The aim of this paper is to clarify the concept and to recapture and to reassess its value to the field of Comparative and International Education at the present point in time. Despite the vision of founding father Jullien, from the interwar "factors and forces stage", the field of Comparative and International Education got a strong tradition of focusing on the past. In the social science phase of the 1960s, Modernisation Theory made a forceful appearance in the field, and became the principal theoretical framework in the field. However, this trend was reversed during the next phase in the historical evolution of the field, the phase of heterodoxy in the 1970s. In this decade and subsequent times, Modernisation Theory fell out of fashion and even became discredited, as rival paradigms such as Dependency Theory, World Systems Analysis, and Neo-Colonialism, and finally Postmodernism became vogue. In view of the momentous societal changes currently taking place globally, calling for a reconceptualization of education, a future-orientation for the field Comparative and International Education is argued for. In this scheme of things, a re-appraisal of Modernisation Theory is called for. Rather than summarily discarding this theory, or on the other hand embracing it uncritically, a more nuanced place for Modernisation Theory in a Comparative and International Education relevant to and valuable for the twenty-first century world seems to be apt. [For the complete Volume 16 proceedings, see ED586117.]