Mapping comparative education after postmodernity

Comparative Education Review

Volumn 43, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 438-463

  Paulston, Rolland G ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0033248288     PISSN: 00104086     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/447579     Document Type: Article

References (92)

1. For those interested in the intricacies of new social science ideas and terminology in education after modernity, see, among others, Rosa Nidi Buenfil-Burgos, "Education in a Post-Modern Horizon," British Educational Research Journal 23 (1997): 97-107; and Fenwick W. English, "The Postmodern Turn in Educational Administration: Apostrophic or Catastrophic Development?" Journal of School leadership 8 (September 1998): 426-63. For an accessible introductory textbook on popular culture and the postmodern condition, see Walter T. Anderson, Reality Isn't What It Used To Be (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990).
2. For those interested in the intricacies of new social science ideas and terminology in education after modernity, see, among others, Rosa Nidi Buenfil-Burgos, "Education in a Post-Modern Horizon," British Educational Research Journal 23 (1997): 97-107; and Fenwick W. English, "The Postmodern Turn in Educational Administration: Apostrophic or Catastrophic Development?" Journal of School leadership 8 (September 1998): 426-63. For an accessible introductory textbook on popular culture and the postmodern condition, see Walter T. Anderson, Reality Isn't What It Used To Be (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990).
3. For those interested in the intricacies of new social science ideas and terminology in education after modernity, see, among others, Rosa Nidi Buenfil-Burgos, "Education in a Post-Modern Horizon," British Educational Research Journal 23 (1997): 97-107; and Fenwick W. English, "The Postmodern Turn in Educational Administration: Apostrophic or Catastrophic Development?" Journal of School leadership 8 (September 1998): 426-63. For an accessible introductory textbook on popular culture and the postmodern condition, see Walter T. Anderson, Reality Isn't What It Used To Be (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990).
4. See Isaiah Berlin, Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas (New York: Viking, 1980), esp. pp. 1-24. Berlin identifies the three central ideas of the anti-Enlightenment as (1) populism, or the view that people can realize themselves fully only when they belong to rooted groups or cultures; (2) expressionism, or the notion that all human works are above all voices speaking or forms of representation conveying a worldview; and (3) pluralism, or the recognition of a potentially infinite variety of cultures, ways of seeing, and systems of values all equally incommensurable with one another, rendering logically incoherent the Enlightenment belief in a universally valid master narrative or ideal path to human progress and fulfillment. Berlin identifies leading exponents of the anti-Enlightenment as Niccolo Machiavelli, Giambattista Vico, William Blake, Johann Herder, Alexander Herzen, and others, including Georges Sorel and Friedrich Nietzche.
5. A more detailed exposition may be found in David Owen, ed., Sociology after Postmodernism (London: Sage, 1997), pp. 1-22. Owen suggests that postmodern "theory" seeks to shift the work of social science from theorizing truth claims to representing new social and intertextual terrains in constant flux. For a useful guide to exegetic textual analyses as "close reading," see chap. 6 in Joseph Francese, Narrating Postmodern Time and Space (Albany: SUNY Press, 1997), pp. 107-54.
6. A more detailed exposition may be found in David Owen, ed., Sociology after Postmodernism (London: Sage, 1997), pp. 1-22. Owen suggests that postmodern "theory" seeks to shift the work of social science from theorizing truth claims to representing new social and intertextual terrains in constant flux. For a useful guide to exegetic textual analyses as "close reading," see chap. 6 in Joseph Francese, Narrating Postmodern Time and Space (Albany: SUNY Press, 1997), pp. 107-54.
7. Zygmunt Bauman, Postmodernity (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 193. Earlier, Foucault, perhaps anticipating the cyberspace revolution, argued that today there has indeed been a fundamental change of consciousness from time to space: "the great obsessive dread of the nineteenth century was history, with its themes of development and stagnation, crises and cycle, the accumulation of the past, the surplus of the dead. Our own era, on the other hand, seems to be that of space. We are in the age of the simultaneous, of juxtaposition, the near and the far, the side by side, and the scattered. A period when the world is putting itself to the test, not so much as a great way of life destined to grow in time but as a net that links points together and creates its own muddle [as in table 1 and figure 2]. It might be said that certain ideological conflicts which underlie the controversies of our day take place between the pious descendants of time and tenacious inhabitants of space." See Michel Foucault, "Of Other Spaces," diacritics 16, no. 1 (Spring 1986): 23.
8. Zygmunt Bauman, Postmodernity (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 193. Earlier, Foucault, perhaps anticipating the cyberspace revolution, argued that today there has indeed been a fundamental change of consciousness from time to space: "the great obsessive dread of the nineteenth century was history, with its themes of development and stagnation, crises and cycle, the accumulation of the past, the surplus of the dead. Our own era, on the other hand, seems to be that of space. We are in the age of the simultaneous, of juxtaposition, the near and the far, the side by side, and the scattered. A period when the world is putting itself to the test, not so much as a great way of life destined to grow in time but as a net that links points together and creates its own muddle [as in table 1 and figure 2]. It might be said that certain ideological conflicts which underlie the controversies of our day take place between the pious descendants of time and tenacious inhabitants of space." See Michel Foucault, "Of Other Spaces," diacritics 16, no. 1 (Spring 1986): 23.
9. For useful discussions of the reflexive modernity - or late modernity - worldview, see Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, and Samuel Lash, Reflexive Modernization (Cambridge: Polity, 1994).
10. Rolland G. Paulston, "Social and Educational Change: Conceptual Frameworks," Comparative Education Review 21 (June/October 1977): 370-71.
11. C. Arnold Anderson, "Comparative Education over a Quarter Century: Maturity and New Challenges," Comparative Education Review 21 (June/October 1977): 406-7.
12. Ibid., p. 416.
13. See Andreas M. Kazamias and Karl Schwartz, "Intellectual and Ideological Perspectives in Comparative Education: An Interpretation," Comparative Education Review 21 (June/October 1977): 175-76.
14. See Val D. Rust, "Postmodernism and its Comparative Education Implications," Comparative Education Review 35 (November 1991): 610-26.
15. Ibid., pp. 625-26.
16. Rolland G. Paulston and Martin Liebman, "An Invitation to Postmodern Social Cartography," Comparative Education Review 38 (May 1994): 215-32. Here the authors introduce social cartography to comparative educators as "a new and effective method for visually demonstrating the sensitivity of postmodern influences for opening social dialogue, especially to those who have experienced disenfranchisement by modernism" (p. 232). Their social cartography text contends that spatial juxtapositioning provides a new way to seek a more situated truth in a cyberspace era. Now truth is not necessarily grounded in measurable fact alone; it is also predicated on the acquisition of a generosity of vision composed of many truths, that is, what postmodern texts call a "multiplicity of witness" and a "democracy of perception." By opening comparison in this way, postmodern social cartography helps actors move outward from subjective truth toward a reintegration of the self into a new social fabric/space composed of multiple voices and stories. This view is labeled "postmodern multiperspectivism" by Francese (n. 3 above) who advocates its utility as a safeguard against "any excessively strong, exclusionary reading of the past: the univocal truth that suffocates all others and quickly transmogrifies into reified myth" (p. 130).
17. Robin Usher and Richard Edwards, Postmodernism and Education (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 3.
18. Ibid., p. 224.
19. See James Whitson's somewhat quixotic "Post-structuralist Pedagogy as a Counter-hegemonic Praxis," Education and Society 9 (1991): 73-86. Texts advocating or applying a postmodern deconstruction perspective can also be found in Kathleen Weiler, "Myths of Paulo Freire," Educational Theory 46 (Summer 1996): 353-71; Allan Luke, "Text and Discourse in Education: An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis," Review of Research in Education 21 (1995): 3-48; and others, including Esther E. Gottlieb, "The Discursive Construction of Knowledge: The Case of Radical Education Discourse," Qualitative Studies in Education 2, no. 2 (1989): 132-44.
20. See James Whitson's somewhat quixotic "Post-structuralist Pedagogy as a Counter-hegemonic Praxis," Education and Society 9 (1991): 73-86. Texts advocating or applying a postmodern deconstruction perspective can also be found in Kathleen Weiler, "Myths of Paulo Freire," Educational Theory 46 (Summer 1996): 353-71; Allan Luke, "Text and Discourse in Education: An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis," Review of Research in Education 21 (1995): 3-48; and others, including Esther E. Gottlieb, "The Discursive Construction of Knowledge: The Case of Radical Education Discourse," Qualitative Studies in Education 2, no. 2 (1989): 132-44.
21. See James Whitson's somewhat quixotic "Post-structuralist Pedagogy as a Counter-hegemonic Praxis," Education and Society 9 (1991): 73-86. Texts advocating or applying a postmodern deconstruction perspective can also be found in Kathleen Weiler, "Myths of Paulo Freire," Educational Theory 46 (Summer 1996): 353-71; Allan Luke, "Text and Discourse in Education: An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis," Review of Research in Education 21 (1995): 3-48; and others, including Esther E. Gottlieb, "The Discursive Construction of Knowledge: The Case of Radical Education Discourse," Qualitative Studies in Education 2, no. 2 (1989): 132-44.
22. See James Whitson's somewhat quixotic "Post-structuralist Pedagogy as a Counter-hegemonic Praxis," Education and Society 9 (1991): 73-86. Texts advocating or applying a postmodern deconstruction perspective can also be found in Kathleen Weiler, "Myths of Paulo Freire," Educational Theory 46 (Summer 1996): 353-71; Allan Luke, "Text and Discourse in Education: An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis," Review of Research in Education 21 (1995): 3-48; and others, including Esther E. Gottlieb, "The Discursive Construction of Knowledge: The Case of Radical Education Discourse," Qualitative Studies in Education 2, no. 2 (1989): 132-44.
23. Calvin O. Schrag, The Self after Postmodernity (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 7. For the subaltern perspective, see, e.g., Chandra T. Mohanty, "Cartographies of Struggle," in Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, ed. Chandra T. Mohanty et al. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), pp. 1-49. For an application of the radical alterity perspective to probe the trope of space in feminist studies, see Matthew Spark, "Displacing the Field in Fieldwork," in Bodyspace: Destabilizing Geographies of Gender and Sexuality, ed. Nancy Duncan (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 212-33.
24. Calvin O. Schrag, The Self after Postmodernity (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 7. For the subaltern perspective, see, e.g., Chandra T. Mohanty, "Cartographies of Struggle," in Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, ed. Chandra T. Mohanty et al. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), pp. 1-49. For an application of the radical alterity perspective to probe the trope of space in feminist studies, see Matthew Spark, "Displacing the Field in Fieldwork," in Bodyspace: Destabilizing Geographies of Gender and Sexuality, ed. Nancy Duncan (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 212-33.
25. Calvin O. Schrag, The Self after Postmodernity (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 7. For the subaltern perspective, see, e.g., Chandra T. Mohanty, "Cartographies of Struggle," in Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, ed. Chandra T. Mohanty et al. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), pp. 1-49. For an application of the radical alterity perspective to probe the trope of space in feminist studies, see Matthew Spark, "Displacing the Field in Fieldwork," in Bodyspace: Destabilizing Geographies of Gender and Sexuality, ed. Nancy Duncan (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 212-33.
26. Diana Brandi, review of Emergent Issues in Education: Comparative Perspectives, ed. Robert F. Arnove, Philip G. Altbach, and Gail P. Kelly, in Comparative Education Review 38 (February 1994): 159-62. Brandi claims that the book's structuralist orthodoxy silences questions of how research reflects the views of those under consideration and whose voices and what questions direct the evolution of the field (p. 160). She also contends that the inclusion of feminist theories on structural adjustment and phenomenological studies of local perspectives would better help oppressed people improve their quality of life.
27. Irving Epstein, "Comparative Education in North America: The Search for the Other through the Escape from Self?" Compare 25, no. 1 (1995): 5-16. In contrast to what Epstein's text sees as my purported optimism for the field, I see my viewpoint more akin to Isaiah Berlin's curious combination of idealism and skepticism. Epstein's text also makes an argument for measured skepticism in evaluating the field's future possibilities. The problem, as Epstein sees it, is that limited understanding of self restricts the scope and possibility of knowledge work within the comparative education field. But is our lack of reflexive self-knowledge, our naivëté, our bane? If so, could it not be viewed as an educational problem that might be treatable with heterotopic mapping? A third radical alterity example problematizing actors in comparative education texts can be found in Patricia J. Moran, "An Alternative Existence," CIES Newsletter 117 (January 1998): 1, 4. Moran compares two life histories, her own and that of Gail Paradise Kelly, with painful honesty and introspection. Her narrative account of one woman's struggle with the rules of patriarchal modernity provides a valuable pioneering contribution to comparative education, to date a largely logocentric male discourse repelled by the very radical alterity sensibilities that construct Moran's story.
28. Irving Epstein, "Comparative Education in North America: The Search for the Other through the Escape from Self?" Compare 25, no. 1 (1995): 5-16. In contrast to what Epstein's text sees as my purported optimism for the field, I see my viewpoint more akin to Isaiah Berlin's curious combination of idealism and skepticism. Epstein's text also makes an argument for measured skepticism in evaluating the field's future possibilities. The problem, as Epstein sees it, is that limited understanding of self restricts the scope and possibility of knowledge work within the comparative education field. But is our lack of reflexive self-knowledge, our naivëté, our bane? If so, could it not be viewed as an educational problem that might be treatable with heterotopic mapping? A third radical alterity example problematizing actors in comparative education texts can be found in Patricia J. Moran, "An Alternative Existence," CIES Newsletter 117 (January 1998): 1, 4. Moran compares two life histories, her own and that of Gail Paradise Kelly, with painful honesty and introspection. Her narrative account of one woman's struggle with the rules of patriarchal modernity provides a valuable pioneering contribution to comparative education, to date a largely logocentric male discourse repelled by the very radical alterity sensibilities that construct Moran's story.
29. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964).
30. See Mark Poster, ed., Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings (Saint Louis: Telos, 1988).
31. See the neo-Marxist critique of Baudrillard's arguments in Douglas Kellner, Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to Postmodernism and Beyond (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1989), p. 152. While Kellner seems to be fascinated with the brilliance and originality of Baudrillard's ideas, he nevertheless sees him trapped by "the absence of a theory of agency and mediation [by] . . . the impossibility of any sort of agent of political change . . . by the metaphysical triumph of the object over the subject" (p. 216). And yet Kellner concludes "the appeal of Baudrillard's thinking might suggest that we are [indeed] living in a transitional situation whereby new social conditions are putting into question the old orthodoxies and boundaries" (p. 217).
32. Ronald Goodenow, "The Cyberspace Challenge: Modernity, Postmodernity and Reflections on International Networking Policy," Comparative Education 32, no. 2 (1996): 197-216.
33. Gunther Kress, "Internationalization and Globalization: Rethinking a Curriculum of Communication," Comparative Education 32, no. 2 (1996): 185-196, quote on 196.
34. See Jane Kenway, "The Information Superhighway and Postmodernity: The Social Promise and the Social Price," Comparative Education 32, no. 2 (1996): 217-232.
35. Mary Wilson, Adnan Qayyam, and Roger Boskier, "World Wide America: Manufacturing Web Information," Distance Education (1999), in press.
36. Donald Schön, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York: Basic, 1983). For a perceptive examination of different traditions in reflexive thought today, see Jonathan Potter, Representing Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Construction (London: Sage, 1996), pp. 88-96, 228-32. For two imaginative literary attempts to move beyond the tendency of most modern intellectual production to "state, qualify, and conclude," see Elizabeth Deeds Ermath, Sequel to History: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Representation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), and Rolland G. Paulston and David N. Plank, "Imagining Comparative Education: Past, Present and Future," Compare, vol. 30, no. 2 (2000), forthcoming.
37. Donald Schön, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York: Basic, 1983). For a perceptive examination of different traditions in reflexive thought today, see Jonathan Potter, Representing Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Construction (London: Sage, 1996), pp. 88-96, 228-32. For two imaginative literary attempts to move beyond the tendency of most modern intellectual production to "state, qualify, and conclude," see Elizabeth Deeds Ermath, Sequel to History: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Representation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), and Rolland G. Paulston and David N. Plank, "Imagining Comparative Education: Past, Present and Future," Compare, vol. 30, no. 2 (2000), forthcoming.
38. Donald Schön, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York: Basic, 1983). For a perceptive examination of different traditions in reflexive thought today, see Jonathan Potter, Representing Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Construction (London: Sage, 1996), pp. 88-96, 228-32. For two imaginative literary attempts to move beyond the tendency of most modern intellectual production to "state, qualify, and conclude," see Elizabeth Deeds Ermath, Sequel to History: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Representation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), and Rolland G. Paulston and David N. Plank, "Imagining Comparative Education: Past, Present and Future," Compare, vol. 30, no. 2 (2000), forthcoming.
39. Donald Schön, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York: Basic, 1983). For a perceptive examination of different traditions in reflexive thought today, see Jonathan Potter, Representing Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Construction (London: Sage, 1996), pp. 88-96, 228-32. For two imaginative literary attempts to move beyond the tendency of most modern intellectual production to "state, qualify, and conclude," see Elizabeth Deeds Ermath, Sequel to History: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Representation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), and Rolland G. Paulston and David N. Plank, "Imagining Comparative Education: Past, Present and Future," Compare, vol. 30, no. 2 (2000), forthcoming.
40. Rolland G. Paulston, "Toward a Reflective Comparative Education?" Comparative Education Review 34 (May 1990): 248-58.
41. Patricia Broadfoot, Introduction to Qualitative Educational Research in Developing Countries, ed. Michael Crossley and Graham Vulliamy (New York: Garland, 1997), pp. xi-viii.
42. Elliot W. Eisner, "The Promise and Perils of Alternative Forms of Data Representation," Educational Researcher 26, no. 6 (August/September 1997): 4-11, quote on 9. Anna Sfard, in a related study, warns that the struggle for a conceptual unification of research is not a worthwhile endeavor and that too great a devotion to one particular metaphor can lead to theoretical distortion and undesirable practical consequences. Instead, she rejects Torres's stricture (see n. 48 below) and advocates a discursive approach of "metaphorical mappings" and metaphorical pluralism for conceptual renewal and improved practice. See her study, "On Two Metaphors for Learning and the Dangers of Choosing Just One," Educational Researcher 27, no. 2 (March 1998): 4-13.
43. Elliot W. Eisner, "The Promise and Perils of Alternative Forms of Data Representation," Educational Researcher 26, no. 6 (August/September 1997): 4-11, quote on 9. Anna Sfard, in a related study, warns that the struggle for a conceptual unification of research is not a worthwhile endeavor and that too great a devotion to one particular metaphor can lead to theoretical distortion and undesirable practical consequences. Instead, she rejects Torres's stricture (see n. 48 below) and advocates a discursive approach of "metaphorical mappings" and metaphorical pluralism for conceptual renewal and improved practice. See her study, "On Two Metaphors for Learning and the Dangers of Choosing Just One," Educational Researcher 27, no. 2 (March 1998): 4-13.
44. Foucault, p. 3 (n. 4 above). In making his shift from time to space in social analysis, Foucault graciously acknowledges his intellectual debt to Gilles Deleuze with the words "perhaps one day, this century will be known as Deleuzian" in his Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, trans. D. F. Bouchard and S. Simon (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977), p. 76. For their original and fecund ideas on concepts seen as territory and on the necessity of cartographics as a strategy to examine discourse with spatial analysis, see Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guttari, A Thousand Plateaus, vol. 2 of Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. B. Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980). For the cubism analogy, see Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 59. I thank Professor Eugenie Potter for pointing out this relationship.
45. Foucault, p. 3 (n. 4 above). In making his shift from time to space in social analysis, Foucault graciously acknowledges his intellectual debt to Gilles Deleuze with the words "perhaps one day, this century will be known as Deleuzian" in his Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, trans. D. F. Bouchard and S. Simon (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977), p. 76. For their original and fecund ideas on concepts seen as territory and on the necessity of cartographics as a strategy to examine discourse with spatial analysis, see Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guttari, A Thousand Plateaus, vol. 2 of Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. B. Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980). For the cubism analogy, see Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 59. I thank Professor Eugenie Potter for pointing out this relationship.
46. Foucault, p. 3 (n. 4 above). In making his shift from time to space in social analysis, Foucault graciously acknowledges his intellectual debt to Gilles Deleuze with the words "perhaps one day, this century will be known as Deleuzian" in his Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, trans. D. F. Bouchard and S. Simon (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977), p. 76. For their original and fecund ideas on concepts seen as territory and on the necessity of cartographics as a strategy to examine discourse with spatial analysis, see Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guttari, A Thousand Plateaus, vol. 2 of Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. B. Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980). For the cubism analogy, see Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 59. I thank Professor Eugenie Potter for pointing out this relationship.
47. Martin W. Liebman, "The Social Mapping Rationale: A Method and Resource to Acknowledge Postmodern Narrative Expression" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1994). In postmodern mapping as in postmodern narrative, the effort at estrangement moves in two directions simultaneously: one magnifying the subjectivity of perception, the other diminishing any sense of mimetic connection between that subjectivity and the world that seemingly remains intact and apart. Liebman excels in producing this sense of estrangement as a distortion of scale and perception. In the words of Vladimir Nabokov, the objective is to find "a kind of delicate meeting place between imagination and knowledge, a point, arrived at by diminishing large things and enlarging small ones, that [like social mapping] is intrinsically artistic." See Vladimir Nabokov, Speaking Memory: An Autobiography Revisited (New York: Capricorn, 1970), p. 167.
48. Martin W. Liebman, "The Social Mapping Rationale: A Method and Resource to Acknowledge Postmodern Narrative Expression" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1994). In postmodern mapping as in postmodern narrative, the effort at estrangement moves in two directions simultaneously: one magnifying the subjectivity of perception, the other diminishing any sense of mimetic connection between that subjectivity and the world that seemingly remains intact and apart. Liebman excels in producing this sense of estrangement as a distortion of scale and perception. In the words of Vladimir Nabokov, the objective is to find "a kind of delicate meeting place between imagination and knowledge, a point, arrived at by diminishing large things and enlarging small ones, that [like social mapping] is intrinsically artistic." See Vladimir Nabokov, Speaking Memory: An Autobiography Revisited (New York: Capricorn, 1970), p. 167.
49. Zebun Ahmed, "Mapping Rural Women's Perspectives on Nonformal Educational Experiences: A Case Study in a Bangladeshi Village" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1997). Ahmed demonstrates how a mapping of women's stories from the margins can, indeed, provide valuable evaluative data for educational planners - if they will only look and listen.
50. Kristiina Erkkilä, Mapping the Entrepreneurial Education Debates in the United States, the United Kingdom and Finland (New York: Garland, 2000), in press.
51. See Katsuhisa Ito, "The Social Cartography Project at the University of Pittsburgh: A Geographer's Assessment" (paper presented at the Western Regional Comparative and International Conference, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, June 1998); Michel Rakotomanana, "Mapping the Debate on New Information and Communication Technologies (NICTs) and Development: Implications for Educational Planning in Francophone Africa" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, June 1999); Jorge M. Gorostiaga, "Mapping Debates on Educational Decentralization: The Case of Argentina in the 1990s" (paper presented at the Comparative and International Education Society [CIES] annual meeting, Toronto, April 1999); and Mina O'Doud, "Mapping Knowledge Perspectives in the Construction of Swedish Educational Research" (paper presented at the CIES annual meeting, Toronto, April 1999).
52. See Katsuhisa Ito, "The Social Cartography Project at the University of Pittsburgh: A Geographer's Assessment" (paper presented at the Western Regional Comparative and International Conference, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, June 1998); Michel Rakotomanana, "Mapping the Debate on New Information and Communication Technologies (NICTs) and Development: Implications for Educational Planning in Francophone Africa" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, June 1999); Jorge M. Gorostiaga, "Mapping Debates on Educational Decentralization: The Case of Argentina in the 1990s" (paper presented at the Comparative and International Education Society [CIES] annual meeting, Toronto, April 1999); and Mina O'Doud, "Mapping Knowledge Perspectives in the Construction of Swedish Educational Research" (paper presented at the CIES annual meeting, Toronto, April 1999).
53. See Katsuhisa Ito, "The Social Cartography Project at the University of Pittsburgh: A Geographer's Assessment" (paper presented at the Western Regional Comparative and International Conference, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, June 1998); Michel Rakotomanana, "Mapping the Debate on New Information and Communication Technologies (NICTs) and Development: Implications for Educational Planning in Francophone Africa" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, June 1999); Jorge M. Gorostiaga, "Mapping Debates on Educational Decentralization: The Case of Argentina in the 1990s" (paper presented at the Comparative and International Education Society [CIES] annual meeting, Toronto, April 1999); and Mina O'Doud, "Mapping Knowledge Perspectives in the Construction of Swedish Educational Research" (paper presented at the CIES annual meeting, Toronto, April 1999).
54. See Katsuhisa Ito, "The Social Cartography Project at the University of Pittsburgh: A Geographer's Assessment" (paper presented at the Western Regional Comparative and International Conference, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, June 1998); Michel Rakotomanana, "Mapping the Debate on New Information and Communication Technologies (NICTs) and Development: Implications for Educational Planning in Francophone Africa" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, June 1999); Jorge M. Gorostiaga, "Mapping Debates on Educational Decentralization: The Case of Argentina in the 1990s" (paper presented at the Comparative and International Education Society [CIES] annual meeting, Toronto, April 1999); and Mina O'Doud, "Mapping Knowledge Perspectives in the Construction of Swedish Educational Research" (paper presented at the CIES annual meeting, Toronto, April 1999).
55. Rolland G. Paulston, ed., Social Cartography: Mapping Ways of Seeing Social and Educational Change (New York: Garland, 1996). The interested reader is also directed to a companion project volume by R. G. Paulston, M. Leibman, and J. V. Nicholson-Goodman, Mapping Multiple Perspectives: Research Reports of the University of Pittsburgh Social Cartography Project, 1993-1996 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, Department of Administrative and Policy Studies, 1996).
56. Rolland G. Paulston, ed., Social Cartography: Mapping Ways of Seeing Social and Educational Change (New York: Garland, 1996). The interested reader is also directed to a companion project volume by R. G. Paulston, M. Leibman, and J. V. Nicholson-Goodman, Mapping Multiple Perspectives: Research Reports of the University of Pittsburgh Social Cartography Project, 1993-1996 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, Department of Administrative and Policy Studies, 1996).
57. Erwin H. Epstein, "The Problematic Meaning of 'Comparison' in Comparative Education," in Theories and Methods in Comparative Education, ed. Jürgen Schriewer and Brian Holmes (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang, 1988), pp. 3-23. Variations on this metanarrative can be found in George Psacharopoulos, "Comparative Education: From Theory to Practice," Comparative Education Review 34, no. 3 (August 1990): 369-80; and Stephen Heyneman, "Quantity, Quality and Source," Comparative Education Review 37, no. 4 (November 1993): 372-88.
58. Erwin H. Epstein, "The Problematic Meaning of 'Comparison' in Comparative Education," in Theories and Methods in Comparative Education, ed. Jürgen Schriewer and Brian Holmes (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang, 1988), pp. 3-23. Variations on this metanarrative can be found in George Psacharopoulos, "Comparative Education: From Theory to Practice," Comparative Education Review 34, no. 3 (August 1990): 369-80; and Stephen Heyneman, "Quantity, Quality and Source," Comparative Education Review 37, no. 4 (November 1993): 372-88.
59. Erwin H. Epstein, "The Problematic Meaning of 'Comparison' in Comparative Education," in Theories and Methods in Comparative Education, ed. Jürgen Schriewer and Brian Holmes (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang, 1988), pp. 3-23. Variations on this metanarrative can be found in George Psacharopoulos, "Comparative Education: From Theory to Practice," Comparative Education Review 34, no. 3 (August 1990): 369-80; and Stephen Heyneman, "Quantity, Quality and Source," Comparative Education Review 37, no. 4 (November 1993): 372-88.
60. E. Epstein, p. 6.
61. Ibid., p. 22.
62. See Hayden White, "Foucault Decoded: Notes from Underground," in Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism, ed. Hayden White (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), pp. 230-60, quote on p. 239. White concludes that the key to understanding Foucault's method of "transcription" is to be found in how it is used to reveal the inner dynamics of the thought process by which a given representation of the world in words is grounded in poesis: "to translate prose into poetry is Foucault's purpose, and thus he is especially interested in showing how all systems of thought in the human sciences can be seen as little more than terminological formulations of poetic closures with the world of words, rather than with the things they purport to represent and explain" (p. 259).
63. Keith Watson, "Memories, Models and Mapping: The Impact of Geopolitical Changes on Comparative Studies in Education," Compare 28, no. 1 (1998): 5-31. Watson echoes C. Arnold Anderson's earlier modernization agenda for comparative education: "above all, the work undertaken should have purposeful reformist and practical goals and should be used to inform and advise governments" (p. 28). In his text, Watson offers by way of illustration two structural functionalist figures, one of "the determinants of an educational system" (p. 22) and the other of "international influences that shape educational systems" (p. 27). However, it is not clear how these representations meet his criterion for "hard data," especially the latter figure, which is coded using world systems ideology and presents a soft critique of international capitalism, in, for example, the "Role of Stock Markets, e.g. Tokyo's Hang Seng" (p. 27). But as every Hong Kong schoolboy knows, the Hang Seng stock market is not in Tokyo, and even supposedly "hard data" may become a bit fuzzy now and then. The Nikkei is, in fact, Tokyo's stock exchange.
64. See also Keith Watson, reviews of Mapping Multiple Perspectives by R. G. Paulston, M. Leibman, and J. V Nicholson-Goodman; and Social Cartography, ed. R. G. Paulston, in Comparative Education 34, no. 1 (March 1998): 107-8. While statistical analyses may indeed be useful in technical work, balanced educational assessment requires an alternative practice of formulating judgments not only on assigned numerical ratings, but also on the characteristics of performance in context. Watson's text sees useful knowledge from a rather narrow modernization theory viewpoint (i.e., articulated in simple, essentialist, and mechanistic terms). My view is broader and also welcomes a perspective that sees knowledge as individually and socially constructed and as reflected in particular contexts and discourses that can be mapped and discussed and remapped. See Genette Delandshere and Anthony R. Petrosky, "Assessment of Complex Performances: Limitations of Measurement Assumptions," Educational Researcher 27, no. 2 (March 1998): 14-24.
65. See also Keith Watson, reviews of Mapping Multiple Perspectives by R. G. Paulston, M. Leibman, and J. V Nicholson-Goodman; and Social Cartography, ed. R. G. Paulston, in Comparative Education 34, no. 1 (March 1998): 107-8. While statistical analyses may indeed be useful in technical work, balanced educational assessment requires an alternative practice of formulating judgments not only on assigned numerical ratings, but also on the characteristics of performance in context. Watson's text sees useful knowledge from a rather narrow modernization theory viewpoint (i.e., articulated in simple, essentialist, and mechanistic terms). My view is broader and also welcomes a perspective that sees knowledge as individually and socially constructed and as reflected in particular contexts and discourses that can be mapped and discussed and remapped. See Genette Delandshere and Anthony R. Petrosky, "Assessment of Complex Performances: Limitations of Measurement Assumptions," Educational Researcher 27, no. 2 (March 1998): 14-24.
66. See also Keith Watson, reviews of Mapping Multiple Perspectives by R. G. Paulston, M. Leibman, and J. V Nicholson-Goodman; and Social Cartography, ed. R. G. Paulston, in Comparative Education 34, no. 1 (March 1998): 107-8. While statistical analyses may indeed be useful in technical work, balanced educational assessment requires an alternative practice of formulating judgments not only on assigned numerical ratings, but also on the characteristics of performance in context. Watson's text sees useful knowledge from a rather narrow modernization theory viewpoint (i.e., articulated in simple, essentialist, and mechanistic terms). My view is broader and also welcomes a perspective that sees knowledge as individually and socially constructed and as reflected in particular contexts and discourses that can be mapped and discussed and remapped. See Genette Delandshere and Anthony R. Petrosky, "Assessment of Complex Performances: Limitations of Measurement Assumptions," Educational Researcher 27, no. 2 (March 1998): 14-24.
67. Raymond Baudon, The Unintended Consequences of Social Action (London: Macmillan, 1982), pp. 155-59.
68. Mary Jean Bowman, "An Integrated Framework for the Analysis of the Spread of Schooling in Less Developed Countries," Comparative Education Review 2 (November 1984): 563-83.
69. David A. Turner, "Game Theory in Comparative Education: Prospects and Propositions," in Theories and Methods in Comparative Education, ed. Jürgen Schriewer and Brian Holmes (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang, 1988), p. 158.
70. Peter McLaren, "Critical Pedagogy, Political Agency, and the Pragmatics of Justice: The Case of Lyotard," Educational Theory 44, no. 3 (Summer 1994): 319-40. See also the related studies by Judith Butler, "Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of 'Postmodernism'," in Feminists Theorize the Political, ed. Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott (New York: Routledge, 1992); and Nelly P. Stromquist, "Romancing the State: Gender and Power in Education," Comparative Education Review 39, no. 4 (November 1995): 423-54. Stromquist suggests that critical gender issues can be appropriated from feminist discourse to support a more liberating "manipulation of gender identities through schooling and the mass media" (p. 454). In this genre, see also Greg Dimitriadis and George Kamberelis, "Shifting Terrains: Mapping Education within a Global Landscape," Annals of the American Academy 551 (May 1997): 137-50.
71. Peter McLaren, "Critical Pedagogy, Political Agency, and the Pragmatics of Justice: The Case of Lyotard," Educational Theory 44, no. 3 (Summer 1994): 319-40. See also the related studies by Judith Butler, "Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of 'Postmodernism'," in Feminists Theorize the Political, ed. Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott (New York: Routledge, 1992); and Nelly P. Stromquist, "Romancing the State: Gender and Power in Education," Comparative Education Review 39, no. 4 (November 1995): 423-54. Stromquist suggests that critical gender issues can be appropriated from feminist discourse to support a more liberating "manipulation of gender identities through schooling and the mass media" (p. 454). In this genre, see also Greg Dimitriadis and George Kamberelis, "Shifting Terrains: Mapping Education within a Global Landscape," Annals of the American Academy 551 (May 1997): 137-50.
72. Peter McLaren, "Critical Pedagogy, Political Agency, and the Pragmatics of Justice: The Case of Lyotard," Educational Theory 44, no. 3 (Summer 1994): 319-40. See also the related studies by Judith Butler, "Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of 'Postmodernism'," in Feminists Theorize the Political, ed. Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott (New York: Routledge, 1992); and Nelly P. Stromquist, "Romancing the State: Gender and Power in Education," Comparative Education Review 39, no. 4 (November 1995): 423-54. Stromquist suggests that critical gender issues can be appropriated from feminist discourse to support a more liberating "manipulation of gender identities through schooling and the mass media" (p. 454). In this genre, see also Greg Dimitriadis and George Kamberelis, "Shifting Terrains: Mapping Education within a Global Landscape," Annals of the American Academy 551 (May 1997): 137-50.
73. Peter McLaren, "Critical Pedagogy, Political Agency, and the Pragmatics of Justice: The Case of Lyotard," Educational Theory 44, no. 3 (Summer 1994): 319-40. See also the related studies by Judith Butler, "Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of 'Postmodernism'," in Feminists Theorize the Political, ed. Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott (New York: Routledge, 1992); and Nelly P. Stromquist, "Romancing the State: Gender and Power in Education," Comparative Education Review 39, no. 4 (November 1995): 423-54. Stromquist suggests that critical gender issues can be appropriated from feminist discourse to support a more liberating "manipulation of gender identities through schooling and the mass media" (p. 454). In this genre, see also Greg Dimitriadis and George Kamberelis, "Shifting Terrains: Mapping Education within a Global Landscape," Annals of the American Academy 551 (May 1997): 137-50.
74. McLaren, p. 338. In contrast to McLaren's call to base critical pedagogy on neo-Marxist theory updated with selective postmodern appropriations, Jennifer Gore advocates Foucault's strategy of leaving specific tactics and strategies of resistance to those directly involved in struggle at the precise points where their own conditions of life or work situate them. Here the shift is made from a master narrative of emancipation owned by intellectuals to the mininarratives or small stories arising from situated experiences and actual power relations. See Jennifer Gore, The Struggle for Pedagogies: Critical and Feminist Discourses as Regimes of Truth (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 65-66.
75. For a valuable study seeking to situate, or map, various contradictory versions of constructivist theory in educational psychology, see Richard S. Prawat, "Constructivisms, Modern and Postmodern," Educational Psychologist 31, no. 3 (1996): 215-25. Prawat uses textual analysis and conceptual mapping, as in this study, to identify and compare different ways of seeing. This is a fine example of a reflexive practitioner viewpoint at work.
76. Carlos Alberto Torres, "Social Cartography, Comparative Education, and Critical Modernism: Afterthought," in Social Cartography: Mapping Ways of Seeing Social and Educational Change, ed. R. G. Paulston (New York: Garland, 1996), p. 430. A major problem with the moralistic approach found in many critical modernist lexts is that it often leads to a dead end of author self-centering where the marginalized get marginalized still more. Nast puts it like this: "Guilt that centers merely on the existence of . . . inequality and not on how inequality can be transformed is . . . unproductively paralyzing." See Heidi Nast, "Opening Remarks on 'Women in the Field,'" Professional Geographer 46, no. 1 (1994): 54-66.
77. Carlos Alberto Torres, "Social Cartography, Comparative Education, and Critical Modernism: Afterthought," in Social Cartography: Mapping Ways of Seeing Social and Educational Change, ed. R. G. Paulston (New York: Garland, 1996), p. 430. A major problem with the moralistic approach found in many critical modernist lexts is that it often leads to a dead end of author self-centering where the marginalized get marginalized still more. Nast puts it like this: "Guilt that centers merely on the existence of . . . inequality and not on how inequality can be transformed is . . . unproductively paralyzing." See Heidi Nast, "Opening Remarks on 'Women in the Field,'" Professional Geographer 46, no. 1 (1994): 54-66.
78. For a variety of ideas on opening new space for radical critique in a postmodern era, see Herbert W. Simons and Michael Billig, eds., After Postmodernism: Reconstructing Ideological Critique (London: Sage, 1994). I found Richard Harvey Brown's chapter "Reconstructing Social Theory after the Postmodern Critique" (pp. 12-37) especially helpful in its advocacy of self-reflexive talk-about-talk and its advice on teaching debates.
79. See introduction to Beck et al. (n. 5 above).
80. See, e.g., Anthony Welch, "The End of Certainty? The Academic Profession and the Challenge of Change," Comparative Education Review 42 (February 1998): 1-14. Here Welch worries that disruptive postmodern ideas will be used as a stick to drive performativity efforts in the academy. While this, indeed, seems to be under way, his call to reassert a universal ideal of Western democracy as an opposing criterion of judgment, as an absolute standpoint to judge the truth, sounds a bit Eurocentric and nostalgic. For a serious attempt to rethink political space today, that is, the "hyperspace" of politics in the "global village" in which we all now live, see Warren Magnusson, The Search for Political Space: Globalization, Social Movements, and the Urban Political Experience (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996).
81. See, e.g., Anthony Welch, "The End of Certainty? The Academic Profession and the Challenge of Change," Comparative Education Review 42 (February 1998): 1-14. Here Welch worries that disruptive postmodern ideas will be used as a stick to drive performativity efforts in the academy. While this, indeed, seems to be under way, his call to reassert a universal ideal of Western democracy as an opposing criterion of judgment, as an absolute standpoint to judge the truth, sounds a bit Eurocentric and nostalgic. For a serious attempt to rethink political space today, that is, the "hyperspace" of politics in the "global village" in which we all now live, see Warren Magnusson, The Search for Political Space: Globalization, Social Movements, and the Urban Political Experience (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996).
82. Robert Cowen, "Performativity, Post-Modernity and the University," Comparative Education 32, no. 2 (1996): 245-58, quote on 247. For related work framed in this perspective, see also David Coulby and Crispin Jones, "Post-Modernity, Education and European Identities," Comparative Education 2, no. 2 (1996): 171-84, and, by the same authors, Postmodernity and European Educational Systems (Stoke-On-Trent: Trentham, 1995). See also Arnold W. Green, "Postmodernism and State Education," Journal of Educational Policy 9 (1994): 136-49; and Jürgen Schriewer, "The Method of Comparison and the Need for Externalization," in Jürgen Schriewer and Brian Holmes, eds. (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang, 1988), pp. 25-83, where the text ambitiously advocates a "science of comparative education" based on styles of reasoning, or Denkstile, in "divergent types of theory viz, scientific theories and reflection theories" (p. 30).
83. Robert Cowen, "Performativity, Post-Modernity and the University," Comparative Education 32, no. 2 (1996): 245-58, quote on 247. For related work framed in this perspective, see also David Coulby and Crispin Jones, "Post-Modernity, Education and European Identities," Comparative Education 2, no. 2 (1996): 171-84, and, by the same authors, Postmodernity and European Educational Systems (Stoke-On-Trent: Trentham, 1995). See also Arnold W. Green, "Postmodernism and State Education," Journal of Educational Policy 9 (1994): 136-49; and Jürgen Schriewer, "The Method of Comparison and the Need for Externalization," in Jürgen Schriewer and Brian Holmes, eds. (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang, 1988), pp. 25-83, where the text ambitiously advocates a "science of comparative education" based on styles of reasoning, or Denkstile, in "divergent types of theory viz, scientific theories and reflection theories" (p. 30).
84. Robert Cowen, "Performativity, Post-Modernity and the University," Comparative Education 32, no. 2 (1996): 245-58, quote on 247. For related work framed in this perspective, see also David Coulby and Crispin Jones, "Post-Modernity, Education and European Identities," Comparative Education 2, no. 2 (1996): 171-84, and, by the same authors, Postmodernity and European Educational Systems (Stoke-On-Trent: Trentham, 1995). See also Arnold W. Green, "Postmodernism and State Education," Journal of Educational Policy 9 (1994): 136-49; and Jürgen Schriewer, "The Method of Comparison and the Need for Externalization," in Jürgen Schriewer and Brian Holmes, eds. (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang, 1988), pp. 25-83, where the text ambitiously advocates a "science of comparative education" based on styles of reasoning, or Denkstile, in "divergent types of theory viz, scientific theories and reflection theories" (p. 30).
85. Robert Cowen, "Performativity, Post-Modernity and the University," Comparative Education 32, no. 2 (1996): 245-58, quote on 247. For related work framed in this perspective, see also David Coulby and Crispin Jones, "Post-Modernity, Education and European Identities," Comparative Education 2, no. 2 (1996): 171-84, and, by the same authors, Postmodernity and European Educational Systems (Stoke-On-Trent: Trentham, 1995). See also Arnold W. Green, "Postmodernism and State Education," Journal of Educational Policy 9 (1994): 136-49; and Jürgen Schriewer, "The Method of Comparison and the Need for Externalization," in Jürgen Schriewer and Brian Holmes, eds. (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang, 1988), pp. 25-83, where the text ambitiously advocates a "science of comparative education" based on styles of reasoning, or Denkstile, in "divergent types of theory viz, scientific theories and reflection theories" (p. 30).
86. Robert Cowen, "Performativity, Post-Modernity and the University," Comparative Education 32, no. 2 (1996): 245-58, quote on 247. For related work framed in this perspective, see also David Coulby and Crispin Jones, "Post-Modernity, Education and European Identities," Comparative Education 2, no. 2 (1996): 171-84, and, by the same authors, Postmodernity and European Educational Systems (Stoke-On-Trent: Trentham, 1995). See also Arnold W. Green, "Postmodernism and State Education," Journal of Educational Policy 9 (1994): 136-49; and Jürgen Schriewer, "The Method of Comparison and the Need for Externalization," in Jürgen Schriewer and Brian Holmes, eds. (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang, 1988), pp. 25-83, where the text ambitiously advocates a "science of comparative education" based on styles of reasoning, or Denkstile, in "divergent types of theory viz, scientific theories and reflection theories" (p. 30).
87. Cowen, p. 167. In a related study, Peter Jarvis uses the concept of "late modernity" to situate performativity concerns of non-Western cultures consuming educational knowledge that can now be packaged and marketed globally. See his "Continuing Education in a Late-Modern or Global Society," Comparative Education 32, no. 2 (1996): 233-43.
88. Zygmunt Bauman, Legislators and Interpreters: On Modernity, Postmodernity and Intellectuals (London: Cambridge University Press, 1987), Title.
89. Heidi Ross, Cho-Yee To, William Cave, and David E. Blair, "On
90. Heidi Ross, Cho-Yee To, William Cave, and David E. Blair, "On Shifting Ground: The Post-Paradigmatic Identity of U.S. Comparative Education, 1979-1988," Compare 22, no. 2 (1992): 113-32. As in the study presented here, the authors report finding a "fragmented field constituting chaos for some, and for others a mosaic of diverse and sometimes competing goals, theoretical frameworks, methodologies and claims" (p. 113). In 1988, they found that CIES members by and large "placed their hopes in the multiple possibilities of diversity and defended the field's eclectic stance as a widening rather than an absence of identity" (p. 127). I locate this view as the "postparadigmatic eclecticism" position in the center of figure 2. It is, perhaps, still the favored perspective of most comparative education practitioners, but a follow-up study is long overdue. For a perceptive review of our Social Cartography book from this eclectic perspective, see John Pickeles, "Social and Cultural Cartographies and the Spatial Turn in Social Theory," Journal of Historical Geography 25, no. 1 (January 1999): 93-98.
91. Nigel Blake also addresses this challenge in his perceptive study, "Between Postmodernism and AntiModernism: The Predicament of Educational Studies," British Journal of Educational Studies 44, no. 1 (March 1996): 42-65. Blake sees postmodernists resisting the use of a criterion of validity, as advocated here by Watson (i.e., "hard data") and Welch (i.e., "western democracy"), to settle a usage (see nn. 40 and 51). This would foreclose other stories and represent a claim to universal assent for one criterion. As such, postmodern theory impugns the value of all inquiry frameworks that make an a priori claim to universal validity. Indeed, it is one of postmodernism's most salient intellectual characteristics to repudiate the notion of uniquely valid or valuable perspectives on itself, or on anything else (p. 43). Here Nigel Blake reiterates the profound skepticism found in anti-Enlightenment and postmodern texts about the universal validity of any single master narrative or grand theoretical story. See Jean-Franciois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. G. Bennington and B. Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), where, with no little irony, the text might well be read as advocating as a master narrative the rejection of metanarratives. Social cartography, as practiced here, seeks to avoid this temptation by recognizing and interrelating all texts and arguments claiming space in knowledge debates.
92. Nigel Blake also addresses this challenge in his perceptive study, "Between Postmodernism and AntiModernism: The Predicament of Educational Studies," British Journal of Educational Studies 44, no. 1 (March 1996): 42-65. Blake sees postmodernists resisting the use of a criterion of validity, as advocated here by Watson (i.e., "hard data") and Welch (i.e., "western democracy"), to settle a usage (see nn. 40 and 51). This would foreclose other stories and represent a claim to universal assent for one criterion. As such, postmodern theory impugns the value of all inquiry frameworks that make an a priori claim to universal validity. Indeed, it is one of postmodernism's most salient intellectual characteristics to repudiate the notion of uniquely valid or valuable perspectives on itself, or on anything else (p. 43). Here Nigel Blake reiterates the profound skepticism found in anti-Enlightenment and postmodern texts about the universal validity of any single master narrative or grand theoretical story. See Jean-Franciois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. G. Bennington and B. Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), where, with no little irony, the text might well be read as advocating as a master narrative the rejection of metanarratives. Social cartography, as practiced here, seeks to avoid this temptation by recognizing and interrelating all texts and arguments claiming space in knowledge debates.