ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a brief overview of the some of the history, methodologies and direction of travel in comparative and international education studies. Comparative and international education has grown in scope since the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in response to global agendas for educational equity and quality. It is a field of study concerned with understanding systems, groups and individuals, with education as the location of enquiry. There is a very wide range of rationales for comparative and international studies of primary schooling: to describe children's education in its social, cultural, economic and historical contexts; to understand, interpret or explain the forces which shape learning and teaching; to evaluate and disseminate achievements or failures of school systems and practices, and make suggestions for improvement. The chapter also offers an example of indigenous knowledge being used for children's literacy learning in a primary school.
