The Mediterranean : a new focus for comparative education studies?

Abstract

A comprehensive scan of the comparative education literature reveals that the 'Mediterranean' does not commonly feature as a category around which analytic and systematic studies of the education systems are organised. At best, one finds individual case studies of counties around the Mediterranean basin, or even comparative analyses between two or more counties in that region in tens of such categories as 'colonial/post-colonial influence,' for instance. Occasionally, one uncovers articles and even books that consider discrete entities within the Mediterranean as poles of comparison, such as when authors look at education systems in southern Europe, in the Maghreb and Machrek countries of North Africa, or the Middle East. Even more rarely one comes across collections of articles authored by Mediterranean scholars and purporting to represent regional studies, but which in fact fail to develop an analysis that connects specific experiences and account for them with reference to an overarching explanatory framework.