CFP: International Symposium on Comparative Sciences

This international symposium focuses not just on comparative education, but on the overlap and integration of the comparative sciences, broadly speaking. Comparative studies in education, psychology, sociology, religion, linguistics, literature, civilization studies, myth and legend studies, anthropology, law, and history all seek to understand phenomena through comparison. Each of these comparative studies fields also brings a balance of contextualization and globalization to their research and methodologies. For example, comparative studies are not necessarily bounded by national systems and are often global in character. For example, situating education in a global context emphasizes how schooling is a not only a tool for educating individual students, but also for community and national development. Only through international comparison of an educational phenomenon with phenomena in other nations can the public and educators, in particular, understand the complete role of education. But, comparative education is only one of many fields of comparative study.

The aim of this international symposium is to achieve and foster common understanding in methodologies across comparative sciences. There are several approaches to comparing comparative methodologies. The instruments of comparison require careful scrutiny to ensure that they are valid and reliable tools for comparison. Each comparative studies field has its own set of key constructs or target variables that deserve scrutiny as well. Are they consistently defined and measured? Do they lend themselves to multi-contextual analyses, or are they context specific? Cultural, contextual, and organizational characteristics often prevent direct comparisons. Little or no comparative work has examined how the different comparative studies fields handle this obstacle to comparison? Levels of comparison or units of comparison are often most predictive and reliable when they are more focused or contained. In other words, broader levels of analysis (global) are often less stable comparative units than more focused levels of analysis (e.g., a neighborhood or a family).

Call for Papers
Participants are invited to submit:
1) abstracts of papers to be presented at the Symposium;
2) full papers to be considered for publication.

Important dates

Abstract submission deadline:
20 May 2013

Abstract acceptance notification:
30 May 2013

Full paper submission deadline:
15 August 2013*
* For participants who want their papers to be considered for publication.

For further information see the website: http://bces.conference.tripod.com/iscs/index.html