discourses, and the critique of postmodernism as indifferent to social issues. Debates on key questions of epistemology, ontology, and ethics in social research are needed to further theoretical and methodological clarification and examine the relative value of critical modernity and postmodernism. (Contains 21 references.) (SV)