Empires, Post-Coloniality and Interculturality

Empires, Post-Coloniality and Interculturality: The New Challenges for Comparative Education, presents some outcomes of the 25th Conference of the Comparative Education Society in Europe (CESE), held in Salamanca, in June 2012. The central aim proposed for the debates of the Conference revolves around an intellectual effort to re-think and re-direct the scientific discipline of Comparative Education based on the broad cultural trends that influence the internationalization and/or globalization of education. Reconsidering and/or re-thinking our discipline involves studying the influence exerted on it by three major international forces. First, empires, not so much in terms of discipline or governance but more related to cultural, technological and knowledge perspectives. This area addresses both historical process and contemporary circumstances and is expressed through networks, research programs, academic reform in universities supported by criteria of governance and efficiency, transnational mobility, and linguistic monopolies. Second, it is necessary to re-think the influence of post-colonialism in educational models and models of citizens' education not only from the perspective of their impact on the curricular reorganization of education systems but also of their educational and sociocultural expression. Both forms were acclaimed both in the 19th century and the 20th century within different international geographic contexts. The third component of the discourse triangle is the reconsideration (not only historical) of the impact of migratory fluxes, or better said, of 'cultural migrations', and their relationship with the reordering of curricular and educational processes in both education systems and in the social framework. Education is now in a transition from 'monoculture' to multiple cultures in the classroom. This publication is structured along four themes that illustrate the academic contributions to the Conference. The themes are as follows: I. From Empires, History and Memory: Comparative Studies of Education, II. Learning and Assessment Processes: an International Perspective, III. Transnational Education and Colonial Approach, IV. International Education: Comparative Dimensions.