Routledge Library Editions: Comparative Education – serie

Reissuing works originally published between 1962 and 1995, this collection is made up of volumes that examine insights and data from the practises and situation in one country or area when considering educational practice elsewhere. Many important educational questions are examined from this international and comparative perspective in these volumes. Countries represented here include Russia, the Caribbean, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, China, France, Japan, Israel, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. Many of the volumes look at the whole area of comparative education and its methods and theories, while one looks at the Unesco literacy program.

Originally published in 1969. British merchants first penetrated to Moscow in the early 16th century. From that time until today developments in Russia have influenced Britain in innumerable ways - sometimes unexpectedly. In this volume Professor Armytage traces this influence, showing how Tolstoy, Kropotkin and others better known for their activities in fields other than education, have, in fact, had their effect on education in Britain. The lively account of the way in which these ideas have found their way into the British system shows that recent influences have been more direct. In particular the rapid development of higher technological education owes a great deal to the Russian example.

Originally published in 1990. The Caribbean basin is an extremely diverse area in geographical, ethnic and cultural terms. Its educational systems, too, are remarkably varied, reflecting colonial and religious traditions as well as those of a broad range of post-independence movements. Even these show a pronounced merging of the home-grown and the foreign, with the influence of the superpowers never far away. This book comprises a number of case studies ranging across the Caribbean region. The contributors focus in particular on Puerto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica, the British Virgin Islands, Mexico City, Central America, Costa Rica and Venezuela. By assembling studies from diverse cultural and political traditions and networks, the book gives a more comprehensive Caribbean perspective on education than has hitherto been available.

Originally published in 1985. Latin America is a region where widespread economic, social and political changes are taking place. Some countries, such as Brazil, are becoming new industrial giants, whereas others with good prospects are performing poorly in the economic sphere. In politics, countries such as Cuba are leading world revolutionary powers; whilst in others right-wing military regimes prevail. Political revolutions occur frequently. All this change and instability is closely bound up with education. Education systems and courses are greatly affected by social, political and economic changes; and at the same time education is used to steer changes in particular directions. This book surveys the current state of education in Latin America. It reviews the nature of education systems and the content of courses, and discusses a range of key themes, in particular those concerned with the connections between education and political, economic and social change. There is no attempt in the book to provide a blanket coverage of educational issues and problems in Latin America, but rather to concentrate on a description and critical analysis of formal educational provisions in some countries of the region.

Originally published in 1992. This work provides insight into comparative and international education work in Australia and New Zealand, where an emerging local style may be developing into a full blown national approach. The 14 essays address issues such as education in third-world Asia, sexism, and culture and power. There is recurring focus on ethics in research, education development, the role of international agencies, inequality, legitimacy and the link between comparative education and education practice. This a great reflection on the field as a whole, with contributions mostly from one area of the world but with a complete international spread of consideration.

Originally published in 1971. This book looks at the French educational services. which had been being reformed over the 1960s. The dynamic for change stemmed from population pressures, higher aspirations and students’ dissatisfaction. The author shows how attempts to reform have been limited by administrative, political and cultural restraints. He also explores the whole complex of inter-related professional problems which face the reformers, including the need to revise and modernize the syllabus of work in many subjects, relationships between students and their teachers, and changes in the professional education of teachers. The book will interest all those interested in the working of an educational system and its relationship to the society around it.

Originally published in 1981. Presented here is a coherent theory of Comparative Education research, based on the traditions and innovations established by such pioneers as Joseph Lauwerys and Nicholas Hans. From the author’s substantive studies emerges a taxonomy for education based on Popper’s critical dualism, and a way of analysing problems based on Dewey's reflective thinking and the social change theories of people such as Marx, Ogben and Pareto. Models of formal organisations drawn from Talcott Parsons show how systems analyses can be made in comparative perspective and how the processes of policy formulation, adoption and implementation can be studied. The use of ideal typical normative models illustrates how comparative educationists can penetrate aspects of man's socially created worlds. These techniques are exemplified in succinct models against which debates about education in Western Europe (Plato), the USA (Dewey) and the USSR (Marx, Engels and Lenin) can be analysed. Against the crude use of comparative arguments and transplantation of foreign practices, Dr Holmes suggests that problems should be analysed and the outcomes of hypothetical solutions or policies should be tested under identified national circumstances. The distinctive feature of this book is that it takes account of the debate among social scientists, rejects both induction and ethnomethodology as adequate in themselves and brings together the problem-solving approach favoured by American research workers and the hypothetico-deductive method of enquiry advocated by natural scientists such as Sir Peter Medawar and Sir John Eccles.

Originally published in 1985. China is currently making a massive effort to educate its workforce in a formal and structured system. A good deal has been written about China’s attempts, since 1949, to eradicate illiteracy and to universalise primary and secondary school education but the subject of this book is an educational system established to meet the needs of those already employed whether in government, industry or agriculture.Two study teams, sponsored by the lnternational Council for Adult Education, visited China in 1981 to explore this educational phenomenon. Their findings, updated by subsequent ICAE visits and enriched by further reading, form the basis of this book. This is the story of the Chinese experience of developing adult education. It will be valuable to those involved in extending education in the industrialised world who are pursuing modernisation goals for people long excluded from the formal education system.

Originally published in 1988. Bringing the world close to universal literacy will be a major legacy of the twentieth century. But the rapid and widespread developments in education that have enabled this to happen have not taken place in a social and political vacuum. In some instances conditions conducive to mass literacy have only come about through popular revolution or rapid economic development, but a less spectacular and frequently less tangible role has been played by a number of international agencies. The most prominent of these is Unesco, which has had the goal of global literacy at the heart of its endeavours ever since its foundation in 1946. Agreement on the best means of achieving this goal, however, has been very difficult to come by, and Unesco's literacy program has been shaped by internal and external politics as well as by local exigencies. This book outlines how Unesco's literacy program has evolved, and by discussing how idealistic aims and intentions have been given shape and direction by more immediate political and bureaucratic concerns provides a critique, in miniature, of the post-war history of the United Nations and related organisations.

Originally published in 1962. In this book the main problems of contemporary education are illustrated with fresh material from many countries and assessed in a context of rapid change in technology, society, and politics. Familiar educational concerns are carefully considered; but the altered status of schools, teachers and homes in relation to competing influences receives particular attention. Recent reforms in the Soviet Union, and the development of education in Asia and Africa, are assessed vis-a-vis topical questions and proposals in Great Britain, the United States, and several Western European countries. The book is therefore useful both for ‘problem' studies in comparative education, and for an up-to-date review of principles and practices in a critically formative period. It is also intended to present a study of education that will be widely educative and contribute to world understanding.

Originally published in 1985. The French education system is unique in many ways and provides a useful contrast for those in all English-speaking countries to their own education system. The nature of the system; the resulting multiplicity of Inspectors; emphasis on nursery and primary schools and on vocational training; and the distinctions between different categories of teachers. This book provides an overview of the French education system and all its components. It discusses developments since the start of the Fifth Republic in 1958 and it relates the developments to changing political forces.

Originally published in 1974. Here is a detailed discussion of educational change in New Zealand with implications which should provoke a fresh approach both to the educational tradition in Britain and to the problems of other educational systems which are subject to democratic control. It is primarily concerned with developments in the quarter-century between 1945 and 1970. With frequent reference to events preceding and following this period, the author stresses throughout the professed educational ideal of all post-war New Zealand governments: to provide equality of opportunity in education. He deals with principles of policy and administrative control, including the universities and estimates the influence on official policy of interest groups inside and outside the educational system. He examines social issues which include the extent to which governments have failed to promote equality of opportunity in the schooling of minority groups in the country, and treats, in an historical perspective, the perennial vexed question of state aid to private schools. The concluding chapters describe and analyse the characteristics, difficulties and prospects of primary, secondary and tertiary education.

Originally published in 1977. This is a lively account of the day-to-day running of European schools based in five countries - France, West Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal. It outlines the organisation of education in these countries, and examines aspects of curriculum, teaching methods, examinations, attitudes of teachers and pupils, buildings, equipment, out-of-school activities, pastoral care, discipline and rules and depicts what it is like to be a pupil or teacher in a European school. The schools discussed are mainly primary and lower secondary grades - the basic compulsory education of each country. Details of working hours, programmes and curricula which are, notably, often government controlled, are given in Appendices. But the author stresses that his aim throughout has been to show how individual schools work and adopt these rules to their own situation. He discusses the relative advantages and drawbacks of different educational systems, and draws his own conclusions about the favourable impressions he gained from many schools and the Awful Warning he saw in a few. This survey throws as much light on schools at home as on those in Europe and suggests that we have a good deal to learn from our neighbours.

Originally published in 1995. This study of the integration of East and West German education following the collapse of the German Democratic Republic in 1989 focuses on policy formation and implementation during this period of great social and political turbulence. It is the result of a research project undertaken shortly after the unification. The authors lived in East Germany for a full year, looking carefully at individual schools, vocational training centers, teacher colleges, and universities. The book considers questions of how education policy is successfully formulated, conditions in which that policy is implemented and the consequences of the implemented educational reform. The first chapters present the context and history of German education and the later chapters discuss the unification and the formation of the new school laws and the successes and failures. The authors' research shows that even before the unification East Germans had already opted for a system consistent with West German education law. However, the West Germans disregarded these changes and imposed their own version of reform on East Germany. The German situation at this time is of great interest to all educators, particularly students of educational policy making, as well as researchers in political science, economics, and sociology.

Originally published in 1984. This annotated bibliography is a comprehensive record of English-language materials which focus on Education in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It provides an excellent resource to scholars, beginning with a long introductory chapter about the role of education, formal and non-formal, in the two Germanies. The socio-historical context is presented but also the authors offer discussion of educational research trends. The bibliography is structured in useful thematic chapters and within the categories then split into those relating to East and West Germany.

Originally published in 1995. This ethnographic account of teaching practise in both Japan and the USA offers an excellent cross-cultural perspective of education. It focuses on beginning teachers and particularly highlights both the similarities and the contrasting elements between the two countries. In part the authors inquire into the socialisation of new teachers in their particular culture. Chapters provide detailed accounts of how teachers in the study in both countries learned to teach and the strategies they used when facing problems and key issues such as child motivation. Both countries have sought to learn from each other’s practices but this fascinating study will be of interest to anyone in the teaching world.

Originally published in 1988. The Soviet secondary school is an important topic for comparative educationalists and also for political scientists interested in how the Soviet education system shapes the outlook of Soviet children. This book charts developments in the Soviet secondary school, beginning in the prerevolutionary period and coming right up to the present. It shows how the system was radically changed at several different points. The author, who emigrated to Israel from the Kharkov district in 1977, has considerable personal experience of the system as school-girl, teacher, director of studies and headmistress and this experience naturally colours and enriches her analysis.

Originally published in 1979. This study was supported by a grant from the Bernard Van Leer Foundation, The Hague, Netherlands. The Gifted Disadvantaged is the result of a ten year study, and presents an innovative program in the education of the more gifted among the socially disadvantaged, demonstrating the merit of such a program designed and implemented in Israel.

Originally published in 1985. Throughout the world the same key issues of concern recur in education in different countries. However, education specialists all too often are inward looking and consider problems only in the confines of their own country. This book argues that much is to be gained by taking a broader, more international view as the experiences of other countries can often provide valuable insights on how policies and practice can be improved in one's own country. The book illustrates this argument by examining in detail seven major issues of present concern and comparing how they are handled in different countries.

Originally published in 1985. In the last two decades education in the Third World has greatly expanded, raising many important issues. Some less developed countries have emulated the West in the style and organisation of their academic systems, hence, it could be said, increasing their dependence. Others have deliberately avoided this path, experimenting with systems more relevant to development and often in a radical way. At a theoretical level, Marxist and neo-Marxist development theorists argue that education systems dependent on the West are evidence of economic dependency and of the correctness of Marxist development theories; while others argue that the evidence points to an interdependent world and that dependency theories do not apply to education. Interestingly two key Marxist Third World Countries, China and Cuba, have very conservative education systems. This book discusses the problems of dependence and interdependence in education throughout the world.

Originally published in 1991. This book concerns the reception and spread of American-style progressivism in post-Fascist Italy. It places educational reconstruction in fuller historical perspective referring to newly-available archival sources. Documenting the Allied input to reconstruction efforts and the response of the Italian bureaucrats and the Church, the book shows the struggle over schooling that sheds light on other political and social questions in this period. This is an in-depth study of the Anglo-American reconstruction policy in education which is a substantial contribution to understanding America’s post-war cultural and social influence throughout Western European society.

Originally published in 1969. British merchants first penetrated to Moscow in the early 16th century. From that time until today developments in Russia have influenced Britain in innumerable ways - sometimes unexpectedly. In this volume Professor Armytage traces this influence, showing how Tolstoy, Kropotkin and others better known for their activities in fields other than education, have, in fact, had their effect on education in Britain. The lively account of the way in which these ideas have found their way into the British system shows that recent influences have been more direct. In particular the rapid development of higher technological education owes a great deal to the Russian example.

Originally published in 1990. The Caribbean basin is an extremely diverse area in geographical, ethnic and cultural terms. Its educational systems, too, are remarkably varied, reflecting colonial and religious traditions as well as those of a broad range of post-independence movements. Even these show a pronounced merging of the home-grown and the foreign, with the influence of the superpowers never far away. This book comprises a number of case studies ranging across the Caribbean region. The contributors focus in particular on Puerto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica, the British Virgin Islands, Mexico City, Central America, Costa Rica and Venezuela. By assembling studies from diverse cultural and political traditions and networks, the book gives a more comprehensive Caribbean perspective on education than has hitherto been available.

Originally published in 1985. Latin America is a region where widespread economic, social and political changes are taking place. Some countries, such as Brazil, are becoming new industrial giants, whereas others with good prospects are performing poorly in the economic sphere. In politics, countries such as Cuba are leading world revolutionary powers; whilst in others right-wing military regimes prevail. Political revolutions occur frequently. All this change and instability is closely bound up with education. Education systems and courses are greatly affected by social, political and economic changes; and at the same time education is used to steer changes in particular directions. This book surveys the current state of education in Latin America. It reviews the nature of education systems and the content of courses, and discusses a range of key themes, in particular those concerned with the connections between education and political, economic and social change. There is no attempt in the book to provide a blanket coverage of educational issues and problems in Latin America, but rather to concentrate on a description and critical analysis of formal educational provisions in some countries of the region.

Originally published in 1992. This work provides insight into comparative and international education work in Australia and New Zealand, where an emerging local style may be developing into a full blown national approach. The 14 essays address issues such as education in third-world Asia, sexism, and culture and power. There is recurring focus on ethics in research, education development, the role of international agencies, inequality, legitimacy and the link between comparative education and education practice. This a great reflection on the field as a whole, with contributions mostly from one area of the world but with a complete international spread of consideration.

Originally published in 1971. This book looks at the French educational services. which had been being reformed over the 1960s. The dynamic for change stemmed from population pressures, higher aspirations and students’ dissatisfaction. The author shows how attempts to reform have been limited by administrative, political and cultural restraints. He also explores the whole complex of inter-related professional problems which face the reformers, including the need to revise and modernize the syllabus of work in many subjects, relationships between students and their teachers, and changes in the professional education of teachers. The book will interest all those interested in the working of an educational system and its relationship to the society around it.

Originally published in 1981. Presented here is a coherent theory of Comparative Education research, based on the traditions and innovations established by such pioneers as Joseph Lauwerys and Nicholas Hans. From the author’s substantive studies emerges a taxonomy for education based on Popper’s critical dualism, and a way of analysing problems based on Dewey's reflective thinking and the social change theories of people such as Marx, Ogben and Pareto. Models of formal organisations drawn from Talcott Parsons show how systems analyses can be made in comparative perspective and how the processes of policy formulation, adoption and implementation can be studied. The use of ideal typical normative models illustrates how comparative educationists can penetrate aspects of man's socially created worlds. These techniques are exemplified in succinct models against which debates about education in Western Europe (Plato), the USA (Dewey) and the USSR (Marx, Engels and Lenin) can be analysed. Against the crude use of comparative arguments and transplantation of foreign practices, Dr Holmes suggests that problems should be analysed and the outcomes of hypothetical solutions or policies should be tested under identified national circumstances. The distinctive feature of this book is that it takes account of the debate among social scientists, rejects both induction and ethnomethodology as adequate in themselves and brings together the problem-solving approach favoured by American research workers and the hypothetico-deductive method of enquiry advocated by natural scientists such as Sir Peter Medawar and Sir John Eccles.

Originally published in 1985. China is currently making a massive effort to educate its workforce in a formal and structured system. A good deal has been written about China’s attempts, since 1949, to eradicate illiteracy and to universalise primary and secondary school education but the subject of this book is an educational system established to meet the needs of those already employed whether in government, industry or agriculture.Two study teams, sponsored by the lnternational Council for Adult Education, visited China in 1981 to explore this educational phenomenon. Their findings, updated by subsequent ICAE visits and enriched by further reading, form the basis of this book. This is the story of the Chinese experience of developing adult education. It will be valuable to those involved in extending education in the industrialised world who are pursuing modernisation goals for people long excluded from the formal education system.

Originally published in 1988. Bringing the world close to universal literacy will be a major legacy of the twentieth century. But the rapid and widespread developments in education that have enabled this to happen have not taken place in a social and political vacuum. In some instances conditions conducive to mass literacy have only come about through popular revolution or rapid economic development, but a less spectacular and frequently less tangible role has been played by a number of international agencies. The most prominent of these is Unesco, which has had the goal of global literacy at the heart of its endeavours ever since its foundation in 1946. Agreement on the best means of achieving this goal, however, has been very difficult to come by, and Unesco's literacy program has been shaped by internal and external politics as well as by local exigencies. This book outlines how Unesco's literacy program has evolved, and by discussing how idealistic aims and intentions have been given shape and direction by more immediate political and bureaucratic concerns provides a critique, in miniature, of the post-war history of the United Nations and related organisations.