Reinventing Our Comparisons De-colonializing, De-alienating Comparative Education for Peace, Justice, and Planetary Sustainability

Abstract

This introduction explores the trends, challenges, and possibilities of comparative and international education (CIE) as identified by six comparativist scholars and incorporates some of my own work on this topic. The scholars’ work had diverse foci; however, the overall theme was CIE needing to (re-)center goals of ending socio-historical oppressions. This is with reflectivity that CIE forms a contested terrain of histories, and too-often current trends, of being political tools for sustaining/intensifying oppressions and dominance over Nature. The authors’ calls of CIE for peace, justice, and sustainability were discussed through the following themes with many intersectionalities between the articles: decoloniality, citizenship education that counters citizen/non-citizen othering, globally holistic and planetarily sustainable development and education, and humanizing education that grounds collectivity and de-alienation.