About
The Comparative and International Education (CIE) Research Group is an internationally-recognised interdisciplinary group dedicated to the study of educational systems, practices, and policies around the world. Since its inception in the 1990s, the group has advanced research and public dialogue about the challenges to educational transformations in low and middle-income countries, and the crises and changing faces of educational systems in other parts of the world.
The CIE research group members work in different global contexts, including Africa (Yousef Khalifa Aleghfeli, Kamal Armanious, David Johnson, David Mills, Brooks Newmark, Natasha Robinson, Karen Skilling), Asia and the Pacific (Aizuddin Mohamed Anuar, Arzhia Habibi, David Johnson, Simon Marginson, Xin Xu, Lili Yang), Europe and Central Asia (Maia Chankseliani, Antonin Charret, Darta Drabovica, Liam Gearon, Lucy Hunt, Lavinia Kamphausen, Simon Marginson, David Mills, Olga Mun, Natia Sopromadze, Elena Tsvetkova, Xin Xu), and the Middle East (Yousef Khalifa Aleghfeli, Anne Desiderio).
Thematically, we have developed expertise in education and international development (Aizuddin Mohamed Anuar, Maia Chankseliani, David Johnson, David Mills, Natasha Robinson); global, international and comparative higher education (Antonin Charret, Maia Chankseliani, Darta Drabovica, Arzhia Habibi, Lavinia Kamphausen, Simon Marginson, David Mills, Olga Mun, Natasha Robinson, Natia Sopromadze, Elena Tsvetkova, Xin Xu, Lili Yang); education, radicalisation and international terrorism (Liam Gearon, David Johnson); research on research and science, academic publishing, research governance, doctoral education (Maia Chankseliani, David Mills, Olga Mun, Xin Xu); education and rurality (Aizuddin Mohamed Anuar, Maia Chankseliani); education, ethnicity, and conflict (David Johnson, Liam Gearon); educational and social theory (Aizuddin Mohamed Anuar, Maia Chankseliani, Simon Marginson); ethics, epistemic justice, moral philosophy and education (Liam Gearon, Arzhia Habibi, Olga Mun, Xin Xu); education for human flourishing and character education (David Johnson, Fiona Gatty); technical and vocational education and training (Kamal Armanious, Maia Chankseliani); STEM & mathematics education (Aizuddin Mohamed Anuar, Karen Skilling); education for refugee children and youth, stateless children and youth, undocumented child and youth migrants (Yousef Khalifa Aleghfeli, Lucy Hunt); postcolonial theory (Aizuddin Mohamed Anuar, Lavinia Kamphausen, Olga Mun); global citizenship education (Arzhia Habibi).
The CIE research group brings together diverse methodological perspectives, ranging from ethnographic case studies, critical discourse analysis, and synthetic-historical analysis to surveys, systematic reviews, and bibliometric analysis. Our ongoing studies also use qualitative and social network analysis, diary method, focus groups, grounded theory, participant observation, and creative visual methods.
Our approach to the study of education is highly interdisciplinary. The group has engaged in collaborations with academics working at Oxford, across the UK, and globally; and significantly, with international agencies like the British Council, European Commission, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Open Society Foundations, Templeton World Charity Foundation, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, World Bank. In this way the group benefits from a wide spectrum of thought and the contributions of economists, political scientists, historians, geographers, and anthropologists as it seeks to gain a richer and deeper understanding of the social, cultural and political fabric of educational systems across world regions and areas, or the new insights into relationships between education and society.
International, cross-university and college collaboration has resulted in a number of seminars, conferences and significant publications. This year we have launched Global Public Seminars in Comparative and International Education (jointly organised with St Edmund Hall). Global Public Seminars in Comparative and International Education address themes of major interest to academics, practitioners, and policy-makers working in the field of education globally. These seminars aim to illuminate the role of education in societal development, with a focus on understanding changes in education policy, discourse, and practice, and how these changes influence individual opportunities and shape the development of educational institutions around the world. Seminars will zoom into the local and zoom out into the national and supranational spaces, flows, and influences on education.
The Comparative and International Education Research is convened by Dr Maia Chankseliani, Associate Professor of Comparative and International Education.
