“COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION” CONFERENCE: TEN YEARS IN THE EDUCATIONAL SPACE. PROFILE OF THE PARTICIPANTS

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the input of the international conference “The Comparative and International Education” that is being conducted by the Department of the Comparative Education of the Institute of Pedagogy of the National Academy of Educational Science of Ukraine since 2010. Having analysed the aspect of participation the author studies the number and profile of the individual participants, number and profile of the institutions as well as the number of the regions of Ukraine/countries that participated in the conference. Based on the data obtained, the author concludes on the efficiency of the conference in terms of the professional growth of the participants, the formation of comparative education regional communities and of the comparative education community of practice at the Ukrainian level. Based on the indices of participation at the individual level the author concluded that the conference has attracted considerable interest of a large number of researchers. The growth of such interest from year to year is evidenced by the data on the gradual increase in the number of the participants. The author noted that the young researchers/faculty from higher education/research institutions constituted the majority of the participants. The conference has facilitated the formation of a generation of comparative educators who have enriched methodological approaches to CE research, initiated by the oldest CE unit in Ukraine – the Department of Comparative Education of the Institute of Pedagogy of the NAES of Ukraine (established in 1971). The support in the formation of regional communities of comparative education is another input of the “The Comparative and International Education” conference. Attendance of the conference by the representatives from different institutions of a region was the common practice. The author makes conclusion that the integration of the comparative educators from all over Ukraine is a substantial accomplishment of the conference. In fact, the All-Ukrainian Comparative Educators’ Community of Practice was formed. Under the auspices of the “The Comparative and International Education” conference – the only professional conference on comparative education in Ukraine – the comparative educators gathered annually to discuss the experiences, challenges, and perspectives of comparative education in Ukraine and worldwide, gain new knowledge and advanced ideas.