Michael Crossley is Professor of Comparative and International Education and Director of the Research Centre for International and Comparative Studies at the Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol, UK. Prof Crossley is the current Editor of Comparative Education and was Chair of the British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE) from 2002-2004. He is a member of the Editorial Board for Compare and the International Journal of Educational Development, a Corresponding Editor for the International Review of Education and a founding Series Editor for the Bristol Papers in Education: Comparative and International Studies. Prof Crossley has undertaken teaching, research and consultancy work in countries that include England, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Kenya, Tanzania, Pakistan, China, Botswana, Belize and St Lucia. Major research interests relate to: theoretical and methodological scholarship on the future of comparative and international education; research and evaluation capacity and international development co-operation; and educational development in small states. In 2005 he was elected as an Academician (AcSS) by the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences.

Patricia Broadfoot is Professor of Education and Pro Vice Chancellor at the University of Bristol. She will take up office as Vice Chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire in September 2006. She was editor of Comparative Education from 1991 to 2003, and founder editor for 10 years of the journal Assessment in Education. She has published many books and articles in the field of comparative education, many of which report the findings of a series of empirical comparative studies of teachers and pupils in England and France conducted over a period of twenty years. Prof Broadfoot is a former President of the British Educational Research Association and of the British Association for International and Comparative Education, she has been a Council member of the Economic and Social Research Council since 2001 and is also involved with many national policy committees. She was elected as a Founding Academician of the Social Sciences (AcSS) in 2000.

Dr Michele Schweisfurth is Senior Lecturer in International Education at the Centre for International Education and Research, University of Birmingham, UK. Her research and publications focus on developing and transitional countries, especially in relation to education for democracy, and the potential of teachers as agents of social change. Global citizenship education and intercultural learning are further areas of interest. She is on the editorial boards of the journals Comparative Education, International Journal of Educational Development, and International Journal of Research and Method in Education, and was Conference Convenor for the 2003 and 2005 UKFIET -'Oxford' Conference on Education and Development. She has been a member of the editorial board of Comparative Education since 1998, and is currently reviews editor for the journal. Originally from Canada, she has also lived in Sierra Leone, Indonesia and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Introduction. Forty years of Comparative Education: Changing Contexts, Issues and Identities 1. Editorial 2. The Purpose of Comparative Education 3. Comparative Education Research and Development Education 4. Case Study in Comparative Education: particularity and generalisation 5. Changing Patterns of Educational Accountability in England and France 6. The Role of African Universities in National Development: a critical analysis 7. The American Perception of Japanese Education 8. Education in the Baltic States, Ukraine, Belarus' and Russia 9. Learning and Working: elements of the diploma disease thesis examined in England and Malaysia 10. Last Past the Post: comparative education, modernity and perhaps post-modernity 11. Continuing Education in a Late-modern or Global Society: towards a theoretical framework for comparative analysis 12. Education and Colonial Transition in Singapore and Hong Kong: comparisons and contrasts 13. The Institutionalisation of Gender and its Impact on Educational Policy 14. Big Policies/Small World: an introduction to international perspectives in educational policy 15. Globalisation and Internationalism: democratic prospects for world education 16. Bridging Cultures and Traditions in the Reconceptualisation of Comparative and International Education 17. Globalisation and Education in the Postcolonial World: towards a conceptual framework 18. Comparing Neo-liberal Projects and Inequality in Education 19. Comparative Education in Greater China: contexts, characteristics, contrasts and contributions 20. Comparative Research in Education: a mode of governance or a historical journey? 21. Processes of Policy Borrowing in Education: some explanatory and analytical devices 22. Debating Globalisation and Education After September 11

Documenting major intellectual and paradigmatic changes in the field of comparative education in the light of the history and development of the journal Comparative Education, this book compiles a selection of articles from forty years of the journal's distinguished history. It illustrates how changing times have been reflected in the nature and quality of published comparative research.
Contributors explore the impact of key issues such as marketisation, accountability and globalisation upon policy and practice world-wide. They explore how new challenges faced by the social sciences have seen shifts in the contexts, issues and priorities attended to by comparatives and how different approaches to comparative education have influenced the intellectual and professional identities and positioning of those involved.
Bridging theoretically oriented scholarship with empirically grounded research relating to issues of policy and practice and with chapters addressing questions of relevance throughout the world, this book is an invaluable resource of ideas and stimuli for further thinking and research.