AN EXPLORATION INTO THE DEFINITION OF POLITICAL ECONOMY

TAKING INTO CONSIDERATION THE CENTRALITY OF MEANS OF

PRODUCTION AND FACTORS

TERM PAPER ON

POLITICAL ECONOMY OF NIGERIA

BY

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF COMPARATIVE EDUCATION

AN ASSIGNMENT ON

EDU 322: COMPARATIVE EDUCATION

BY GROUP 2:

SALE MARK EGONESHON, 22/631ELE/149

MUHAMMED MARYAM Y., 22/

ABDULKAREEM AISHA A., 22/

OLOTU OLUWAKEMI D., 22/

JOSEPH MIRACLE B., 22/

YAKUBU MOBINAT, 22/

DABARA WODI S., 22/

JUMMAI GILLA, 22/

SUBMITTED TO

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

FACULTY OF ARTS

UNIVERSITY OF ABUJA

September, 2025
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INTRODUCTION
The present shape of comparative education, which has emerged out and is distinct from
philosophy, sociology, and history and economic of education as a part of the field
theory of education, has chrystallised only in the twentieth century. It may not be
possible to associate it with a specific discipline. It derives its knowledge from different
disciplines.
Those include history, sociology, anthropology, geography, political science and
philosophy.
The search for the origin of comparative education has made many scholars who
searched back far in time. Friedrich Schneider and Franz Hilker in Germany, for
example were active in searching for the
European precedent. In the United State of America, William Brickman led the quest
for the original comparative educator. He published several articles on the subject in
which he reached as far back as Herodotus (C484-425 B.C.) as a competent cultural
comparativist in the ancient world. Various scholars have used different stages in
classifying the development of this discipline. For example S.P. Chaube and A. Chaube
(2006) have come up with three main stages while Sodhi (2006) has divided the period
into two major periods. The current book will use seven phases in the description of the
development of comparative education. The seven phases are not distinct as portrayed
in this chapter. Some of them have been overlapping as previous development run over
two consecutive phases without a distinct boundary and the authors have used the
following phases for clarity of ideas and for the students to grasp the required content.

PHASES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPARATIVE

EDUCATION
The development of comparative education can be studied in seven major phases or
stages that are based on the major characteristic activities. These phases are:
i. The phase of traveller tales (from antiquity to 1817)
ii. The phase of pioneers (From 1817-1900) (Selective borrowing)
iii. The phase of philosophers (Concern for cultural context) from 1900 to end of
world war two in 1945.
iv. The phase of social science perspective (From end of world war two to present
v. Phase of heterodoxy: paradigm wars
vi. Phase of heterogeneity
vii. Contemporary trends

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It is important to note that the phases used here to signify changes in the historical
development of the discipline are retrospective and imposed ones. They should not be
seen as precise or sudden turning points. The changes were gradual. Significantly, each
phase is only for the purpose of organizing information because in reality there are no
such distinct phases. This is because towards the end of each phase, for example, the
next phase has already evident in the work of prospective observer. At the same time,
entry into a new phase does not mean a complete break with the earlier one.

THE PHASE OF TRAVELLERS' TALE (FROM ANTIQUITY TO

1817)
This period covers the time from antiquity to around 1817 A.D. when
Marc Antoinne Jullien De Paris published his famous work "Plan and preliminary views
for work in Comparative Education". Before this time writings on foreign education
systems were mere descriptions of accounts of foreign education systems by individuals
who had opportunities for foreign travels. Visitations to other countries – whether for
purpose of commerce, conversations, curiosity or conflict – goes back to ancient history
of humankind. From one point of view, everyone who had interest in the upbringing of
children or in education, tended to enquire into what went on in those communities they
visited.
The writings by the early writers on comparative education drew examples from the
societies other than their own. The motives for accounts of travellers' tales were partly
curiosity and the need for comparison. As they were visiting the new lands they wrote
about the education systems of the countries they visited. These travelers included:
Xenophon, Plato, Cicero, Tacitus, Julius Caesar, Marco Polo, etc

(PIONEERS)
The aftermath of the French revolution, industrial revolution, agrarian revolution and
the process of colonization characterized the 19th century Europe. Most education
reformers of the time were disturbed by the social and the political conditions of
revolution and reactions of the early 19th century Europe. In education, they saw the
means of moral improvement and social amelioration. Reformers were concerned that
the ability of individual school systems to improve themselves seemed limited-even
where there was a good intentions. What was needed was some way of sharing the best
ideas and practices available in many countries. This presented a significant change of
approach suggesting a more systematic and comprehensive collection of data and
selective borrowing in education.

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This period was geared towards the development of methodology or systematic rules to
be followed in studying of comparative education. It was a drive to learn lessons from
foreign education systems for the purpose of borrowing ideas. This period is considered
as the starting point of comparative education, which is associated with Marie Antoinne
Jullien De Paris' work Plan and Preliminary Views for Work of Comparative Education.
He seems to have had the foresight and concern for systematic approach to comparative
examination of educational institutions and practices. Selective education borrowing
was motivated by the desire to develop a methodology or system of rules, to be followed
in studying foreign systems of education. There was a drive to learn lessons from
foreign systems for purpose of borrowing ideas. Consequently the 19th century period
saw journeys to foreign countries by travellers with specialized interest in educational
matters, There were serious attempts at observation and study of other systems of
education. The travellers no longer travelled for general curiosity and enlightment.
They wanted to discover what was going on in education in other countries in order to
borrow aspects for improvement of their own systems of education.
Apart from the increase in the incidence of trips to other countries in search of
improvement for home systems of education, the 19th century was noteworthy for the
establishment of national agencies for the collection and dissemination of information
about systems of education.
For example the United States Office of Education (1867) the Musee Pedagogigue in
Paris (1879) and the Office of Special Inquiries and Report in London (1895). There
were various contributors who are accredited to this phase. They involved Marc
Antoinne Jullien De Paris, Victor Cousin, Horace Mann, Henry Bernard, Matthew
Arnold, K.D. Ushinsky and Peter the Great.

THE PHASE OF CONCERN FOR CULTURAL CONTEXT:

FROM 1900 TO THE END OF SECOND WORLD WAR-1945
The publication in 1900 of short essays by Michael Sandler (1861-1943) ushered in new
phase of comparative studies in education. Although intimations of this approach may
be discerned in the work of some earlier writer notably Matthew Arnold in England,
Wilhelm Dilthey in Germany, William T.Harris in USA and P.E.Levasseur in France,
from this point on, new prospects for comparative education were revealed that were
more comprehensive, more analytical and that had greater explanatory potential.
The approach was more comprehensive because specific educational systems were
regarded as the contemporary outcomes of an identifiable set of historical and social
forces and factors. The schools of a particular country, it was argued, could be studied

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only as integral part of the society in which they had developed. Parts of the school
system could not be wretched out of their educational contexts, nor could entire school
system be examined in isolation from their total cultural environment. The first works
done within this phase characteristically gave as much attention to historical and
political developments outside the school as to the narration of events within the school
system itself. Later this heavy historical emphasis was gradually replaced by the
growing data drawn from economics and sociology.
Many writers in comparative education had been content to offer descriptive materials
on foreign education school systems, implying that such facts in themselves had
something valuable to say.
The rapidly growing social science and new works in historical methods tended to deny
that the facts outside a context of explanation could convey much. This critique was
reflected increasingly in the twentieth century work in comparative education, which
now began to emphasize dynamic analysis and explanations instead of static
institutional descriptions. The concept of causation that began to grow and eventually
to dominate the field was combined with optimism about the predictive value of causal
analysis.
By the close of the 19th century, most governments were encouraging and even
sponsoring studies of foreign systems of education. Those involved in the studies
became more concerned with problems of comparison. It was not enough to accumulate
masses of information

SOCIAL SCIENCE PERSPECTIVE: FROM THE END OF

WORLD WAR TWO IN 1945 TO PRESENT
Since the end of world war two in 1945 interest and activity in comparative education
have developed dramatically and especially in two main respects.
1. The work of new and influential national and international agencies involved in
educational inquiry, planning and programme implementation. In these associations
there were those comparativists who saw the field's most productive future in terms of
more active involvement in international projects of an inquiring or potentially
reformative kind.
2. Increased activity in the study and teaching of comparative education as discipline in
colleges, universities and comparative education centres for research. This also points
to a further shift in emphasis on social science.
Getao (1996) has enumerated that the following forces characterize the contemporary
era: Explosion of knowledge especially in science and technology.

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i. Drive for more knowledge and globalization.
ii. Drive for liberty with the proclamation of human rights by
UNESCO in 1948.
iii. Urbanization as a result of industrialization.
iv. Population explosion due to development of medical science where fifty percent of
the population is under twenty years.
v. Drive for the reconstruction of peace to facilitate material, moral and spiritual
reconstruction. This is to help in removing suspicion and distrust among nations and
promote good will and cooperation among them.

The outcome of the above forces can be noticed in:

i. Greater efforts to democratize education to make it available to all as a way of
ensuring a reasonable good life.
ii. Diversification of education to serve and suit diversified societies and communities.
iii. Greater concern and effort to provide quality education for the purpose of progress.
iv. Creation of international organizations like UNESCO, UNICEF,
WHO, UNEP in order to promote human welfare, reconstruction of peace,
democratization, diversification and improvement of education and management of
knowledge.

A phase of heterodoxy
A paradigm refers to the way in which a scientific community views their field of study,
identifies appropriate problems for study, and specifies legitimate concepts and
methods. Whereas, until the end of the 1960s, there existed among comparativists broad
consensus as to these issues, the 1970s saw the appearance of rival paradigms – in
opposition to the ideas of the social science phase - as Comparative
Education entered an era of paradigm clashes or paradigm wars. Paulston (1997) this
phase of comparative education a phase of heterodoxy.
The reasons for the emergence of rival paradigms are not hard to find. By the early
1970s, educationists were disillusioned with the societal effects of education, and the
massive educational expansion project, which had taken place worldwide since the early
1960s. For example, rather than promoting economic growth, the 1970s saw the spectre
of stagflation. Instead of eradicating unemployment, the educational expansion brought
the new phenomenon of schooled unemployment (cf. Blaug, 1973). Jencks
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demonstrated on the basis of extensive empirical analysis in his book, Inequality: A
Reassessment of the Effect of Family and Schooling in America, that education was no
major determinant of social mobility.
The first line of opposition to the ideas of the 1960s, was the conflict paradigm. Conflict
theories saw societies as consisting of a number of groups of unequal status and power,
existing in a conflicting relationship with each other. Education is an instrument in the
hands of the dominant group whereby they (the dominant group) enshrines their
position and keep the powerless subdued. The following are conflict paradigms: the
theories of socio-economic reproduction and cultural reproduction and dependency
theory.

A PHASE OF HETEROGENEITY
During the late 1980s comparative education entered a new phase, which Paulston
(1994) calls a phase of heterogeneity. The "paradigm wars" of the preceding two
decades, when comparativists had directed their heavy ordnance against each other,
were replaced by a tolerance if diversity, even an appreciation of the value thereof (Rust,
1996: 32; Wilson, 1994: 450, 451; Arnove, 2001: 497; Psacharopoulos, 1990': 34;
Masemann, 1990: 465). The Zeitgeist of postmodernism entered the field of
comparative education too.
Postmodernism rejected the idea of metanarratives (that is the idea that one perspective
or paradigm contained the entire truth and exclusively so) and plead for the
acknowledgement of different perspectives or views. While the conflict paradigms and
the frameworks of the social science phase and of the phase before the social science
phase all remained very visible (cf. Wolhuter, 2008: 335-336), a plethora of new
paradigms appeared, some of which will be described in subsequent paragraphs.
Cultural revitalisation offers an extension of conflict theories and focus on deliberate,
organised attempts to create more satisfactory cultures at both the national and local
levels (Paulston, 1977: 388). Examples are Joseph Elder's (1971) article: 'The
Decolonization of Educational Culture: The Case of India" and Rolland Paulston's
(1972)' article "Cultural Revitalisation and Educational Change in Cuba". Pragmatic
interactionists, such as Brian Holmes (1982) viewed educational change as neither the
outcome of deterministic frameworks (as both conflict theorists and those in the social
science tradition contend) nor as the outcome of pure chance. Human beings are free to
take decisions. Subscribing to Karl Popper's philosophy of piecemeal reform, as
explained in his book The Open Society and its Enemies (1945) Holmes emphasises the
acceptance of specific policy decisions for their instrumental value to attain a particular
goal, rather than policy formulation from a rigid, deterministic, ideological frame of
reference.

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CONTEMPORARY TRENDS
A recently published survey of the history and present state of the field of comparative
education, Wolhuter (2008), came to the conclusion that the field is characterised by
two equally strong trends, namely a remarkable resilience/constancy amidst a
broadening. The nation-state remains the most common unit of analysis, amidst calls
and moves to broaden the field to larger (global, regional) and smaller (state, district,
individual, class, individual) levels of analysis. Similarly, amidst a proliferation of
paradigms, the interwar "factors and factors" paradigm (outlined in phase three above),
remains the dominant. That publication suggests that there is much scope for the
expansion of comparative education, not only in terms of more levels (levels other than
the nationstate) of analysis, but also in terms of methods and topics/themes of study.
The problem with the current fixation on paradigms is that, while a proliferation of
paradigms makes for an interesting and dynamic field, there is the danger that sight
could easily be lost of its actual subject of study, namely education; and that amidst the
diversity of paradigms, comparative education tends to become irrelevant to addressing
educational issues of the day. This concern has been expressed by several eminent
comparativists (e.g. Welch, 2000; Psacharopoulos, 1990; Biraimah, 2003 and Weeks et
al., 2006). Many of the noble ideals of Jullien, which had inspired the field, may fade
away.
Two emerging focal points emerge. The first was prompted by the events of 9/11, which
gave rise to talk of a "post-9/11" comparative education. Perhaps the publication
demonstrating this best, what looks like it was probably a very ephemeral rallying point
for scholars in the field, is Wayne Nelles' (ed.) Comparative Education, Terrorism and
Human Security: From Critical Pedagaogy to Peace Building (New York: Palgrave).
However, this collection of essays does not go beyond giving a number of "perspectives
of others" and though very interesting and good quality scholarship, do not live up to
the promise of its title.
The second focal point is that of globalization; however, the way this theme gets treated
in comparative education too raises a number of concerns. Standaert (2008)
distinguished between three stances viz-aviz globalization: anti-globalisation; pro-
globalization and other-globalization (the last category means an acceptance of the
principle of globalization, but a desire to have a different kind of globalization than the
one currently manifesting itself). In comparative education literature the anti-
globalization stance dominates (cf. Wolhuter, 2008: 334-335).

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REFERENCES
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and Neocolonialism. In: Altbach, P.G.; Arnove, RF. and Kelly, G.P.
(eds).Comparative Education. New York: McGraw-HilI.
Arnove, RF. (1982). Comparative Education and World-Systems
Analysis. In: Altbach, P.G.; Arnove, RF. and Kelly, G.P.
(eds).Comparative Education. New York: McGraw-HilI.
Bowles, S. and Gintis, HA (1976). Schooling in Capitalist America:
Education and reform contradictions in economic life. New York: Basic.
Carnoy, M. (1974). Education as Cultural Imperialism. New York: David
McKay.
Chaube A. and Chaube S.P. (2004) Comparative education, Vikas
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Male, G.A. (1980). Multicultural education and education policy: the
British experience. Comparative Education Review 24: 291-301.