ERIC Number: EJ1030215
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2014
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
Reference Count: 24
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0218-8791
Old Challenges and New Vistas for Comparative Education? Insights Gained from Improbable Relations
Amos, S. Karin
Asia Pacific Journal of Education, v34 n2 p200-211 2014
In this article I aim to initiate a more systematic dialogue between what is currently termed postfoundationalism and the mainstream of comparative education. I argue that comparative education, which is not only interdisciplinary by definition but also the one sub-discipline of education focusing most rigorously on relations, is the privileged "locus" for this debate. I offer my reflections on the issues in that decontextualization, characteristic of positivistic research, lacks the perspective of contextualization, and thus it is a deficiency by itself. The secularization of education, which forms the basis of empiricism, is self-contradictory when it conflates the founded with the foundation. The focus on the individual allows for possibilities but the social order of education shuts off individual possibilities, thus it might be viewed as self-contradictory in itself. I suggest that we ought to question the validity and the self-contradiction of empiricism and secularization in comparative education research, as its focus is on individuals, yet it claims universal and transnational terminologies.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Comparative Education, Epistemology, Educational Philosophy, Educational Theories
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers: Germany

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