British Scholars of Comparative Education: Examining the Work and Influence of Notable 19th and 20th Century Comparativists

Abstract

Clearly, this text will be mandatory reading for specialists in comparative education. It is of major importance as a contribution to grasping the beginnings and historical trajectories of the fi eld, sharpening contemporary debates and evoking future research possibilities. Strate-gically, the book explores the work and in fl uence of British scholars ‘ on the way in which comparative studies in education developed over the past 150 years ’ (1); ‘ the pivotal role played by each scholar in driving a progression through humanistic and scienti fi c approaches to new epistemological traditions ’ (i). It is structured on the basis of chronology: it starts with essays on the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century work of Matthew Arnold and Michael Sadler, continues with chapters on Nicholas Hans, Joseph Lauwerys, Brian Holmes, Edmund King, and Vernon Mallinson, and fi nishes with re fl ections on the more recent scholarship of Nigel Grant, W.D. Halls, Margaret Sutherland, Colin Brock and Peter Jarvis. Certainly, the quality of the writing in the essays is uneven – some of the writing is a bit dull, while other writers o ff er praise far too easily and have clearly not thought hard about the challenges of biographical research (Roberts 2002); but overall, the book is a solid contribution to the literature and provokes thought about our ‘ iconography ’ . The