From The Cultural Factor's Studies To "Cultural Studies": The Research Paradigm Shift In Comparative Education

During recent years, culture and the"cultural studies"are increasingly growing up in the social science, and many disciplines and research fields pay attention to and lay emphasis on them. And we can say that the culture is gradually becoming an important tool for analyzing contemporary social life. However, culture has still been in the marginal situation in comparative education for a long time. Such circumstance is worthy of thinking deeply and attaching importance to it.Certainly we should point out, in the development process of comparative education, the period of historical—cultural research has ever emphasized the effects of culture, especially historical cultural traditions or so-called"national character". But during this period, comparative education scholars mainly regarded the culture as a factor in the research of comparative education, we also can call this period as the"cultural factors'studies". And also it lays the important foundations for the rise and development of the"cultural studies"paradigm. Since 1970s, with the influence of"cultural studies", and the self development of comparative education, the culture begins to attract the concentration of scholars in comparative education again. Under such circumstance, the cultural turn starts to turn out in the field of comparative education, and along with it, the"cultural studies"paradigm also gains certain development. Therefore, I try to discuss the cultural turn in comparative education and the general development situation of the"cultural studies"paradigm, in hope of promoting the development of the"cultural studies"paradigm in the field of comparative education.The main structure of the paper is below:Introduction: in this part I simply introduces the topic of this paper, the research meaning,realistic conditions, the definition of relevant concepts and research methods. Part one:this part mainly discusses the relationships between culture,"cultural studies"and comparative education. Firstly, I discuss the mutual relationships and effects between culture and comparative education, hoping to present the important value and meaning of culture in comparative education. Then, I mainly discuss the relevant contents of the field of"cultural studies"and its influence on comparative education.Part two:this part is chiefly about the cultural turn in comparative education:from the studies of"culture"to the"cultural"studies. In this part, I discuss the cultural turn in comparative education, namely the shift from the studies of cultural factors to"cultural studies", and the development of cultural view of comparative education. Based on these, I briefly discuss the development background of"cultural studies"in comparative education, and some new trends in comparative education and so on.Part three:this part discusses several sides of the cultural turn in comparative education research. The content of research paradigm is very abundant. It includes a series of concepts,theories,values,methods and principles which are used when we research questions,look into questions,analyze questions and solve questions. In this paper, I mainly select three aspects:the research units, the research objects and the research methods.Epilogue:I briefly summarize the"cultural studies"paradigm of comparative education, and then present the self reflection on the comparative education research during the research process.