Comparative and International Education Research

The centre for Comparative and International Education undertakes research into the nature of educational systems, educational policy, and learning and the curriculum across several regions of the world.

The overall aim is to develop an in-depth knowledge of education, state and culture in individual countries or world regions (David Phillips, on Germany and Eastern Europe; David Johnson on South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa; Colin Brock on Latin America) as well as systematic comparisons between countries within and between various regions of the world.

Systematic comparisons are mainly driven by themes, for example policy borrowing and the historical trajectories of educational change in policy and practice, or by historical periods, for example ‘countries in transition’ or ‘countries affected by violent conflict’. But mainly, our approach to the study of education in different world regions is uniquely interdisciplinary.

Working in close collaboration with centres or departments in the School for Interdisciplinary Area Studies and St Antony’s College, we have invited contributions from economists, political scientists, historians, geographers and anthropologists to gain a richer and deeper understanding of the  social, cultural and political fabric of educational systems in Eastern Europe (Michael Kaser and David Phillips), Japan (David Phillips and Roger Goodman), Brazil (David Phillips and Leslie Bethell), Africa (David Johnson and William  Beinart), South Asia (David Johnson and Nandani Gooptu), the Middle East and North Africa (Colin Brock and Lila Zia Levers), China (David Johnson, David Phillips and Vivienne Shue), and Russia (David Johnson, David Phillips and Robert Service).