Development of Comparative Education

In Comparative International Education Steven Klees says, “This openness of CIE to the theories, methods, practices, debates, and controversies from many fields continues to form the most vital part of our field today. Comparative International Education provides students with an abstract and educational view of the world around them. Students are able to gain an understanding about the economical, international, and social aspects of their society. Comparative Education has evolved in some aspects over time. Klees states that, during the nineteen fifties the field of Comparative International Education was a conservative field. The CIE field consisted of a secluded,” range of historical and cultural studies to traveler’s tales.” The field at the time did not contain any opportunities to explore the economic or social aspects of a society in education. In the nineteen sixties two authors, Harold Noah and Max Eckstein’s wrote a book called, Toward a Science of Comparative Education. They helped to drastically improve the field of CIE. In the sixties the conservatives aspects of the CIE field began to crumble, but were soon replaced by more rigid ones that were open to the social sciences.
During the nineteen seventies, different aspects were created in the field of social sciences about modernizing the meaning and practice of development. This growth in the field of social sciences and modernization of these practices became controversial. “This openness of CIE to the theories, methods, practices, debates, and controversies from many fields continues to form the most vital part of our field today. And it is this integral and necessary permeability that forms both a great opportunity and a great challenge to CIE.” This argument proves that there is still a divide between what is right and wrong in the field of CIE. The way one professor practices their theories and methods can be quite different from another. The different ways in which students are taught often comprise the society as whole.