Critical Approaches to Comparative Education ― Vertical Case Studies from Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas

This book unites a dynamic group of scholars who examine linkages among local, national, and international levels of educational policy and practice. Utilizing multi-sited, ethnographic approaches, the essays explore vertical interactions across diverse levels of policy and practice while prompting horizontal comparisons across twelve sites in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. The vertical case studies focus on a range of topics, including participatory development, the politics of culture and language, neoliberal educational reforms, and education in post-conflict settings. Editors Vavrus and Bartlett contribute to comparative theory and practice by demonstrating the advantages of "thinking vertically."

Frances Vavrus is McKnight Presidential Fellow and Associate Professor in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development at the University of Minnesota, where she also serves as Coordinator of the Program in Comparative and International Development Education. Her research focuses on development education and foreign aid policy, teacher education in sub-Saharan Africa, and gender studies. Her previous publications include the book Desire and Decline: Schooling amid Crisis in Tanzania in addition to articles in Comparative Education Review, Gender and Education, and the Harvard Educational Review.

Lesley Bartlett is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, USA. Her research and teaching interests include sociocultural studies of literacy, migration and education, and teacher education in international contexts. She is the author of The Word and the World: The Cultural Politics of Literacy in Brazil, co-author of Additive Schooling in Subtractive Times: Bilingual Education and Dominican Youth in the Heights, and co-editor (with Frances Vavrus) of Teaching in Tension: International Pedagogies, National Policies, and Teachers' Practices in Tanzania.