Introducing the second edition of a comparative education textbook: What changed and why?

In 2007, the Comparative Education Research Centre at the University of Hong Kong co-published with Springer a book entitled Comparative Education Research: Approaches and Methods (edited by Mark Bray, Bob Adamson and Mark Mason). The book was well-received. It was translated into six languages (Chinese, Farsi, French, Italian, Japanese and Spanish), and became a core text for comparative education courses in five continents. It has also been a core text in the editors’ own courses, especially at the masters and doctoral levels. In 2013, the editors and authors decided to embark on a second edition which was published at the beginning of 2014. Some chapters were dropped, one was added, and all were revised. This presentation will reflect on the strengths of the book and will summarize the changes. It will consider on the one hand the ways in which the changes for the second edition respond to the evolving field, and on the other hand the ways in which the editors and authors hope to shape further evolution.