ABSTRACT
The form that this reconceptualization should take has been the subject of some debate. Watson (1999) argues that comparative education needs to reassert itself because its traditional emphases on the historical and cultural contexts of education are necessary to offset the dominance of neoliberal economic agendas in education. Broadfoot (2000) suggests that there should be a much greater emphasis on the processes of teaching and learning and less emphasis on the provision and organization of schooling. Cowen (2000) has argued that instead of asking what can be learned from studying other systems of education, we should be comparatively
considering how historical forces, social structures, and individual identities combine to produce particular forms of education in particular sites. Popkewitz (2000) advocates that an important focus could be on how particular apparently universal rationalities of schooling and education, which construct certain notions of curriculum, childhood, learning and teaching, circulate across and between nations. Watson (1999) and Cowen (2000) both argue that theory should take a more central place in comparative education, particularly because of recent developments in social theorizing, with which comparative education has not fully engaged. Yet there is substantial debate about the place of new social theories in comparative education. Some authors, such as Watson (1998) and Welch (1999) see little place, for example, for postmodernism. Others, such as Paulston (1999, 2000), Rust (1991), and Ninnes, Mehta, and Burnett (Ninnes and Mehta, 2000; Mehta and Ninnes, 2000; Ninnes and Burnett, in press) suggest that a more detailed reading of ‘post’ texts in this field indicates that there are many interesting, valuable and challenging opportunities for comparative education arising from an engagement, particularly, with certain aspects of poststructuralism. Hoffman (1999) suggests serious engagement with the rethinking of ‘culture’ that has been undertaken in critical anthropology and Crossley (1999, 2000), Welch (1999) and Tikly (1999) argue that postcolonialism has much to offer comparative education. Of the latter three authors, Tikly provides the most detailed argument for considering postcolonial theories. However, in our view, Tikly makes a number of untested assertions concerning the relationship between comparative education and colonialism, neocolonialism, and postcolonialism. Furthermore, there are several relevant aspects of postcolonial theories that he does not consider. In this chapter, then, we examine Tikly’s assertions and extend his arguments to cover a wider range of postcolonial theories and their applicability to comparative education.
