THE METHODOLOGY OF COMPARATIVE PEDAGOGIC RESEARCHES: PRINCIPLES AND FEATURES

Abstract

The paper examines the methodology of the comparative analysis as a concrete scientific one. It singles out a number of its theoretical concepts, principles and approaches to the organization of a research, and clarifies the features of technology, the tasks of the constructivist comparative educational investigation. The paper compares the classical comparative studies, which are common in the modern world practice, and focus on the study of cultures, especially those that come in dialogue, and interact. Their peculiarity is that a researcher takes the position, which is outside of the studied system, and that is why he, unlike its value-engaged individuals, is able to provide the independent external evaluation of the effectiveness of its elements, the optimality of its processes, its integrity and consistency. The constructivist comparative studies are based on the original idea that the scientific research should be directed far ahead from the description of the state on the prognosis, change, development, reconstruction or on new interpretation. So there are expanding opportunities for practical testing the comparative studies, which will turn with time from single-addressed into two and poly-addressed ones. The author emphasizes that constructivist methodology supplies comparative studies with a new key trait, which is not inherent for the researches of the previous ideologically engaged century. That is the mindset on parallel thinking, which in its turn determines the following: different approaches to the organization of education and training practices can coexist as equivalent if they are effective, and socially, educationally and personally appropriate; the comparison is not focused on motion between the poles “right – wrong”, “developed – not developed”; the analytics is just enriched if the information objects of the comparative analysis aren’t placed into the plane of controversy and “weighing” but are treated as the vectors of development that can strengthen each other, but are not interchangeable, especially by the implantation into the self-organized system the alien, not inherent for it system-basing elements. The paper generalizes the principles of the comparative research: the priority of the orientation of educational system development to the values of a human and humane; adherence to the system approach in a research; the unity of meanings and purposes of pedagogic activities in the world practice and the necessity of technological variability; the identity of partial and general vectors in the evolution of the educational empiric.