ABSTRACT
The positivist social scientists hoped to emulate their colleagues and worked out methods of inquiry which they hoped would result in the formulation of some general laws of societal development. Edmund King's own anti-deterministic position and the contribution he and his colleagues made to methodology in their research on post-compulsory education are of interest in view of the debates between positivists, ethnomethodologists and Popperians, and the shift of emphasis in sponsored research in comparative education. Friedrich Schneider's influence can be detected in the work of practically all German comparative educationists. Cultural tradition is absent from Anglo-Saxon comparative education but finds expression in the methodological assumptions of Soviet scholars and in the writing of Naiden Tschakarov of Bulgaria. Harold Noah and Max Eckstein remained in the tradition of Isaac Kandel and Nicholas Hans and as positivists inherited the 'factors' approach.
