Problems of conducting comparative studies in education

Abstract

The author critically analyses the persistence in comparative pedagogy of such approach to conducting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, inadequate to the state of integration of the sciences worldwide, and perpetuating the atomisation of the humanities and social sciences characteristic of the 20th century. As such, the author explains the reasons for comparative education to become more open in exploring education in its broader political, cultural, religious, legal and economic context. The discipline necessarily needs to consider the comparative nature of ideas, paradigms, theories, concepts or philosophies of education, to refine its diagnostic tools with respect to differences in the aforementioned contexts, and to refine theory maps and methods of comparative research thus minimising errors in comparison of what is, nonetheless, incomparable.