Jost Reischmann1 (2000)

1. The Meaning of ‘International Comparative’, Problems, and Perspectives2

Knowledge about the education of adults in other countries can be gained from various sources:

A first source, mostly evaluated as ‘pre-scientific’, comprises ‘traveler’s tales’, the reports we get from international travelers. Such reports are mainly delivered by traveling writers or vacation-makers, but also by scholars who attend a conference abroad and have to report to their funding agency - and publish this report at the same time in a journal. If these descriptions are more systematic, they are labeled ‘traveler’s reports’, or - if they are less systematic, ‘traveler’s tales’.

These types of international documents are mostly characterized as ‘subjective-impressionistic’. Their value is evaluated ambivalent: Critically it is argued that, because of the random observation and the subjective description, it is not clear how reliable and how representative the descriptions are. On the other hand, the plea is made that especially in this subjective focus of eye-witnesses there might be strength from this type of reports. In the framework of a new appreciation of qualitative research, these reports may find a new interest.

At the scientific level, six different types of international-comparative research are identified:

1.During the 1970s and 1980s mainly country-reports were presented. ‘Adult Education in the Republic of …’ is a typical title of this type of report. These papers tried to describe the system of adult and continuing education in one particular country. They could be written by an author of this country or by a person from outside. Some of these reports were, and are, rather impressionistic. Others followed a well-developed outline and structure.

2.During and after the 1980s we find an increasing number of program-reports. These describe foreign adult education programs, institutions, and organizations. Examples of this type can be found in the publications of Charters/Hilton (1989) or the case studies collected by Knox (1989). Included in this type (sometimes presented in a separate category) are the topic-oriented studies or the problem approach: a certain topic or problem is discussed in the context of a nation.

Country reports as well as topic-oriented studies and the problem approach focus more on ‘international’, less on ‘comparative’. Because when only one country or program is presented, nothing to compare is available. When a number of country-reports or program-reports are collected in a textbook, the readers must draw the comparative conclusions themselves. Especially when an author presents his own country or program it is difficult to refer to another national system. If, for example, a German author describes a German program for a publication in English: should parallels be drawn to the English, Scottish, US-American, Canadian, or Australian systems?

3.A third type is juxtaposition. Data from two or more countries are presented. These reports show: In country A we can observe a, in country B we find b. A series of statistical reports represent this type. But no explicit comparison - where are the similarities, what are the differences? - is given. An example of this type in Germany is the international volume of the Handbuch der Erwachsenenbildung (Handbook of Adult Education, 1978), edited by Franz Pöggeler, or Peter Jarvis’ ‘Perspectives on Adult Education and Training in Europe’ (1992).

This juxtaposition can also be topic- or problem-oriented when a topic is presented in a series of contributions from various countries: In Pö