A Study On The Value Of Comparative Education

Comparative studies in education has a long history, and M. A. Jullien's outline and preliminary views of a work on comparative education (1817) marked the birth of comparative education with the feature of academic institutionalization. Comparative education originates from strong social demand on the one hand, and is the inevitable result of development of educational science in academic logics on the other hand. Comparative Education has played tremendous and unique roles in building modern education system for the nation state, promoting education reform and development in various countries, and then enhancing their development in political, economic, technological and cultural respects, In modern times, the value and function of comparative education has increasingly presented the characteristics of times as diversity and variety. In particular, due to globalization as well as education's overall, forerunning and foundational roles in economic and social development, the importance and necessity of comparative education study are becoming a prominent issue.With the development of comparative education, there emerges a very awkward phenomenon. On the one hand, comparative education study is undoubtedly valuable; on the other hand, as an independent discipline, comparative education's identity has been widely questioned, it is facing a crisis of identity and survival. In general, such crisis is mainly arisen form two reasons. One is comparative education system of vulnerabilities (Comparative Education and are still far from mature subjects); the other is the disciplinary function of comparative education was decomposed and substituted by other disciplines as alternatives. Based on this kind of cognition, two aspects can be ideas and approaches to resolve the identity and survival of comparative education. For one thing, to strengthen and improve discipline construction of comparative education; on the other hand, to inquire about the unique value and role of this subject, and to seek the foundation and defense for identity of comparative education as an independent discipline form the perspective of its usefulness and irreplaceable roles.From the perspective of comparative education's discipline construction, more and more people tend to believe that the discipline system of comparative education consists of ontology, epistemology, methodology, value theory of this subject. In this way, theory of value has become an integral part and important category of comparative education system. From the view of usefulness, this issue directly relates to the value of comparative education study. In this sense, while probing the usefulness of comparative education study, we cannot avoid such issue as value of comparative education, which appears to be more and more important, and it became as an important breakthrough point out of the crisis of status and survival. Unfortunately, when recalling the history of comparative education, we were surprised to find that the study for value of comparative education is so weak. Mainly owing to lack of study for value of comparative education made by influential educators in the history, and monographs and papers on the value study of comparative education are also minimal. The value theory of comparative education is undoubtedly a weak link in subject system, the reality of this problem has emerged out of this target. All of these constitute our original intention and the main reason for studying value of comparative education.From the logic of academic development, the academic origin of value of comparative education study lies in analyzing such concepts as value and educational value, which based on the reality that education as the maternal discipline of comparative education. Comparative education is the inevitable result of development in science of education. Educational value is the embodiment and special form of value in general sense, and the value of comparative education is as of the educational value. From value to educational value then to the value of comparative education, this analysis sequence should be consistent with academic logic. Although there still exist more divergences in cognition of value in current academic, as well as have many different definitions, more people began to recognize value cognition as a category to reflect the relationship between the object properties and needs of subject, and as a concept and category that corresponds with factual cognition. The education value is considered to mean'a particular relationship between the objective property of educational phenomenon and the needs of human as the subject of social practices, such different perceptions and evaluation for this relationship constitute people's education al value'.Based on the cognition of value and educational value, we attempt to make a definition for the value of comparative education, that is, a category reflecting the relationship between the properties, nature, characteristic, function, and the main effect of comparative education and the needs of certain principal part, including social, groups and individuals. The value orientation of comparative education is a concept related to its value, which means an attitude, intentions and preferences, etc. shown by the subject of comparative education study in choosing the value of comparative education based on value judgments and their own needs. The main essence is an option and a choice for multi-dimensional of comparative education reality based on certain subject's specific needs for comparative education study. Another concept is the value theory of comparative education, which means certain subject's overall knowledge and belief in the value of comparative education, namely the general term of certain subject's knowledge, understanding, attitudes, judgments and evaluation of its value. Meanwhile, in practical research, the concept as the value of comparative education often mixed with purposes, functions, significances and effects of comparative education. Under this circumstance, it is very necessary to identify the differences of these related concepts, mainly explore the differences and relation among them. With the purpose of raising degree of differentiation and independence in the concept of value of comparative education, which undoubtedly also as a necessary requirement for making the value study of comparative education become more scientifically.Although the study for value of comparative education involved issues complicated and various, the question of "why" should be solved above all, that is why study the value of comparative education, from which meaning and function can be provided at all. In this paper, we mainly make an analysis for theoretical significance, practical significance of study for value of comparative education and its realistic pertinence. These three aspects constitute the meaning structure of studying the value of comparative education, it can be said the reasons and internal basis of this study.Historical inheritance is common law and characteristics of any subjects. Each discipline's development has the same features as historical, stage and inheritable, any subject cannot be a sudden fall from the sky or from the ground to emerge. For a subject, the achievement in each stage is the evolution of previous stage and the starting point for the latter stage. Discipline is an endless stage of development one stage from another, growing up in an upward spiral. Based on this understanding, the study for value of comparative education cannot chop up the history. Therefore, some well-known scholars'ideas and views on the value of comparative education provided a valuable basis of literature and history on the one hand, as well as the starting point of our study. For this reason, historical ideas and views on the value of comparative education cannot help but become an important content and part of this paper.As mentioned earlier, the contemporary study of comparative education reveals more and more value orientations as pluralism and diversity; its richness and complexity requires us to classify the value of comparative education study. On one hand, to better understand the value of comparative education; On the other hand, to better realize the value of comparative education study. In other words, to better play the roles in such aspects as promoting the development of nation-states, of the educational reform and of international exchanges, cooperation and understanding. Therefore, the classification of the value of comparative education should be another important content and part in this paper.On the value of comparative education, we cannot study for the sake of study. The study on value of comparative education is not the ultimate goal, but more to fully exert and achieve its deserved value. Therefore, the exploration of internal and external conditions and factors influencing and promoting the value realization of comparative education will inevitably become the ultimate goal and the end results of this study. In this way, the value realization of comparative education is another focus and content of this paper.