Culture in International and Comparative Education Research: Conceptual and Methodological Issues

Abstract

This chapter considers some conceptual and methodological challenges that face researchers in their attempts to understand and to compare education across cultures. The two core sections respond to philosophical, anthropological and sociological questions associated with the conceptualization of culture, and to methodological questions associated with conducting international and comparative education research across cultures. Through analysis of the concept of culture and of its consequences – including a genealogy of culture, a deconstruction of ‘national culture’ both in modernity and in late modernity under conditions of globalization – and by consideration of the more thoughtful approaches to comparative methodology in the field, the chapter aims to contribute to further conceptual clarity and methodological rigour in this domain.