Theme and Aims

This year’s Summer School will be dedicated to the role of „comparison” in educational research, educational policy and educational practice. As emerging researchers, we are about to professionalize ourselves. This implies not only to be able to do but also to be aware of what we are doing – both in our roles as educators and as researchers.

“Comparison” occurs inescapably in nearly every context in education. Hence we need to know what comparison is. It is self-understood that there are better students, that there are larger classes, that there are simpler and more difficult cases pedagogical consultation. However, comparison affects learners, this requires awareness and diplomacy. “Comparison” has important implications for educational policies – just think of giving marks to students. By digits or by letters we express the results of our comparison of their achievements. This shows the importance of comparison to education policy: In Germany, for instance, the “average mark” can decide, whether you are allowed to get enrolled in studies like medicine. Nonetheless, the fundamental mathematical requirements behind this are widely unknown. Hence, educators ought to be capable of making propositions on how to deal with such issues, as they are partly responsible of determining a student’s life path and chances.

“Comparison” is most evidently the topic of comparative educational research. Among others, comparative educational research relies on a variety of approaches. This begins with idiographic description and does not end with world wide international studies such as PISA. We could also say that any kind of measurement of two or more phenomena, persons, or, groups is based on the idea of comparison. Getting professionalized as a researcher means to have an idea of which principles or models a comparative approach is founded on.

The aims of the Summer School are …

• … to reflect on where comparison occurs in the field of education.
• … to become aware where it is used for research purposes of our own.
• … to enhance our understanding of international comparative studies.
• … to discover how comparison is linked to measurement.
• … to understand how this comparison and/ or measurement can be modelled
• … to describe the processes of comparing we intend to integrate into our research.

We will not close this invitation without citing the one person who depicted the challenging role of comparison in education most elegantly: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, champion of enlightenment and German poesy, wrote:

„Be it the finished connoisseur to make a comparison …, for the idea is already on his mind, ... The amateur, however, … fosters himself by looking at every single merit without comparing. This is the way to form, by and by, a sense and understanding of the more general ideas.“

Let’s get on our way, by and by, and let’s get together at EERSS in Chemnitz! We look forward to welcoming emerging researchers in June 2026!