The Dimensions of Comparison, and of Comparative Education

Abstract

1970 IS AN appropriate year in which this Society should meet in Atlanta for the first annual meeting to be held under the sole auspices of the Comparative and International Education Society. Not only does it mark the beginning of another decade but it has been designated as International Education Year by the United Nations, and the stock taking which we are urged to undertake will be utilized in the planning of the next Development Decade due to begin in 1971. Because of these considerations I shall return to the beginning of the previous decade, 1960, and delineate some of the important events in the fields of comparative and international education of the past ten years. In 1960 our Society under its former title was just four years old, though its formation had been antedated by a series of annual conferences held at New York University from 1954 to 1959. At that time students could have used the texts of Hans, Moehlman and Roucek, Cramer and Brown, or the revised edition of Hans.' Earlier works would have included Sandiford and two texts by Kandel.2 They would have had access to various documents being produced by UNESCO and two major UNESCO reference works.3 Additionally, there would have been recourse to the Yearbook of Education, and the International Review of Education. Some students might have participated in the Study Programs Abroad, of which the third, in 1958, captured the imagination of many educators. Its published report, The Changing Soviet School, did much to enlarge the image of the Society and augment its financial resources.4 Nevertheless, in spite of the material which had become available, and the prevailing euphoria, a euphoria to which funds made available by the National Defense Education Act contributed, many who supported comparative education as a topic worthy of serious study were restless and disappointed.5 It was hoped that the formation of the Society would remove some of the grounds for their