Comparative education
Some large-scale projects, such as the PISA and TIMSS studies, have made important contributions to the field through explicitly comparative macro analysis of massive data sets.
[8] Structural-functionalism, associated with Talcott Parsons, attempts to explain social phenomena in relationship to a larger systems.
[15] Post-structuralism rejects ideas of structuralism that draw conclusions about society and educational systems based on language usage.
[19] Theoretical adaptations and revisions used in comparative education are neo-liberalism, neo-institutionalism, neo-realism, neo-Gramscian, regimes and regionalism, and cultural political economy (CPE).
[23] According to Verger, Fontdevila, and Zancajo "CPE is an analytical and heuristic approach that pushes us to observe how drivers of a different nature (agentic and structural, global and local, material and ideational, etc.)
[8] According to Steiner-Khamsi, "whereas diffusion relates to the outcome of educational transfer, the study of borrowing and lending deals with the process by which reforms are transplanted from one context to another.
[31] Transitologie focuses on transformation in education and the political, social, economic and ideological changes that coincided with the metamorphosis.
[18] Actor-network theory examines how human and non-human forces interact and influence education changes.
[32] Social network analysis looks at the web of connections between individuals or organizations to understand how educational ideas are shared and transmitted.
[36] Since the end of the 19th century, the development of Comparative Education in Latin America can be characterized as "weak and uneven".
[36][37][38][39] This characterization can be caused due to factors such as the limited development of educational research, the professional orientation of universities, persistent low levels of investment in research and development, and difficulties in producing and updating national indicators as well as regional and cross-national databases.
[36] Acosta and Ruiz (2018) note that, "While some countries in the region, especially those in the Southern Cone, did participate in what is called the 'foreigner pedagogy' when they set up their educational systems (Acosta2011), the field did not take root or flourish as a consistent academic study (López Velarde 2000)" (p.62–63).
[39] These incentives were largely incentivized by Human Capital Theory, which focused on improving the quality of education to produce a higher level of productivity among its population.
[36] Following this period, significant growth of comparative education studies was evident both in academic production and works from international organizations.
[36] Gorostiaga and Espinoza (2019) go on to note that "studies from international organizations were particularly prone to identifying "good practices" or "lessons learned" that may be transferred from one country to another (Acosta & Ruiz, 2018), an exercise that could be seen as part of strategies for legitimizing homogeneous recipes of education reform (Krawczyk, 2013).
Academic production, on the other hand, tended to portray regional patterns and national cases as the result of impositions from international organizations or the hegemony of neoliberal rationalities" (p. 83)[36] Touriñán López (2022) presents the concept of the Mesoaxiological Perspective, an approach to education that is developed alongside the culture of the region.
Numerous philosophers such as John Dewey, Ira Shor, and Henry Giroux have advocated for the usage of social justice should be inseparable from education.
[42] In 1993, the EU developed the Copenhagen Criteria, which, among many other things, set forth three priorities for changes in their education systems.
The current program places a strong emphasis on social inclusion, digital transition, green initiatives, and promoting the participation in democratic life to young people.
The other three areas of concentration focus on making higher education in EEA member states high quality, relevant, inclusive, connected to the local communities, and full of innovation.
The 2022 report covers the right, timing, and kind of learning that citizens in European countries are facing, including the difficulties and disparities that are found in various areas of education.
