Re-inventing the Historical in Comparative Education: Reflections on a protean episteme by a contemporary player

Abstract

It has been said, not in jest, that while the future may be predictable, the past is unpredictable. This essay first constructs yet another, but hopefully different, historical overview of the episteme of comparative education in the USA, the American comparative proteus (after the Greek mythical sea-god who, according to the Oxford English Dictionary , would assume different shapes and appearances 'to avoid answering questions'). The focus of the second section is a comparative view of the British comparative proteus. In both cases, the analysis is focused on the epistemological-cum-methodological orientations of the two 'comparative educations'. It is argued that in the period after the 1960s the two proteuses were metamorphosed from essentially being historical to social scientific. In the third section it is argued that this metamorphosis has impoverished the field, and a call is made for the re-invention of the historical dimension in comparative education. It is further argued that the reclamation of the historical legacy, among other things, would help to humanise comparative education in a cosmos of economic globalisation and instrumental rationality.

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