Comparative Education in Current Educational Studies: Four Nordic universities in context

Abstract

practices in other countries: an area of study usually called comparative education. Such was the case in the United States, England and Germany as well as in the Nordic countries. What is the current situation? Do education courses at the university level continue to include information on comparative education as a part of the syllabus? If we find that the answer to this question is affirmative, it follows to ask if the contents of the syllabus are similar to those of the past, or whether they have changed, and if so, how, and in what direction? If this paper should demonstrate with the opposite, the question becomes a difficult one since the study of comparative education is also a study of the history of education in a broader context. First of all, the development of educational studies in the three great theoretical traditions in the field: one rooted in the German humanistic tradition, one in the empirical-psychological tradition developed in the United States and one more commonsense British tradition need to be considered. In addition, educational studies are also a part of the larger cultural and socio-political context. We allow ourselves to begin with the strong enthusiasm for education after the Second World War as a background for the status of educational courses generally, and with a look at comparative education specifically. We follow with a discussion of the development of educational courses in the three main traditions mentioned, and in the Nordic countries as exemplified from one leading university from each country. Finally, we will look at the place of comparative education in educational courses. Such a discussion should be in agreement with a central line in Nigel Grant's own efforts in the field of comparative education and a beginning to the answer of one of his last challenges: 'Scandinavia as a unit of study in comparative education' (Grant, 1997).