ABSTRACT
The first chapter sets the stage for the subsequent chapters and explains the rationale of the organization and order of the book. It commences with the goals of comparative education as a field of study and with definitions of educational reforms and educational change. Special attention is given in the prelude to the constraints of policy transfer from one culture to another and the risk of ethnocentricity in exploring social and organizational phenomena through the observer’s view. After setting forth the book’s proposition, namely, that we need a community-based perspective of educational reform in developing countries, and its three purposes, the discussion moves to justify the value of this proposition and to illuminate the plausible contribution of this book to school improvement in developing countries.
