Anticipating Other Worlds, Animating Our Selves: An Invitation to Comparative Education

Purpose:This article aims to reimagine education—and our selves—within the context of multiple,more-than-human worlds where everything and everyone are interrelated.Design/Approach/Methods:The aim is achieved by pursuing two speculative thought experiments to connect and bring into conversation seemingly unrelated knowledge systems across space and time—European“paganism”and 13th-century Japanese Buddhism,as well as excerpts from indigenous,ecofeminist,and decolonial scholarship.These thought experiments are conducted through a series of“and if”questions around education and schooling.Findings:The article proposes to radically reimagine education in two ways.First,it invites readers to reconfigure education as a“connective tissue”between different worlds,bringing together rather than hierarchizing them.Second,it proposes to reframe education as an opportunity to learn how to anticipate and animate our ongoing entanglement with more-thanhuman worlds.Originality/Value:Using the concept of“metamorphosis”as an antidote to Western metaphysics,the article re-situates education within a wider set of possibilities in relation to the takenfor-granted ways of knowing and being,as well as the notions of space and time.

Engaging with the More-Than-Human and Decolonial Turns in the Land of Shinto Cosmologies: “Negative” Comparative Education in Practice

Purpose:In this explorative,self-reflective article,I attempt to extend the methodological discussion of a“negative”approach to comparative education that I have recently articulated elsewhere.Here,I demonstrate how I attempted to put in practice negative comparative education by drawing on my experience at the Shanghai workshop,Beyond the Western Horizon in Educational Research,organized by Iveta Silova,Jeremy Rappleye,and Yun You at the East China Normal University.Design/Approach/Methods:I conceive my participation in the Shanghai workshop as a disruptive moment wherein my previous forms of knowing and being were challenged.More specifically,I discuss how my attempt to situate the ecofeminist and decolonial literature,the two of the three main bodies of literature introduced through the workshop,within the context of Japanese education triggered me to reconsider the role of Shinto in Japanese education and question my own firm identification with the liberal–left politics within Japan.Findings:I reflect upon how the initial sense of discomfort and the remaining sense of ambivalence took me on a journey of unlearning and relearning about the limits of my knowing,my own political subjectivities,and the place of Shinto cosmologies in Japanese education.Originality/Value:I conclude the discussion with a few provisional thoughts that point us to an approach to comparative education that makes our research“a matter of concern”across multiple linguistically bounded,national and regional scholarly communities.

A Comparative Perspective of the Educational System in China and Spain

There have been comparisons and debates between the eastern and western educational systems since ancient times.This article starts with the Chinese educational system and its historical development and the Spanish educational system and its historical development,then analyzes and compares the differences between the Chinese and Spanish educational systems,and looks at these differences from an international perspective.

Contribution of International and Comparative Approach to the Policy and Practice of Teacher Education

This study intends to identify the value and pitfalls of international and comparative approach for the policy and practice of teacher education.The structure of this article proceeds as follows:the first section focuses on explaining the meaning and the values of international and comparative approach;based on previous discussions,the second section makes a more in-depth analysis of the values of international and comparative approach to teacher education from five key themes;the final section of this article proposes and interprets the drawbacks of international and comparative approach in teacher education.

Values in Early Childhood Education(ECE):A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study of Values for ECE Expressed in Policy Documents

Purpose:This comparative study identifies core values expressed in Early Childhood Education(ECE)official policy documents from a sample of thirteen countries.Design/Approach/Methods:This study employs document analysis as well as content and thematic analysis.ECE values identified in the policy documents are categorized into three groups:political and society-related values,educational values,and individual and relational values.Findings:Document analysis reveals the values that are common across countries and those that are more specific to just one or a few countries at most.This study discusses the characteristics of these values from the perspective of globalization.In doing so,this comparative study llustrates and discusses the tendencies for both convergence and divergence in ECE values in policymaking worldwide.

Crossing the Rivers by Touching the Stones:Alternative Approaches in Technical and Vocational Education and Training From the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Korea

Purpose:This study aims to answer the following questions:(1)Why have attempts to transplant Western vocational education models failed?(2)Is there anything we can learn from the experiences of Eastern Asian countries when developing their own vocational education models?Design/Approach/Methods:This study reviews the history of transplanting Western skill formation schemes into developing countries,an often-failed die-hard practice supported by both bilateral and multilateral donors.Findings:Our findings suggest that developing countries should design their technical and vocational education and training systems based on their unique cultural,sociological,and economic contexts.It offers two alternative pathways based on the experiences of the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Korea.Originality/Value:These East Asian examples could broaden the perspectives of policymakers in developing countries aspiring to develop functional skill formation schemes.

From Paragon to Peer: China's Shifting Perspective on German Education

It is said that comparative education should start by addressing three questions:What is being compared,how is it being compared,and why?However,there is a fourth,more important question:What is it being compared with?The object of comparison is often a self-evident choice requiring little to no argument.

Modes and Trajectories of Shadow Education in Denmark and China:Fieldwork Reflections by a Comparativist

Purpose In the domain of shadow education(private supplementary tutoring),Denmark and China may be placed at opposite ends of a spectrum.Denmark has a recently emerged,small,and high-cost sector that mostly serves low achievers,while China has a more industrialized sector with a long history and economies of scale.The paper juxtaposes the two to shed light on each.Design/Approach/Methods The article is a personal narrative of the author's research experiences.She grew up and had initial education in China before moving to the Nordic realm for 2 years.This provided a set of initial lenses,which were subsequently deployed in research partnership from her current base in China with colleagues in Denmark.Findings The juxtaposition raises questions that might otherwise not have been asked and provides insights that might otherwise not have been gained.Danish families hesitate to use shadow education for advantages in the egalitarian society,in contrast to Chinese patterns that stress competition and achievement.These facets have implications for the modes of shadow education and even the names of tutorial companies.Originality/Value The paper has a methodological value in addition to its substantive insights on the trajectories of shadow education in the two countries.

Shifting the Education Paradigm:Why International Borrowing Is No Longer Sufficient for Improving Education in China

Purpose-The purpose of this article is to examine the consequences of mutual borrowing of educational policies and practices between the East and the West and implications for Chinese education.Design/Approach/Methods-This paper draws upon a wide variety of historical,cultural,and international assessment data.Findings-The analyses found that the mutual borrowing is unlikely to improve education to the extent that the future world demands.Originality/Value-Thus,the article concludes that instead of wasting resources and time on learning from each other’s past,education systems around the world should work on inventing a new paradigm of education.China is in a unique position to work on the new paradigm.

The World-Class Multiversity:Global Commonalities and National Characteristics

World-Class Universities(WCUs)are nationally embedded comprehensive higher education institutions(HEIs)that are closely engaged in the global knowledge system.The article reviews the conditions of possibility and evolution of WCUs.Three interpretations are used to explain worldwide higher education:neoliberal theory,institutional theory,and critical political economy,which give greater recognition than the other theories to the role of the state and variations between states.World higher education is evolving under conditions of globalization,organizational modernization(the New Public Management),and in some countries,marketization.These larger conditions have become manifest in higher education in three widespread tendencies:massification,the WCU movement,and organizational expansion.The last includes the strengthening of the role of the large multi-disciplinary multi-purpose HEIs(“multiversities”),in the form of both research-intensive WCUs with significant global presence,and other HEIs.The role of binary sector and specialist HEIs has declined.Elite WCUs gain status and strategic advantage in both quantity and quality:through growth and the expansion of scope,and through selectivity and research concentration.The balance between quantity and quality is now resolved at larger average size and broader scope than before.The final section of the article reviews WCUs in China and considers whether they might constitute a distinctive university model.

Comparing the Open University Systems of China and India:Origins,Developments and Prospects

The national open universities of China and India are unique adaptations of the open university model that emanated from the UK.These institutions have expanded to become the largest universities in the world as measured by current enrollment of approximately four million each.This article comparatively analyzes how these open universities have differentiated themselves from the open university model and from each other amidst similarities of outcome and differences of approach.Historical contexts,national governance of higher education,institutional administration,curriculum and international operations are the foci of analysis.The article contributes to the literature on national and local forces that shape higher education systems and aims to spur collaborations between the institutions in question for mutual benefit.