Primary student teachers' perceptions of and motivations for comparative education: findings from a comparative study of an Irish and South African comparative education course

Abstract

Comparative Education (CE) in Teacher Education (ITE) receives little attention in the literature, and this attention is mainly focussed on its decline in Western Countries. This article highlights, however, that it is not declining to the same extent in some countries in Asia, Eastern Europe and in South Africa. The study, upon which the article is based, explores a completely neglected aspect of CE in ITE – the perceptions of student teachers studying CE. The research was conducted among student primary teachers in Ireland and South Africa. Even though some similarities emerge, their perceptions are mainly divergent. It is in the analysis of this divergence, however, that a rich picture of student perceptions emerges. The main findings are: the Irish students knew much less about CE than their South African counterparts, and their main motivation for studying CE was to enable them to work abroad, whereas the South African students wanted to learn about other systems of education in order to improve Education in South Africa. Other findings concerning the extent to which CE is considered to enable student teachers to improve their teaching, are interesting and these are considered in the discussion section.