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Development Studies and Comparative Education: Context Comparative Education Volume36 No. 32000 pp. 279 –296 DevelopmentStudies and ComparativeEducation:contex t, content,comparisonand contributors ANGELA LITTLE ABSTRACT Thisarticle reviews ComparativeEducation over the past 20 years, explores the parallel literature of development studies, and identies future directions and challenges for comparative education. UsingParkyn (1977) as abenchmark, ananalysis ofarticles published between 1977 and 1998 suggests that onlya small proportion appear tomeet his criteria for comparative education. Parkyn’s purpose for comparative education, toincrease ourunderstanding of the relationship between education and the development of humansociety, is shared by development studies. Educational writingswithin development studies have explored the meanings ofdevelopment and underdevelopment and have raised importantquestions about the unitof analysis for comparative education. Several reasons are advanced toexplain the separate development of these literatures. The contemporary challenge of globalisationpresents fresh opportunities and challenges for both literatures. Ashared commitmentto understanding the role of education inthe globalisationprocess and the reasoned response toit could formthe heart of ashared effort inthe future. Globalisationalso highlights the need for more effective dialogue between comparative educators indifferent corners of the globe. Introduction The purposeof thisarticle is three-fold: to providea briefreview of the journal over the past 20yearsin terms of criteriait hasset for itself; to identify concepts whichhave emerged from Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:00 8 March 2010 development studies over the past20 yearswhich can contribute to and enhance comparative education; and to conclude with suggestions about the future development of the eld of comparativeeducation. Review ofthe Journal The benchmarkfor thisreview is Parkyn’ s (1977) contribution to the SpecialNumber, entitled ‘Comparative Education Researchand Development Education’ (Grant, 1977). Parkynre ects on an issue whichexercised anumber of academics inthe 1970s, the similaritiesand differences between comparativeeducation and development education, and the potential contribution ofthe former to the latter. For Parkyn,the purposeof comparative education was: …to increase our understanding of the relationshipbetween education and the Correspondenceto: AngelaLittle, Educational and International Development, Institute of Education,University of London,20 BedfordWay, London WC1H 0AL, UK. E-mail:[email protected] ISSN0305-0068 print;ISSN 1360-0486 online/00/030279-18 Ó 2000 Taylor& FrancisLtd 280 A. Little development of human society bytakinginto account factors that cannot adequately beobserved and understood within the limitsof anyparticular society, culture, or system, but that transcend particularsocieties and haveto bestudied bycompara- tive methods appliedto societies, cultures and systems … (p. 89) Parkynuses the term ‘development’to refer to allsocieties that areundergoing change. He does not conne the use ofthe term ‘development’to ‘developing’countries. The purposeof development education [1],bycontrast, was: …education aimed at the modernisation of…technological activitiesin order to providebetter for theirmaterial and cultural needs, and at the adaptation of their politicalmachinery and other societal institutions insuch awayas to makepossible the most effective use ofthismodernisation inthe satisfyingof those needs. (p. 89) Despite the association inthe minds ofmany of the term ‘development education’with ‘less developed’countries, Parkynwas at painsto point out that the fundamental distinction between comparativeeducation and development education was not one of geography.The distinction was one of purpose.The purposeof comparativeeducation was understanding and analysis,the purposeof development education was action and change. Comparative education could and should beundertaken inthe countries of the North and the South. Whereverit ispractised, development education should rest on afoundation of comparative education. Whereverin the world it was undertaken, the purposeof comparison was to explorethe inuence of system-level factors on the interaction of within-system variables.This de nition of intellectual purposein turn led toParkyn’s critiqueof comparativeeducation inthe 1970s. The inadequacyof many studies purportingto becomparative, and super- ciallyappearing to becomparative, is, in the lastanalysis, to befound inthe fact that those whichconcentrated on within system variablesor cultural contexts have often lackedinfor- mation on across-system variables,while those whichhave dealt with across-system variableshave often failedto show theirdifferent interaction with within-system variablesin different countries. (Parkyn,1977, p.90 ) So how hasthe eld, asrepresented bystudies publishedby Comparative Education , fared over the pasttwo decades? Does the journal include agood representation of so-called ‘developing countries’, insupport of Parkyn’s proposition that geographyis not adening characteristicof comparativeeducation (context)? Does the journal include agood represen- Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:00 8 March 2010 tation ofarticlesaddressing the fundamental question of comparativeeducation, the relation- shipbetween education and the development of human society (content)? Does the journal demonstrate an understanding of the intellectual purposeof comparison (comparison)? The reviewclassi es the titles of articlespublished by Comparative Education between 1977 and 1998 (Volumes 13–34).Atotal of 472 articleswere classied bycountry context (Table I), content (Table II) and comparison (Table III) bythe author and DrFelicity Rawlings,working independently. Whileacknowledging that atitle isonly anindicator ofan article’s content, aclassication basedon afullreading of all472 articlesfell beyond the scope of the present review. Context TableI indicates the countries mentioned inthe titles of articles.The authors of some 68% (320/472) of articlesmade explicitreference to one or more countries inthe titles of their articles.Seventy-six countries were mentioned, just over one-third (34%) of the 224 coun- trieslisted inUNESCO’s Statistical Yearbook 1998 .Afew countries havefeatured inthe titles Development Studies 281 of alargenumber of articles,for examplethe UK (43), China (31), Japan (28), Germany (21), the USA (20), France (20) and Australia (16).Some 34 countries warrant mention in the title of only one articlein 20 years. The number of countries that haveat least one title publishedwas compared with the total number of countries inthe same region, aslisted inUNESCO’ s Statistical Yearbook 1998.InAfrica,some 17countries appearedin the title of atleast one article,compared with some 56 countries inthe Africaregion, or 30%.Asia, South Americaand Oceania achieved similarpercentages. The countries of Europe achievedthe highestrepresentation of 56%, whilethose of North Americawere under-represented, at 16%.The apparentunder-repre- sentation of titles from North Americamay be accounted for bythe propensityof authors on North Americaneducation to contribute to our important sister journal, Comparative Edu- cation Review ,basedin North America.The similarlevels of representation of countries inthe other four continental blocs—Africa (30%),South America (36%), Asia (35%) and Oceania (30%)—isa signicant achievement for a journal establishedin London and run from the UK,and publishing (currently) only inEnglish. Acomparison of the number of articleswhose titles refer to one or more countries, by continent, presents adifferent picture. The total number of countries referred to intitles is 362. Just over halfof thistotal refers to countries inEurope or North America (Europe 40.1%;North America10.5% ).Afurther 29.6%refer to Asia.Articles focusing oncountries inAfrica, South Americaand Oceania account for 11.3%,1.9% and 6.6%respectively. If one excludes Australiaand New Zealand from the Oceania bloc,the percentage fallsto 1.6%. Aclassication by‘ developed’and ‘developing’country, using the 1998 UNESCO classication, presents aneven sharperpicture. UNESCO’s Statistical Yearbook 1998 classi es 53 (24%) countries as‘ developed’and the remaining171 (76%) as‘ developing’. Some 224 (62%) ofour articlesrefer to ‘developed’countries, and 138 (38%) to‘developing countries’. To the extent that alargenumber of developed and developing countries attract the attention ofauthors, Parkyn’s proposition that geographyis not the essential characteristicof comparativeeducation appearsto beborne out. Atthe same time, itisclearthat over the past decades comparativeeducators haveattended disproportionately oneducational issues inthe countries of Europe, North Americaand, to adegree, Asia. Content Downloaded By: [informa internal users] At: 11:00 8 March 2010 TableII presents the content of articles,as indicated bytitle, using the classication of journal aimspublished in 1978. The relationshipbetween education and the development of human society, education and development for short, appearsto liebehind 44 of the articles,or 13%of the articles classied bythe 1978 scheme. Titles hereinclude, for example,Blinco on ‘Persistence and Education: aformula for Japan’s economic success’ (Blinco, 1993 ) and Morrison ‘Asia’s Four Little Tigers:a comparison of the role of education intheir development’ (Morris, 1996).These titles appearto address one aspect of Parkyn’s denition of comparative education purpose,the
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