Critical Approaches to Comparative Education

This book unites a dynamic group of scholars who examine linkages among local, national, and international levels of educational policy and practice. Utilizing multi-sited, ethnographic approaches, the essays explore vertical interactions across diverse levels of policy and practice while prompting horizontal comparisons across twelve sites in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. The vertical case studies focus on a range of topics, including participatory development, the politics of culture and language, neoliberal educational reforms, and education in post-conflict settings. Editors Vavrus and Bartlett contribute to comparative theory and practice by demonstrating the advantages of thinking vertically.

"This book heralds a new era in the study of comparative education. The authors weave a rich tapestry using ethnographic and other data to illustrate in vivid detail the working out of educational policy and practice in varied locations around the world. It sets the standard for the integration of vertical and horizontal approaches." - Vandra L. Masemann is Adjunct Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Comparative, International, and Development Education Program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada "Vavrus and Bartlett truly do offer Critical Approaches to Comparative Education and the book is a must-read for the field.Most especially, the development of vertical cases transforms classroom and other micro studies by an integration of national and global contexts and should be of great interest to comparative and international educators as well as to all qualitative researchers concerned with case studies and ethnographies." - Steven J. Klees, Former President, Comparative and International Education Society, and Harold R.W. Benjamin Professor of International and Comparative Education, University of Maryland

Jill P. Koyama, University of Buffalo, The State University of New York, USARosemary Max, Loyola University Chicago, USATonya Muro, Global Nomads Group, USAAleesha Taylor, Open Society Institute, USAMoira Wilkinson, UNICEFMaria Hantzopoulos, Vassar College, USAAudrey Bryan, University College Dublin, IrelandLaura Alicia Valdiviezo, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USAAmeena Ghaffar-Kucher, University of Pennsylvania, USAMary Mendenhall, Teachers College, Columbia University, USAJanet Shriberg, University of Denver, USAZeena Zakharia, Teachers College, Columbia University, USA