Introduction to Part 3: Research-to-Practice

Education, in general, is a field where theory, research, policy, and practice constantly intersect. The research conducted in comparative and international education is definitely a home for those scholars and professionals who feel adrift between the works of research and practice. An advantage of reflecting over the past 10 years of the Annual Review of Comparative and International Education is to be able to see where the concerns and challenges of the previous years has led. The practical applications of comparative and international education research in 2013 were focused more squarely on the privatization of schooling and other forms of education as well as the seemingly outsized role that big data was playing in determining the ways that education was governed, implemented, and evaluated (Collins & Wiseman, 2012). Those concerns were repeatedly addressed in the Annual Review and other outlets over the course of the past decade, and while many critiques and warnings about the ill-effects of the privatization of education and big data have been published, the results in terms of education policy and practice worldwide have been mixed (James, 2021; Salajan & Jules, 2020). What has instead grown out of these (and other) issues of research informing practice or evidence-based practice is a renewed focus on equitable education across all levels of education (primary, secondary, and tertiary) and forms of education (formal, informal, and non-formal) (Papa, 2020).