This historical exploration of the development of the academic workforce in the UK and France was triggered by the observation of significant similarities in contemporary debates on casualisation, and segmentation despite their distinctive HE systems. We develop a quantitative history of academic staff to understand why the differences in the two…

This introductory article to the special issue of "Comparative Education" on measuring the unmeasurable in education considers measurement as reflecting facts and uncertainties. The notion of negative capability is used metaphorically to depict some limits of what is measurable, and portray aspects of the process of education, associated…

Following political devolution in the late 1990s and the establishment of the governments for Wales and Scotland, the education systems of the four home countries of the UK have significantly diverged. Consequently, not only does that mean that education research in the UK has to be sensitive to such divergence, but that the divergence of policy…

This article examines the synergy between a long established discipline, geography, and the younger discipline of educational studies, especially its component, comparative education. Although this synergy was recognised by the founding father of comparative education, Michael Sadler, and one of his principal followers, George Bereday, the…

Faith ethos education has subjective elements in it that are elusive to planners and administrators of national and international systems. This paper looks at how Sikhs, a minority group both in India and in other countries to which they have migrated manage to retain their faith-based education programmes successfully and yet relate to the…

This paper is a response to David Limond's exposition, "[An] historical culture ... rapidly, universally, and thoroughly restored"? British influence on Irish education since 1922, which appeared in "Comparative Education", Vol. 46, No. 4, November 2010, pp. 449-462. Limond's overall thesis is that "a post-colonial…

Research capacity building and its impact on policy and practice are increasingly highlighted in the literature on international research partnerships. In the field of education and development, it is recognised that, in the past, international research collaborations have tended to be dominated by the agenda of Northern partners. Partly in…

This piece concerns the relationship between Ireland and the United Kingdom over the course of some 170-180 years from the early/mid-1800s to the present. It is argued that, despite the expectations of nationalists such as Timothy Corcoran, writing in the immediate aftermath of independence, to whom it seemed both desirable and inevitable that…

This article revisits a topic central to the past and the present of comparative education: the theme of "transfer". It outlines four ideas. First, that comparative education as a field of study, having begun in the study of "mobilities", became diverted by other anxieties. Second, the article notes that the theme of…

Compares Australia's and Britains' higher education "binary system," consisting of university and non-university (colleges of advanced education or polytechnics) sectors. Examines problems, politics, and processes involved when institutions attempt to bridge sectors. Reviews examples of cross-sectorial amalgamation in both countries and…

Comparative analysis of Canadian and U.K. national survey data examined educational attainment by gender, age group, and occupational category; extent of apprenticeship certification; and enrollment patterns for continuing adult education. Canada's higher educational attainment, flexible school-work transition, and higher continuing-education…

Comparing the secondary physics courses developed by West Germany's Institute for Science Education (IPN) with similar British curriculum projects, the author argues that the differences in style, content, and reception of these curriculums are related to the social locations of the British teachers and the German academics who devised them.…