The pursuit of commensurability through the imposition of a general classificatory framework misrepresents the way in which valued performances and school knowledge are actually conceived by each community and sacrifices validity in the interest of comparability. This presentation will illustrate the compromise that is central to such international comparative research studies in education and provide examples of how the production of complementary comparative accounts might honour both validity and comparability. In seeking to make comparison between the practices of classrooms situated in different cultures, the most obvious comparator constructs become problematic. In some studies, the power to make generalizations about national patterns of classroom practice has been bought at the cost of explanatory power related to the antecedent and consequent conditions by which the motivations and consequences of participants’ actions might be understood. The “validity-comparability compromise” is proposed as a theoretical concern with significant implications for international cross-cultural research. The presentation draws on current international research to illustrate a variety of aspects of the issue and its consequences for the manner in which international research is conducted and its results interpreted. The effects extend to data generation and analysis and constitute essential contingencies on the interpretation and application of international comparative research.

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