The Comparative Education Society in Europe (CESE)

Abstract

The decision to form the Comparative Education Society in Europe (CESE) was initiated by 60 participants in a 1961 conference organised by the University of London Institute of Education (Cowen 1980, p.98). Draft Statutes were prepared by Joseph Katz on the model of the Comparative Education Society (CES) in the United States, and were subsequently revised at a meeting of ‘provisional officers of the society’. The Statutes were formally adopted at the first CESE conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in June 1963 in accordance with Belgian law. The founding members included distinguished scholars such as Joseph Lauwerys who had convened the London conference, Nicholas Hans, James H. Higginson and Edmund King (England), Philip Idenburg (Netherlands), Friedrich Schneider (Germany), Franz Hilker (Germany), Edemee Hatinguais (France), Lamberto Borghi (Italy), Robert Plancke (Belgium), and Bogdan Suchodolski (Poland). The participation of Pedro Rossello and Leo Fernig from the International Bureau of Education (IBE) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Saul Robinsohn from the UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE) in Hamburg, Germany, assured additional institutional support (Garcia Garrido 1986; Mitter 1986; Kallen 2006). This chapter focuses on CESE itself, and is not an analysis of the history of comparative education in Europe. However, the foundation of the society may be taken as an indicator that CESE began its activity as the representation of the scientific community of comparative educationists in Europe. This quality has been retained over the decades, notwithstanding problems which have had to be solved. Moreover, CESE’s openness to comparative educationists in the rest of the world has turned out to be a lasting legacy from the founding group, which included scholars from the USA, Canada and Japan. The Statutes consist of 10 articles. They determine the international and non-profit-making character of the society, its ordinary and honorary membership, the composition of its Executive Committee (consisting of the President, the Immediate Past President, two Vice-Presidents and two other members), the appointment and function of the Secretary-Treasurer, the membership dues, and the formation of ad hoc committees for matters of scientific or professional interest. The Statutes also define the purposes of the society (Article 3), namely: