Chapter 2: A Conceptual Model of Workforce Education and Development Systems

Inquisitiveness—in this case “how others do it”—is a defining human characteristic. Studies of international social systems such as education are one example. International comparative education has been defined as the examination of two or more educational operations in different countries designed to discover similarities and differences, identify advantages and disadvantages, and consider alternatives for improvements (Thomas, 1990). A similar perspective is offered by Freeland (2000) who defines international comparative education as a comparison of data from different countries to describe (a) the existence of the same attribute in different locations, and (b) the relative performance of countries based on measurable attributes.