ABSTRACT
Teacher education is the academic field which throughout Europe is considered widely to be a matter of national interest. This attitude, dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries, is still prevalent in most European countries, although we are no longer living in states sealed off from their neighbours. Thus, when approaching the task to educate European teachers, one of the first steps should be to raise the students’ awareness for the net every member of a society is caught in: a system of often unquestioned local traditions, regional behavioural patterns, and national prejudice. One of the unpleasant features of this net is the fact that you will never have a chance to destroy it from the inside. The only chance is to look at it from the outside to discover its strengths and weaknesses by comparison with other systems. This chapter discusses the usefulness of comparative approaches in all academic fields, defines the place of comparison in education and pedagogy, and highlights the importance of raising awareness of this method among those students who want to become European teachers. Some comparative tools which were used in the HOWBET Summer School will be presented, as well as some of the results obtained.
