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Crossley, Michael & Watson, Keith (2003). Comparative
and International Research in Education: Globalization,
Context and Difference. London/New York: Routledge Falmer.
Pp. vi + 177
$ 43.95 (Paper) ISBN 0-415-19122-X
M. Fernanda Astiz
Canisius College
August 9, 2004
While reviewing faculty tenure guidelines, the school of
education I am associated with engaged in a stimulating
discussion of what should and should not be considered
scholarship. This discussion, of course, reveals the endless and
sometimes passionate epistemological debate in the social
sciences between primarily positivist and relativist approaches
to the nature of scientific research. It is particularly this
battle between scientific paradigms that, according to Thomas
Kuhn (1962), is crucial for the advancement of science. I may
say that not many faculty members realized they were engaged in
such a philosophical discussion. However, regardless of whether
my colleagues acknowledged what the root of the debate was or
not, as a junior faculty member I took some distance from the
conversation and, as a good cultural anthropologist would do, I
diligently observed and participated only when some points of the
conversation were unclear to me, thus bringing some understanding
and guidance to the debate. Department meetings have never been
as interesting.
It was around the time when this intense debate was
approaching its climate, which generated some tension among the
faculty, that I received Michel Crossley and Keith Watson’s
book for review; how timely. By discussing the distinction
between the comparative and international dimensions of the
discipline, the book particularly addresses the nature of the
aforementioned epistemological debate. As a consequence of this
discussion, the book elaborates an alternative frame of reference
to the multidisciplinary field of comparative education. The
reconceptualization of comparative and international research in
education proposed by the authors also attempts to bridge the
tensions between “North” and “South,” and
research, policy and action. This is done while arguing for
increasing cultural and contextual sensitivity in comparative and
international educational research. Undoubtedly, these two
exemplary scholars engage in an arduous and promising endeavor
worth reading.
To carry out their objectives, Crossley and Watson divide the
book into eight chapters organized around three methodological
and theoretical themes. First, they present an outline of the
state of the art of comparative and international education and a
review of the historical evolution of the field. In doing so,
the authors offer details of the differences between comparative
and international education traditions and the purpose that
guided research agendas and methodologies in the field since its
initial stages of development. In the process, they suggest
which challenging areas within the field of comparative research
demand critical consideration today, including the focus of
current research themes, tensions between global and local
priorities and their conflicting agendas, the difficulties in
conducting comparative research in developing countries, and the
limitations of statistical data, among others. Although these
points pervade the entire book, they are particularly addressed
in the introductory chapter, and chapters 2 and 3. In these
three opening chapters the reader finds valuable historical and
methodological details of the field, not readily available
elsewhere.
Second, the authors engage in “a critical analysis of
the implications of the literature relating to globalization,
post-modernization and post-colonialism for the future
development of comparative and international research in
education.” (p.4) These implications are explored in depth
in chapter 4, however, the analysis is also integrated into all
the chapters that follow. While engaging in a debate over the
meaning of globalization, how much neoliberal and marketization
ideologies dominate its research, and a critique of post-modern
traditions that brought so much tension between theory and
practice, Crossley and Watson claim the need for contextual
analyses and research designs that provide cultural insights of
the impact of globalization on varied educational realities.
Even when the authors recognize that these analyses deserve
clarification and articulation within a variety of intellectual
traditions, they suggest that contemporary relationships between
globalization and cultural context can be better captured by
post-colonial views. Here lies one of the book strengths and
also one of its weaknesses.
Although focusing on culturally context-oriented approaches is
an important and well-recognized practice for revealing
cross-national differences in the field, there is no unique
approach that can provide thorough explanation of local
educational realities as suggested by Crossley and Watson. If
Kuhn’s (1962) argument is assumed, then there is a need for
confronting views and diverse paradigms within a scientific field
for science to prosper. Educational comparativists have accepted
this precept at the philosophical level, but surprisingly only
occasionally have embodied it in their own personal and
professional histories. Probably in this case, the same
rationale of universality advanced by the “West,”
particularly international lending institutions in the shaping of
educational policy worldwide (Chapter 5 and 6), that Crossley and
Watson critique, caught them by surprise. Instead of accepting
the push and pull of ideas against the status quo, there is a
perceived tendency in this book to fit everyone into a single
worldview.
Third, the book engages in the assessment and critique of
current international research in education “in regards to
its relevance for (i) the improvement of education policy and
practice and (ii) the theoretical and methodological advancement
of future comparative and international research and development
initiatives.” (p.5) Although these points are addressed
throughout the book, they are specifically covered from chapter 5
onwards. By means of a comprehensive literature review and
content analysis of bilateral and multilateral development
assistance agencies’ documents, the authors meticulously
examine the limitations of current education policy agendas,
dominated by economic priorities and competitive, assessment, and
accountability discourses. Looking into the future of the field,
they identify research and policy priorities that can instill the
“bridging between the diverse world of research, theory,
and practice” (p.70) while emphasizing “issues of
culture, identity, democracy, power and difference”
(p.82). This, in turn, requires the questioning of
taken-for-granted beliefs and the reconceptualization of the
field that the authors suggest in chapters 7 and 8. Some of
those future priorities include: cross-cultural dialogue; the
social, educational, and citizenship goals of education; the role
of knowledge in development; and the cultural dimensions of
teaching and learning, among others.
While reviewing current research agendas, the authors
particularly criticize the use policymakers make of the
Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA)
studies of school performance. I could not agree more with the
authors in this point. The problem of cross-national studies of
the kind is their misuse. Policymakers usually are caught in the
trap of ranking countries based on data of achievement results
from longitudinal comparative studies such as the former Third
International Math and Science Study (TIMSS), which is currently
called Trends in Math and Science Study, without taking into
consideration the statistical significance of those rankings or
the context of schooling in those countries (LeTendre, Baker,
Akiba, & Wiseman, 2001). However, international comparative
studies such as those carried out by IEA, the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), or the United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) provide opportunities for bridging the gap between
policy, theory, and practice that Crossley and Watson commend.
Instead of being used for direct transfer of models and practices
from country to country, which concerns the authors and education
comparativists alike, these studies offer opportunities for
multidisciplinary endeavors and collaboration between
researchers, practitioners and policymakers. They also have the
potential of enriching our understanding of how diverse
organizational arrangements improve schools worldwide (Meyer
& Baker, 1996).
When it comes to the theoretical and methodological
advancement of future comparative and international research and
development, the reconceptualization of the field that Crossley
and Watson suggest (Chapter 7 and 8) recaptures the approach that
scholars from diverse worldviews such as Altback and Kelly
(1986); Arnove, Altbach and Kelly (1992); Bray and Thomas,
(1995); Meyer and Baker, (1996); Ball (1998); Arnove (2001);
Ginsbug and Gorostiaga (2001); and Torres (2001) to name just a
few, proposed in the past. Crossley and Watson’s
poststructuralist approach calls for studies that are
multidisciplinary in nature, combine frames of reference and
units of analysis, and emphasize the relationship between global,
national, and local trends and issues. The authors envision an
approach that could synthesize the tension between the two major
historical traditions within the field, the theoretically and
culturally driven action-oriented comparative analyses and the
applied policy driven international studies. The suggested
approach advocates for a theoretical and methodological paradigm
that should gain from the partnerships and cooperation between
north and south and engage in research and policy design based on
empirical culturally driven local knowledge.
Although Crossley and Watson’s reconceptualization
sounds like a promising intellectual challenge, it falls short in
providing detailed information about how these multiple
combinations of methods and conceptual frames could be
articulated and implemented. It seems appropriate here to
clarify that the type of questions comparativists seek to answer,
the purpose they try to achieve, and the motivations for doing so
(e.g. triangulation or complementarity), and the level or levels
of analyses reached, should guide the various possibilities for
theoretical and methodological combinations that are in hand
(Morgan, 1998). Without falling into groundless theoretical
frameworks and loose methodological mixes, comparativists should
carefully examine which frames of reference and methodologies
serve best to address macro and micro level concerns in
education. This hopefully leads to a conceptual and
methodological focus that fosters the universality required in
all scientific fields without losing contextual meaning and
nuance. Of course, this requires the courage to adopt
constricting rules of scientific procedure that scholars in
comparative education have been trying to avoid; a general
guideline of basic principles that will guide educational
comparisons. As Crossley and Watson suggest comparative and
international education to date is the history of this search and
its tensions. This is the task the field has for its future
agenda, particularly in an era of so much political, social, and
economic complexity. The value of Crossley and Watson’s
book is that it instills critical thinking in an acute
epistemological debate that the comparative and international
field should maintain if it is to continue
flourishing.
On a closing note, the book sounds a little repetitive and
confusing at times. Probably, these problems stem from the
writing style of the authors. Also, I must note the quality of
the book’s binding. I finished this review with the book
split in almost five separate pieces. The book’s binding
did not survive the vagaries of a careful reader such as
highlighting, underlying, and flipping pages back and forth. The
book, which is fit for a graduate level course in comparative
education, will not fare any better throughout a semester of
intense use. For the latter, Crossley and Watson are not to be
blamed, but RoutledgeFalmer press.
References
Altbach, P., & Kelly, G. (1986). New Approaches to
Comparative Education. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
Arnove, R., Altbach, P., & Kelly, G. (1992). Emergent
Issues in Education: Comparative Perspectives. Buffalo, NY:
State University of New York Press.
Arnove, R. (2001). CIES facing the twenty-first century:
Challenges and contributions. Comparative Education Review,
45(4), 477-503.
Ball, S. (1998). Comparative perspectives in education policy.
Special Number of Comparative Education, 34(2).
Bray, M., & Thomas, R. (1995). Levels of comparison in
educational studies: Different insights from different
literatures and the value of multilevel analyses. Harvard
Educational Review, 3(3), 1-24.
Ginsburg, M., & Gorostiaga, J. (2001). Relationships
between theorists/researchers and policy makers/practitioners:
Rethinking the two-cultures thesis and the possibility of
dialogue. Comparative Education Review, 45(2),
173-196.
Kuhn, T. (1962). The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
LeTendre, G. K., Baker D., Akiba M., and Wiseman A. (2001).
The policy trap: Educational policy and The Third International
Math and Science Study. International Journal of Educational
Policy Research and Practice, 2(1), 45-64.
Meyer, J., & Baker, D. (1996). Forming American
educational policy with international data: Lessons from the
sociology of education. Sociology of Education, Special
Issue: 123-130.
Morgan, D. (1998). Practical strategies for combining
qualitative and quantitative methods: Applications to health
research. Qualitative Health Research, 8(3), 362-376.
Torres, C. (2001). Globalization and comparative education in
the world system. Comparative Education Review, 45(4),
iii-x.
About the Reviewer
M. Fernanda Astiz is an Assistant Professor in the
School of Education and Human Services at Canisius College. She
received her PhD from Penn State University in Educational
Theory and Policy and Comparative and International Education.
Her research and teaching interests are in educational
foundations and comparative and international education. Among
her current research interests are the impact of globalization
on education policy, school organizations, decentralization
policies, and youth political socialization.
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