The Purposes and Nature of Comparative Education: the contribution of I. L. Kandel

Abstract

Isaac Kandel is rightly regarded as one of the giants of Comparative Education. His influence on the development of the subject has been profound and far-reaching. At a time when there is increasing interest in the value of competing methodologies in comparative educational studies and, especially, controversy about the extent which such studies should seek become more scientific, it is instructive turn again Kandel's work in order reassess his contributions discussions about the nature of Comparative Education and methodological issues. The classic statement of Kandel's rationale for a comparative approach the study of education appeared in his important Studies in Comparative Education in 1933. It presents a view from which he never wavered and one which influenced all his writings in a career which spanned two world wars and extended over fifty years: The comparative approach demands first an appreciation of the intangible, impalpable spiritual and cultural forces which underlie an educational system; the forces and factors outside the school matter even more than what goes on inside it. Hence the comparative study of education must be founded on an analysis of the social and political ideals which the school reflects, for the school epitomizes these for transmission and for progress. In order understand, appreciate and evaluate the real meaning of the educational system of a nation, it is essential know something of its history and traditions, of the forces and attitudes governing its social organisations, of the political and economic conditions that determine its development. (Kandel, 1933, p. xix) The fundamental thread running through Kandel's work in Comparative Education is the relationship between education and the state. Time and again he returned this relationship, pointing out how the political character of the state determined the nature of the education it offered. The traditional purpose of European systems of education, in Kandel's view, was their aim of producing a body of loyal and obedient citizens, and in commenting upon this function Kandel often quoted von Humboldt's dictum What you want in the state, you must first put in the school. No less important was the relationship between education and the state in the modern world, and the chief purpose of Comparative Education, according Kandel, was explain how different national systems of education had evolved by setting them against their historical and cultural contexts. Studies in Comparative Education should aim to discover what the problems of education are, discuss how they have arisen, and how they may be