Shape-shifting of Comparative Education: Towards a Comparative History of the Field

Abstract

Robert Cowen was perhaps the first to coin the term ‘comparative educations’ (1990e) to allude to the multiple forms and historical trajectories of this academic field. This chapter has been inspired by Cowen’s writings on the development of comparative education worldwide. It seeks to apply his concept of ‘shape-shifting’, referring to the “metamorphoses of the institutions and social processes, which are mobile” (Cowen, 2009c, p.323), to the field of comparative education. Particularly, I seek to elucidate the transformations that the field of academic comparative education has undergone as it has been transferred and ‘transported’ across international boundaries over different historical periods. The first theme – multiple comparative educations – points to the resultant permutations of this mobile field, while the second – shape-shifting – points to the processes and factors of its transformation. The chapter seeks to relate these two facets in order to address Cowen’s call, at least in part, for a comparative history of the field of comparative education. Among the questions it confronts are: What factors have shaped academic comparative education? Why does comparative education shape-shift from one national space to another? Why is there not one universal form of comparative education?