Agendas of attention: a response to Ninnes and Burnett

Abstract

We see in the work of Ninnes and Burnett a thoughtful analysis of an emerging agenda in comparative education. At the same time we are also seeing (in draft articles and book proposals) the emergence of a new hot topic in comparative education: the relationship between terrorism and comparative education. We are still, in Harold Noah's whaling terminology, harpooning some 'loose fish'-topics that do not belong to others (Noah, 1974); though this particular fish, international political relations theory, was never loose and we are not trained to dissect it (Rasmussen, 2001; Viotte & Kauppi, 1999; Wight, 1994). As comparative educationists, our attention flickers and we anguish about ourselves. We cannot make up our minds whether we are hygienic dissectors, like skilled fishmongers; agents of melioration-the politically alert plumbers of educational system improvement; or artistic empathisers, culturally-sensitive florists who examine the exotic in the world's educational gardens. Our agendas of attention alter erratically. Why? There are the routine answers: comparative education is different in different parts of the world; journal editors change; departments of comparative education rise and fall-although when the proposition is offered that 'our' agendas of attention alter erratically, a lot depends on the 'I' and the 'we', the 'us' and the 'them' of it [1]. Nevertheless, it is clear that there is a social universe to be explored. Comparative education-in its visibilities, in its publication protocols and in its institutional forms-looks like a disciplinary subject which is undergoing change. This change is open to analysis in terms of the routine concepts of internal and external neo-colonialism, gatekeeper theory, and institutional tactics to deal with new claims for 'relevance', such as attracting large numbers of students. However, comparative education has always had moments of change. Indeed it had massive shifts before we had theories of intellectual neo-colonialism, professional gatekeepers and so on, and also before early versions of the concept of 'market-share' had passed from visionary churches and business discourses into universities. More than a routine analysis is needed. The shift from the comparative education of Paul Monroe to that of Michael Sadler, from Horace Mann to Ushinsky, from the comparative educations of Hans and Hesse to that of Noah and Eckstein were shifts of startling discontinuity. There is, here, a complex sociology of knowledge which needs exploration. Unfortunately either our histories of ourselves assert that most earlier scholars were (merely) in error; or that there was always a deep continuity in the history of comparative education. In either version, the 'history' ceases to be analytically useful. For example, the Noah and Eckstein history suggests that, behind the surface discontinuities, a telos can be identified: our history is a history of a progress (Noah & Eckstein, 1969). Comparative