Exploding the Cube: Revisioning “Context” in the Field of Comparative Education

Abstract

This article problematizes some of the ways that the issue of "context" has been treated in comparative education scholarship.We critique the cube approach recommended by Bray and Thomas (1995) as well as the common recirculations of Sadler's (1900) garden metaphor.Borrowing a set of analytic concepts from Bruno Latour (2004), we suggest that too often in the field of comparative education the issue of context is treated as a "matter of fact" when instead context should be revisioned as a "matter of concern" and one of the central research concerns in our field.We propose the concept of 'big C' Context to link 'little c' contexts to power/knowledge concerns and the historical discourses that govern what it is possible to think and do.

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