Abstract
The Conference explores the future(s) of education and, for this symposium, the role of comparative education at a time of uncertainty that I understand as having political, intellectual and epistemological dimensions.
Education (and by that I refer mainly to the field we call ‘educational studies’) has many agendas of attention. The current interest in MeToo and BLM has emboldened discussion of gender and race in education. To these, one could add concerns related to the Anthropocene/ environmental crisis and to issues involving epistemological diversity (some say ‘justice’). These things are certainly relevant for comparative education, with the latter beginning to influence North American scholarship in particular. Rather than rehearse such themes here, I will focus on three others – some old, some new – that must be taken seriously as comparative education engages with an uncertain future.
The first of these regards the role of space in social theorizing. Here, comparative education has caught up with work in related areas such as political science, geography and anthropology, offering a wide array of visual metaphors and research strategies to engage with educational practices that are unfolding in globalized/ globalizing places. Multi-sited enquiry, scalar and network analysis, as well as my own approach to educational ‘scapes’ have enabled us to play with new configurations of practice and to retheorize (or at least slightly nudge) deep-seated notions of context. How far can such thought go and where could (and should) it sensibly stop?
The second area to consider is the well-worn problem of representation in social science. In the 80s, anthropology framed this as a ‘crisis’, having the courage to say what we all knew: that research is caught up in the invention, not representation, of culture. If it is true that we are entering a ‘post-truth’ and ‘post-factual’ age – one where A.I., the digital enhanced image and a new politics can alter what we think of as ‘reality’ – where does that leave scholarship? Is a ‘science’ of comparative education wishful (and flawed) thinking? What alternatives are on offer and what might they bring?
Finally, issues of representation lead to a consideration of the role of the author/ writer/ creator of comparative educational knowledge. Scientist, activist or artist? What does it mean to acknowledge that data was never as passive as we were led to believe? Should we aim for the ‘truth’ or for telling stories that resonate somewhere and with something deeper. Is that the way to undermine the instrumentalism, measurement and banality of our age?
It is here that I see the great promise of comparative education as a humanistic orientation to the world and to scholarship; one able to transcend the obvious, problematize the factual and question the ‘real’. What might such a comparative education look like in practice?
Education (and by that I refer mainly to the field we call ‘educational studies’) has many agendas of attention. The current interest in MeToo and BLM has emboldened discussion of gender and race in education. To these, one could add concerns related to the Anthropocene/ environmental crisis and to issues involving epistemological diversity (some say ‘justice’). These things are certainly relevant for comparative education, with the latter beginning to influence North American scholarship in particular. Rather than rehearse such themes here, I will focus on three others – some old, some new – that must be taken seriously as comparative education engages with an uncertain future.
The first of these regards the role of space in social theorizing. Here, comparative education has caught up with work in related areas such as political science, geography and anthropology, offering a wide array of visual metaphors and research strategies to engage with educational practices that are unfolding in globalized/ globalizing places. Multi-sited enquiry, scalar and network analysis, as well as my own approach to educational ‘scapes’ have enabled us to play with new configurations of practice and to retheorize (or at least slightly nudge) deep-seated notions of context. How far can such thought go and where could (and should) it sensibly stop?
The second area to consider is the well-worn problem of representation in social science. In the 80s, anthropology framed this as a ‘crisis’, having the courage to say what we all knew: that research is caught up in the invention, not representation, of culture. If it is true that we are entering a ‘post-truth’ and ‘post-factual’ age – one where A.I., the digital enhanced image and a new politics can alter what we think of as ‘reality’ – where does that leave scholarship? Is a ‘science’ of comparative education wishful (and flawed) thinking? What alternatives are on offer and what might they bring?
Finally, issues of representation lead to a consideration of the role of the author/ writer/ creator of comparative educational knowledge. Scientist, activist or artist? What does it mean to acknowledge that data was never as passive as we were led to believe? Should we aim for the ‘truth’ or for telling stories that resonate somewhere and with something deeper. Is that the way to undermine the instrumentalism, measurement and banality of our age?
It is here that I see the great promise of comparative education as a humanistic orientation to the world and to scholarship; one able to transcend the obvious, problematize the factual and question the ‘real’. What might such a comparative education look like in practice?
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication date | 2021 |
| Publication status | Published - 2021 |
| Event | 2nd International Conference of the journal Scuola Democratica (online): Special Session: Re-inventing Education: The role of comparative education - University of Rome (Online), Rome, Italy Duration: 4 Jun 2021 → 4 Jun 2021 https://www.scuolademocratica-conference.net/special-sessions/ |
Conference
| Conference | 2nd International Conference of the journal Scuola Democratica (online) |
|---|---|
| Location | University of Rome (Online) |
| Country/Territory | Italy |
| City | Rome |
| Period | 04/06/2021 → 04/06/2021 |
| Other | The second edition of the International Conference of the journal “Scuola Democratica” (the most important Italian journal about education) is devoted to the needs and prospects of Reinventing Education. The challenges posed by the contemporary world have long required a rethinking of educational concepts, policies and practices. The question about education ‘for what’ as well as ‘how’ and ‘for whom’ has become unavoidable and yet it largely remained elusive due to a tenacious attachment to the ideas and routines of the past which are now far off the radical transformations required of educational systems. Scenarios, reflections and practices fostering the possibility of change towards the reinvention of the educational field as a driver of more general and global changes are centerstage topics at the Conference and will have a multidisciplinary approach from experts from different disciplinary communities, including: sociology, pedagogy, psychology, economics, architecture, political science, etc. We hope with this opportunity to confirm the participation obtained at the first edition of the conference.<br/><br/>The Conference was entirely online and in English |
| Internet address |
Bibliographical note
Re-inventing Education: The role of comparative educationSpeakers: Carlo Cappa (Tor Vergata, University of Rome); Steven Carney (Roskilde University and Comparative Education Society in Europe); Robert Cowen (Institute of Education, UCL); Donatella Palomba (Tor Vergata, University of Rome), Paul Morris (Institute of Education, UCL)
Date and hour: Friday, June 4, 2021 – 5.15 pm-7.30 pm (go to the Conference program)
Within the framework of the general theme of the Conference, the Special Session will discuss the role that comparative education can have in “Re-inventing Education”, with special attention to the question “Education for what”, which in turn inevitably implies the question “What sort of education”?
In these moments of incertitude which are shaking our world in multiple ways, comparative education can play, with an historical as well as a prospective outlook, a particularly incisive role. Not only because, due to its very nature, it is especially equipped to consider phenomena in their international dimension and to read critically global dynamics, but also because it is historically linked with crucial moments of educational change.
The origins of Comparative Education go back to an historical period – the beginning of the 19th century – when the relationship between education and society underwent a radical transformation (perhaps the most radical one that ever happened in the western world); a transformation which led to the systematisation of educational institutions, linked in an unprecedented form to national politics and policies. These patterns became one of the privileged themes within comparative studies in education.
In their subsequent developments, comparative studies measured themselves, decade after decade, with the vicissitudes of nation states, and the relevant shifts that the status of many of them – hegemonic, peripheral, semi-peripheral… – has experienced in international relationships and then within the dynamics of “globalisation”. And now?
Today, many signs warn us that we are facing once more a transformation of the relationship between education and society that is in turn epoch-making, shaking former convictions and calling into question the notion of system and the coordinates according to which we are accustomed to think.
It is for comparative education– although certainly not only for it – to try to elaborate new coordinates for reflecting on “education for what” – as the Conference asks – but also on the nature of the “education” we are talking about, and the new features it may develop, two centuries after the first answers to these questions were offered by this field of study.