Wprowadzenie do pedagogiki porównawczej by Tadeusz J. Wiloch Review by: George Z. F. Bereday International Review of Education / Internationale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft / Revue Internationale de l'Education, Vol. 16, No. 4 (1970), pp. 510-511 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3442844 . Accessed: 11/06/2014 00:23 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. . Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Review of Education / Internationale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft / Revue Internationale de l'Education. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 188.72.96.19 on Wed, 11 Jun 2014 00:23:07 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=springer http://www.jstor.org/stable/3442844?origin=JSTOR-pdf http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp BOOK REVIEWS - BUCHBESPRECHUNGEN BOOK REVIEWS - BUCHBESPRECHUNGEN For example, on page 71 we find, "compare, for instance, the macro models of the Keynesian type where the whole production activity of a country is lumped together into one sector, and where all consumers are treated as one group. This scarcely renders the crude simplification of the school system presented below indigestible".... ? Education and Manpower extends the spectrum of knowledge concerning current social systems as a micro study that contributes to filling in one of the lacunae suggested by Harbison and Myers' panoramic volume Education, Manpower and Economic Growth (1964). While the volume does not represent a giant conceptual step forward, it serves as a respectable contribution to that body of evidence that collectively will facilitate current efforts of educational planners. Thus, the volume is recommended for educational planners who may approach their subject from a manpower-needs point of view, and who feel comfortable working with the range of heroic assumptions that undergird manpower need projections. RICHARD L. CUMMINGS, Milwaukee WILOCH, TADEUSZ J., Wprowadzenie do pedagogiki porownawczej (Intro- duction to Comparative Education). Warszawa: Pahstwowe Wydawnict- wo Naukowe 1970. pp. 235. This introduction to the contemporary status of studies in comparative education is written in Polish. Its undubitable merits as well as the political scars it carries are, therefore, of importance only to a limited audience. On the positive side, the book is distinguished first by thorough coverage of available world sources. In fact the digestion of contemporary materials is quite remarkable for a country with limited access to western literature. Poles have al- ways been first rate bibliographers. Secondly the author, Tadeusz Wiloch, is a young scholar of great academic ability who combines sincere Marxist convictions with a thorough training received at the Lenin Pedagogical Institute in Moscow and at his own university of Warsaw. His mature reports about Soviet education have been the major source of information in the West beyond the reports available directly from the Soviet Union. With all this to his credit, it is regrettable that Wiloch has so far been denied the opportunity to travel in the West. Thus his coverage of the western area of the world has had to be only from secondary resources. The book provides a lucid statement of the conception of comparative studies in education in the communist world. As is usual for Polish exponents of socialism, the author has shown with clarity and even brilliance how Marxist educators interpret their political position. Such clarity and intelligence is not always present in inter- pretations by writers of other communist countries. Western contributions to the comparative field have also been skillfully woven into the narrative, in such a manner as not to offend political orthodoxy. It is probably correct to say that this book is the best introduction to the communist conception of comparative education available at present. Five chapters cover various parts of the field in depth. The introduction provides a historical survey, in which of special value and interest is Nadezhda Krupskaya's For example, on page 71 we find, "compare, for instance, the macro models of the Keynesian type where the whole production activity of a country is lumped together into one sector, and where all consumers are treated as one group. This scarcely renders the crude simplification of the school system presented below indigestible".... ? Education and Manpower extends the spectrum of knowledge concerning current social systems as a micro study that contributes to filling in one of the lacunae suggested by Harbison and Myers' panoramic volume Education, Manpower and Economic Growth (1964). While the volume does not represent a giant conceptual step forward, it serves as a respectable contribution to that body of evidence that collectively will facilitate current efforts of educational planners. Thus, the volume is recommended for educational planners who may approach their subject from a manpower-needs point of view, and who feel comfortable working with the range of heroic assumptions that undergird manpower need projections. RICHARD L. CUMMINGS, Milwaukee WILOCH, TADEUSZ J., Wprowadzenie do pedagogiki porownawczej (Intro- duction to Comparative Education). Warszawa: Pahstwowe Wydawnict- wo Naukowe 1970. pp. 235. This introduction to the contemporary status of studies in comparative education is written in Polish. Its undubitable merits as well as the political scars it carries are, therefore, of importance only to a limited audience. On the positive side, the book is distinguished first by thorough coverage of available world sources. In fact the digestion of contemporary materials is quite remarkable for a country with limited access to western literature. Poles have al- ways been first rate bibliographers. Secondly the author, Tadeusz Wiloch, is a young scholar of great academic ability who combines sincere Marxist convictions with a thorough training received at the Lenin Pedagogical Institute in Moscow and at his own university of Warsaw. His mature reports about Soviet education have been the major source of information in the West beyond the reports available directly from the Soviet Union. With all this to his credit, it is regrettable that Wiloch has so far been denied the opportunity to travel in the West. Thus his coverage of the western area of the world has had to be only from secondary resources. The book provides a lucid statement of the conception of comparative studies in education in the communist world. As is usual for Polish exponents of socialism, the author has shown with clarity and even brilliance how Marxist educators interpret their political position. Such clarity and intelligence is not always present in inter- pretations by writers of other communist countries. Western contributions to the comparative field have also been skillfully woven into the narrative, in such a manner as not to offend political orthodoxy. It is probably correct to say that this book is the best introduction to the communist conception of comparative education available at present. Five chapters cover various parts of the field in depth. The introduction provides a historical survey, in which of special value and interest is Nadezhda Krupskaya's 510 510 This content downloaded from 188.72.96.19 on Wed, 11 Jun 2014 00:23:07 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp ANALYSES BIBLIOGRAPHIQUES not always convincing claim to a place in the history of comparative education. That she was a distinguished pedagogue no one will doubt. Whether she was a historian, a philosopher or a truly professional comparative educator is another matter. There are other inaccuracies. Peter Sandiford's Comparative Education was not the first English book of that title published in the West and appeared in 1918 not 1928. The first English book was written by Hughes and published in 1904 by Scribner in New York and London. Chapter I covers the conventional divisions in comparative methodology. The threefold division suggested might be called (1) the search for global laws derived from Jullien; (2) the search for comparative typologies derived from Sadler; and (3) the search for international measures of quality stemming from the contemporary work of Hus6n and associates. Again we face minor errors. I. L. Kandel, a Jew, must be stirring in his grave, since he was not of German descent, but an Englishman born of Hungarian parents. His famous spoof of comparative sociology as a "gastro- nomic approach" is astonishingly enough taken at face value. And Lawrence Cremin, the most distinguished contemporary historian of American education, has never written in the field of comparative education. Chapter II is devoted to the schematic criteria of comparison. The author discusses the problems connected with the formulation of typologies and thus relies of necessi- ty, though seldom explicitly, on American sources. One may understand and forgive the many sharp criticisms he makes of American scholarship. But the currently fashionable stages of comparative analysis - description, interpretation, and juxta- position - are attributed erroneously to Hilker who named them but who was only the second to formulate them. Chapter III is the most valuable in the book because it deals with the normative significance of educational achievements across the frontiers. The book claims con- ceptual distinctions (and superiority) for the socialist camp, but actually it is here that Eastern and Western thought could find the most secure meeting ground. Edu- cation is conceived as a deliberate attempt to improve behavior, devoted to the infinite development of human talent. Americans, who again come in for scorn, would not quarrel with this assignment of priority to values which they themselves invented. In the last chapter the author discusses the relationship of comparative education to other pedagogic disciplines. He finishes by postulating for the field three inter- esting functions: integration of international educational perspectives; evaluation of educational practice in different countries; inspiration for improvements and reforms as a result of comparative analysis. This is a fresh, new synthesis of views which the earlier pages of the book have laid out. Another eloquent plea for the assignment of a foremost place to comparisons in education has been made. GEORGE Z. F. BEREDAY, New York 511 This content downloaded from 188.72.96.19 on Wed, 11 Jun 2014 00:23:07 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp Article Contents p. 510 p. 511 Issue Table of Contents International Review of Education / Internationale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft / Revue Internationale de l'Education, Vol. 16, No. 4 (1970), pp. 390-516 Front Matter Introduction [pp. 390 - 392] Getting Good Teachers for Developing Countries [pp. 393 - 407] L'ecole sovietique: Perfectionnement du contenu de l'enseignement [pp. 407 - 436] Planning for Change in Education: Qualitative Aspects of Educational Planning [pp. 436 - 450] Regulation oder Mobilisation? Zur soziologischen Strategie der Schulreform [pp. 451 - 483] Research and Educational Action [pp. 484 - 501] Book Reviews / Buchbesprechungen / Analyses bibliographiques untitled [p. 502] untitled [p. 503] untitled [pp. 504 - 506] untitled [pp. 506 - 508] untitled [pp. 508 - 509] untitled [pp. 509 - 510] untitled [pp. 510 - 511] Publications Received January-June 1970 / Januar-Juni 1970 Eingegangene Veröffentlichungen / Publications reçues entre janvier et juin 1970 [pp. 512 - 515] Back Matter [pp. 516 - 516]