Abstract: The crisis of comparative education lies in the lack of high-level research. Comparative education is an educational research activity based on cultural understanding. According to the different levels of cultural understanding, research methods and achievements, comparative education research can be divided into? Four realms? , that is, literature review type? Entry level? Model or theoretical guidance? Expert? , data mining? Advanced level? And integration? Master? . These four realms are not only four different research types, but also four different research levels. In order to maintain discipline dignity and win discipline reputation, comparative pedagogy must develop from primary level to advanced level.
Keywords: literature review mode of comparative education crisis or data mining guided by theory.
The crisis of comparative education is not only an identity crisis, but also a survival crisis. The essence of the crisis lies in the low level of research and achievements and the lack of discipline characteristics and unique value, which are mainly manifested as follows: on the one hand, the research methods and strategies are too single, and most of the research and achievements adopt the method of literature review; On the other hand, researchers of comparative education have a weak awareness of cultural understanding in their research activities. Because of this, most research results fail to grasp and understand the essence of educational phenomenon as the research object. Among them, the most fundamental reason is that comparative education research has lost the consciousness and efforts of cultural understanding. Comparative education is essentially an educational research activity based on cultural understanding. This in itself represents that people of different cultural traditions can understand each other's educational system, which is also one of the reasonable foundations for the emergence and existence of comparative pedagogy? . [1] Mr. Gu Mingyuan pointed out: If we want to know and understand the education of a country or a nation, we must know and understand the culture of that nation. ? [2]
According to the different levels of cultural understanding, research methods and achievements, the author thinks that comparative education research can be divided into? Four realms? , that is, literature review type? Entry level? Model or theoretical guidance? Expert? , data mining? Advanced level? And integration? Master? . We should follow this step-by-step path and pay attention to the diversification of research methods and the deepening of research results in order to promote the sustainable development of comparative education.
First, the first realm: literature review? Entry level?
Comparative education researchers always understand the educational phenomenon to be studied through certain media. For comparative education researchers in developing countries, the most important and realistic media should be various documents and statistical data. Edmund? Edmund King once pointed out that the most basic task and function of comparative education is to collect, select and weight some specialized knowledge and profiles, so as to provide information for people who are keen on studying educational practice in different backgrounds and cultivate their sensitivity to things. [3] Therefore, literature review can be regarded as the first realm of comparative education research, namely? Entry level? .
(A) Literature review of the basic connotation of comparative education research
Literature review Comparative education research mainly refers to sorting out all kinds of documents collected by researchers in the process of comparative education research, so as to describe and analyze the educational phenomena of the research and provide information and opinions. Finding and solving problems in the process of collecting documents is the original intention of literature research. Due to the lack of conscious exploration and grasp of the historical and cultural factors behind the literature, the presentation of the results is often dominated by description and introduction.
(B) the basic literacy of literary researchers-an overview of comparative education
Improving the reliability and validity of research data is the premise and foundation of any social science field, and comparative pedagogy is no exception. Therefore, literature review comparative education researchers should have the following basic qualities.
1. Ability to collect data. Collecting data is the most basic ability of comparative education researchers. The research problem is not to build castles in the air, but to put forward problems on the basis of a large number of relevant documents, and then analyze and solve them. Marx pointed out that as long as things are understood according to their true colors and their origins, any profound philosophical problems will be simply summarized as some empirical facts. ? [4] Therefore, for comparative education researchers, due to the limitations of objective conditions, it is necessary to improve the ability to collect information and ensure the comprehensiveness, informative, representative and comparability of information content. They should not only be satisfied with second-hand information, or even ignore the collection of information and speak their own words.
2. Ability to control data. When faced with a large number of research data, researchers need to have a strong ability to control the data. This requires researchers to choose appropriate methods to screen, sort, classify and describe the data according to the nature of the research objects and problems and their own research purposes, pay attention to the balance between first-hand data, second-hand data and auxiliary data, and always conduct a comprehensive and in-depth analysis from a scientific and objective standpoint.
(C) Literature review of the characteristics of comparative education research
The main purpose of literature review is to make researchers familiar with the research field and the context of research development through literature research, and then carry out research under this context to implant their own research into the long river of knowledge development. [5] Einstein said: There has never been a really useful and profound theory that was really discovered by pure speculation. ? It can be said that any scientific research is based on collecting reliable facts and materials. Therefore, the research of literature review should become? Entry level? The first choice of comparative education researchers.
Especially in developing countries, due to the late start of comparative education research, a considerable number of scholars know little about the new methods of comparative education research, and have not reached the level of profound understanding and skilled application. Therefore, research with the help of literature is the most commonly used way for researchers at this level. In addition, due to the limitation of objective conditions, such as economic reasons, many researchers of comparative education can't directly participate in the real situation of the research target country to study the problem, so they can only base their research on literature analysis. The research results provided by them mainly describe and comment on the education system, theory and practice of developed countries through literature review. Taking China as an example, in recent ten years, comparative educators in China have introduced the educational systems of some developed countries completely, and brought into play their advantages of high foreign language level, and introduced many new educational theories and practices, which have had a great impact on improving the level of educational research in China. In this respect, comparative educators have made great contributions. [7]
(D) Literature review of the limitations of comparative education research
It is self-evident that the research method of literature review plays a fundamental role in comparative education research. However, as an indispensable research method for junior researchers in any social discipline, the research results obtained by literature review are often limited by the research level and subjective consciousness, and lack of personal feelings about the cultural atmosphere of the research target country. Researchers can't intuitively understand and deeply understand the cultural factors rooted in educational phenomena only from literature reading, and the research done is inevitably suspected of being an armchair strategist. To a great extent, the research results are only the presentation of facts or the collection of materials or the understanding of the researcher's personal experience, even the translation of the text, without highlighting the researcher's in-depth observation and analysis of the root, essence and implied meaning behind the facts or materials, so its theoretical value and practical significance are seriously limited. Of course, someone needs to do the real introduction and translation, but if everyone is doing this kind of thing, the situation will be a bit bad, because what is lost in this process is the concern for China's educational practice. [8] At present, such research results are very common in comparative education research and are often ridiculed as? Foreign situation+enlightenment for reference? Two skins make people think that comparative education researchers can only stay? Entry level? The level of research, engaged in superficial repetitive work, and the conclusions are not good, and there is nothing new. This is an important factor that the research results of comparative education are not recognized by academic circles, which hinders the development of comparative education research in a deeper direction.