Reconciling History with Comparison in an Age of Global Interconnectedness

Abstract

The following considerations will focus, not on Comparative Education as an institutionalised field, but on its intellectual shape. They, at the same time, will try to take into account major developments in comparative social enquiry more generally. In so doing, however, it is not my intention to dwell on normative methodology, a form of reflection, in other words, that has had a long-standing tradition in the field. Rather, I shall take advantage of the possibilities provided by the so-called socio-historical shift in metascientific discourse to empirically substantiate, hence to objectify to some extent, methodological arguments. Accordingly, the following considerations are meant to focus on research developments that have taken place in comparative social research; on experience accumulated in the course, and on the basis, of such developments; and on challenges that have given rise to the desideratum of ”reconciling history with comparison”-to use an expression nicely phrased by French political scientist Bertrand Badie in an overview on the insights of historical sociology. Within the limits of this article, Ⅰ shall consider, first, two strands of experience and, consequently, two types of challenges, namely challenges that are epistemological and ontological in nature. In a next step, Ⅰ shall outline some theoretical alternatives and the problem solutions these alternatives proffer. Finally, drawing on these alternatives a functional-cum-configurational approach thought to provide a new vista for comparative social and educational research will be developed.