ABSTRACT

This article argues that the worlds which comparative education has explored and is exploring are characterised by three main political patterns. The first and oldest is the competitive nation-state as the starting point of the comparison, an educationalised nation-state, one whose relative global strength in economy and military prowess is attributed to the education system. The second pattern, easily visible in the Cold War, is the idea of an almost standardised progression, linked to economic, military and thus geopolitical power. And the contemporary pattern is that this nexus of global potency and education can be broken down into comparative school performance tests (for example in PISA currently) through which reform needs (almost automatically) are formulated at home, and elsewhere. If this analysis and its history – which is illustrated in the following – is even approximately accurate, ‘comparative education’ may need to re-think some of its basic assumptions about itself.

摘要

本文认为，比较教育已经探索和正在探索的世界以三种主要政治模式为特征。第一个也是最古老的是以竞争性民族国家作为比较的起点，这是一个受教育的民族国家，其经济和军事实力的相对全球实力归因于教育体系。第二种模式在冷战中显而易见，是一种几乎标准化的进程理念，与经济、军事以及地缘政治实力相关。当前的模式是，全球效力和教育的这种联系可以分解为学校表现比较测试（例如目前的 PISA），通过这些测试（几乎自动地）在国内和其他地方制定改革需求。