Five postmodern-favorable knowledge communities in comparative education discourse¶

Theory · All theories
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The paper identifies, through close exegetic reading of some 60 texts, five textual communities favorable to postmodernism in comparative education: Postmodernist Deconstructions, Radical Alterity, Semiotic Society, Reflexive Practitioner, and Social Cartography. Each is characterized by how it sees reality and problematizes practice, and all "tend to locate the emergence of postmodernism after the 1970s as a periodizing concept" external to modernity. The taxonomy organizes the paper's mapping of the debate field.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Texts must be read exegetically for ontology, genealogy and narratology to type communities

Constraints¶

• The reading admits heterogeneity: readings by others would most likely produce different interpretations and mappings

Target Learners¶

• comparative education scholars and graduate students

Target Learning Objectives¶

• understanding competing epistemological positions in comparative education research

Claims¶

Related Theories¶

• Four modernist genres opposing the postmodern challenge in comparative education
• Social cartography as heterotopic mapping of perspectival difference
• Modernist responses to the postmodern challenge form three broad areas: orthodox, critical pedagogy, and performativity texts

Examples¶

• Five-step discourse mapping procedure for representing a contested knowledge debate

Key Sources¶

• Paulston, Rolland G. (1999). Comparative Education After Postmodernity: Occasional Paper Series. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED430912