Histories of Comparative and International Educations: ideologies, contestations, and the IRE

• In Event: The 70th anniversary of the International Review of Education: Reflecting on the history of comparative education and ‘development’ (Part 1)

Proposal

History, as the cliché goes, is written by the victors, but the battle for the right to define Comparative and International Education, and to circumscribe its ideological agenda, is still ongoing (Cowen, 2023). Divisions in the field run deep, from methodological paradigm wars, to disciplinary differences, to fundamental questions of purpose, to debates on how coloniality and politics have shaped dominant narratives (Schweisfurth, 2014). Fuelling these divisions across time have been conflictual interpersonal relationships and strong personalities. The plural histories of our plural field therefore do not add up to a clear trajectory so much as a series of parallel competing narratives. Exceptions to this rule are a few dramatic ruptures.

The history of IRE as a journal reflects these contestations, and back issues provide a fruitful archive for exploring some of them. Part of the backdrop is the evolving role of UNESCO as an international organisation, the social and political upheaval of the past 90+ years, including the dramatic rupture of the rise and fall of Nazism, and the personal commitment of individuals such as Friedrich Schneider who were determined to protect the journal and the field from such forces.

Within and beyond IRE, however, sometimes the contested histories and ideologies are generated and played out within the field itself, with key players holding positions that – apparently – cannot peacefully co-exist. Some of the debates focus on relatively esoteric questions of the boundaries of the field, and the lines between, for example, comparative and international and intercultural education (Little, 2010). More intense and personal battles centre on the entanglements of comparative education with coloniality, race, and gendered norms. Understanding and narrating whose work is foundational and who are the founders is not simply an empirical exercise in historical method – it comes with an increasingly entrenched and ideological set of positions and claims to the moral high ground in defining the field and its history (Epstein & Carroll, 2005; Shields & Paulson, 2024).

This contribution to the special issue will explore some of these divisions, and how they reflect and have shaped the history of the field of Comparative and International Education.

Author

• Michele Schweisfurth, University of Glasgow