Réflexions sur le problème épistémologique de la comparabilité dans les études qualitatives en éducation comparée

Abstract

This article addresses under two main headings the epistemological problem of parallelling qualitative data. First, we consider the dynamic use of comparison as an active instrument for reformulating monocultural concepts and evolving new concepts so as to provide them with maximum intercultural range and as much as possible to avoid the cognitive ethnocentric bias and self-justification which arise when the researcher's cultural origins affect qualitative studies in comparative education. Next, we examine the possibility of defining general or specific parameters that will allow us to determine the validity and the limits of qualitative comparisons in comparative education. In this context, we characterize the various studies not only in relation to the specific problem being studied but also in relation to the societal purpose of the comparison (transfer from one society to another or the methodological use of the comparison in a scientific approach). The ideas of Hans, Holmes, Bereday, Trethewey, and Le Thanh Khoi on the question of comparability are discussed, and we illustrate the complexity of this problem by analyzing how it is presented in two qualitative, comparative studies in which we are participating.