Travelling researchers, colonial difference: comparative education in an age of exploration

Comparison as translation: Internationalisation in the International Baccalaureate and Taiwanese schooling

“…The researcher observes the entities being compared with the distanced and detached "traveller's gaze" or the "imperial eye" (Sobe, 2017). We can see here a particular kind of simplified universalism that is embedded in the presupposition of a transcendental standpoint unaffected by cultural and social specificities.…”

“…Following Nóvoa and Yariv-Mashal's argument (2003) that comparison can be a mode of governance, there has been a growing reflection on the embedded standardisation, Eurocentrism, and coloniality (Cardoso & Steiner-Khamsi, 2017;Sobe, 2017;Takayama et al, 2017) in the field of comparative education. Without such reflection, differences found in comparisons are reduced to the reproduction of colonial differences, whereby local particularities are named, described, and categorised in accordance with colonial relationships (Mignolo, 2012;Sobe, 2017). That is, the heterogeneities among entities being compared are flattened through unilateral comparison and contrast.…”

“…By taking account of the embedded colonial root in comparative research (Sobe, 2017), which is reflected in various presuppositions such as methodological nationalism (Beck & Grande, 2010), the "northerness" of globalisation theory (Connell, 2007), this research delineates a comparative approach that conceptualises the process of comparison as that of translation. The similarities and dissimilarities observed in the comparison are thus not seen as inherent in the comparing entities, but produced in accordance with the positionalities of the researcher.…”

“…At a time of reconsiderations about the embedded colonial characteristics of the comparative approach and of comparative education (Sobe, 2017;Takayama et al, 2017), this research proposed and practised a mode of comparison as translation. Thinking with Julien (2012a, 2012b), Sakai (1997), and other researchers (Mignolo, 2012;Spivak, 2000;Stengers, 2011), this research has developed and demonstrated a comparative approach that acts in ways similar to the process of translation and in which the researcher is positioned as translator.…”

“…The former is an international non-governmental organisation proclaiming to provide quality primary and secondary programs around the world and to cultivate "international-mindedness", while the latter is a national education system in a post-colonial society, located in entangled and complex geopolitics and under a process of citizenship reconstruction. To properly compare the two cases, which are diverse in many ways, for example, in respect of their cultures, histories, institutions, and geopolitical positionings, this research inter alia seeks to critically reflect on the colonial roots embedded in comparative education research (Sobe, 2017), including various presuppositions such as methodological nationalism (Wimmer & Glick-Schiller, 2002), and the so-called "northerness" of globalisation theory (Connell, 2007). Utilising the theorisation offered by Jullien (2013), Sakai (2006), and other theorists (Mignolo, 2012;Spivak, 2000;Stengers, 2011), the research proposes and exercises a comparative approach that resembles the process of translation and in which the researcher acts ii as the translator.…”