Comparative education

Comparative education is a discipline in the social sciences which entails the scrutiny and evaluation of different educational systems, such as those in various countries. Professionals in this area of endeavor are absorbed in advancing evocative terminologies and guidelines for education worldwide, enhancing educational structures and producing a context to which the success and effectivity of education programs and initiatives can be assessed. Comparative education is a discipline in the social sciences which entails the scrutiny and evaluation of different educational systems, such as those in various countries. Professionals in this area of endeavor are absorbed in advancing evocative terminologies and guidelines for education worldwide, enhancing educational structures and producing a context to which the success and effectivity of education programs and initiatives can be assessed. According to Harold Noah (1985), and Farooq Joubish (2009), comparative education has four purposes: Comparative education is often incorrectly assumed to exclusively encompass studies that compare two or more different countries. In fact, since its early days researchers in this field have often eschewed such approaches, preferring rather to focus on comparisons within a single country over time. Still, some large scale projects, such as the PISA and TIMSS studies, have made important findings through explicitly comparative macroanalysis of massive data sets. Recent examples in this regard include studies analyzing intra-European and intra-American teacher education. Many important educational questions can best be examined from an international and comparative perspective. For example, in the United States there is no nationwide certificate of completion of secondary education. This raises the question of what the advantages and disadvantages are of leaving such certification to each of the 50 states. Comparative education draws on the experience of countries such as Japan and France to show how a centralized system works, and what the advantages and disadvantages of a centralized certification are. Critics of comparative education refer to it as Policy Borrowing. Comparative education is closely allied to, and may overlap with, international education, international development education, and comparative sociology. The Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) was founded in 1956 to foster 'cross-cultural understanding, scholarship, academic achievement, and societal development through the international study of educational ideas, systems, and practices.'