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Discussion Paper No. 40
Outline for a debate on methods
and objectives based on
three MOST projects carried out
by international networks of researchers
This text draws on the views expressed
by the leaders of the three MOST projects
and UNESCO staff during a meeting
held in December 1998.
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At a time of economic globalization linked to new information and communication technologies, when cross-national networks are redrawing the economic map of the world and separating it from the political map showing the nation-States, the comparative approach is more relevant than ever. While replacing this approach in a historical context, the purpose of this document is to describe the action carried out by UNESCO in respect of three ongoing MOST projects involving the construction and participation of an international network of researchers. After the first part introduces the comparative analysis by placing it within its historical context, the second part thus sets out the requirements and methods for the generation of knowledge in the present-day context through study of three MOST projects whose approach is based on three international networks of researchers. The third part goes beyond the comparative approach typology to place it within a strategic vision which transcends any isolationist side effects by placing emphasis on three components: the transferability of public policies, a better grasp of cross-national phenomena and the mutual enrichment of the researchers, which could lead in some cases to reflection on forms of action. The conclusion is that the adoption of a comparative approach to target-oriented research can help narrow the gap between scientific findings and the agents of social transformations, whether elected representatives or individual citizens.
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: CHANGE OF STATUS OF THE COMPARATIVE APPROACH 1. THE COMPARATIVE APPROACH: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 1.2 Comparison with a view to future studies and policy evaluation 2.2 Defining the principle of comparability 2.3 Different versions of the comparative approach: three MOST projects 3.2 A better grasp of cross-national phenomena 3.3 Collective learning from network research for the benefit of research for action
The comparative approach has always existed in the social sciences - contrary to the natural sciences, which think of themselves as universal in their approach - but the changes now taking place are opening up a new dimension for them and justify a broader scope. Comparison, having been considered initially an original and interesting approach with marginal status, is now beginning to be seen as an essential tool for generating knowledge. This change of status is not problem-free, to the extent that it requires a willingness to venture beyond the frontiers that the social sciences have hitherto imposed upon themselves. A quick look at the history of the social sciences makes it clear that they are still viewed as a national undertaking. The social sciences’ emergence in contemporary societies is a result of the earliest attempts by nation-States to cope with the social consequences of capitalist industrialization. Since the mid-nineteenth century, social policies designed to regulate problems linked to the workforce, create pensions for the elderly and provide education and health care for young children have become laws in many nations. An outstanding work edited by two sociologists, Theda Skocpol and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, charts the pioneering path of the social sciences and their influence on national social policies. The social sciences were perceived by State decision-makers as a way of giving the market and production processes a human face, or, in other words, keeping social order on the national territory. This representation of the social sciences in a primarily national perspective proves to be less and less relevant to efforts to monitor social and economic transformations today, particularly at a time when the gap between supply (by the academic community) and demand (by decision-makers) is continually widening. International institutions like UNESCO and others are thus being called upon, whether directly or indirectly, to take responsibility for reorienting social science research away from a national approach towards a more global approach and making its findings more relevant to political action at the same time. On the threshold of the twenty-first century, the general public sees action on the environment, and also to achieve peace, as less and less dependent on national initiatives. The comparative approach within an international network of researchers is becoming crucial to all social science research that sets itself the target of explaining and accompanying social transformations. Current thinking on the comparative approach is helping to update social science methodology in the global era. Having thus put the comparative approach into historical perspective, the purpose of this document is to define the different facets of comparative analysis methodology and the results expected on the basis of an analysis of three current MOST projects based on the dynamics of an international network of researchers. (2) Multicultural Policies and Modes of Citizenship in European Cities (MPMC) under the direction of Ms Nadia Auriat; (3) Project on Cities, Environment and Gender Relations under the direction of Mr Germán Solinís. 1. THE COMPARATIVE APPROACH: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE For a long time the comparative approach in the social sciences was implicit rather than explicit since the aim was above all to identify the specificity of a particular phenomenon or region. There was a time when disciplines such as geography and history aimed primarily at highlighting the singularity or uniqueness of an event or a territory. The two nineteenth-century German geographers Ritter and Humbold also advocated comparison as a way of bringing out the individuality of a region. The next step was admittedly to determine what phenomena in different countries had in common so as to identify laws, but this was only a second stage. Something similar could be said of the work of the sociologist Emile Durkheim, who maintained that sociology was implicitly comparative to the extent that social phenomena were unquestionably unique and representative. 1.1 Creating typologies and validating theories: the structural heritage The comparative approach responds to concerns of an epistemological character. It makes it possible to classify countries and phenomena on the basis of a number of variables so as to then provide oneself with the means to deduce constants, invariables free from any historicist consideration. Identifying laws on the basis of these human phenomena and societal activities was the concern of Talcott Parsons, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Karl Deutsch, one of whose objectives was to identify differences and similarities between societies or between phenomena to enable classifications to be drawn up. Parsons, who took up a position as the theoretician of social and global systems, unhesitatingly used the comparative method to study the historical and social development of societies. The sociologist established links between a series of variables to explain how their increasing interdependence leads to increasingly complex societies as history progresses. The analysis led him to identify time lags between the countries of the North and the South. An important step forward was taken in the 1980s when researchers began to develop the theory of urbanization based on the dynamics of industrial capitalism. The review Comparative Urban Research, which in the early 1980s brought out issues on Africa, Latin America, etc. comparing the processes of urbanization in various parts of the world, illustrated that trend. The researchers set themselves the task of validating the hypothesis put forward by Manuel Castells while at the same time toning down his excessive generalization on the basis of French experience. That particular theory of urbanization challenged the continuing relegation of urbanization to an ecological-cultural niche by the Chicago school and its disciples. The research was carried out in two stages. The first consisted of identifying significant similarities between a number of cities, enabling them to be identified as "Latin American cities" or "African cities". Once the typology had been created, the second stage was to validate the theory of urbanization linked to changes in modes of production. The comparative method, the use of which was relatively limited in the social sciences (apart from the political sciences), was intended to replace experimentation in the natural sciences. It permitted laws to be identified by separating an event from its environment. The "cultural environment" included institutions, customs, traditions, value systems and lifestyles linked to economic production processes. Research in the social sciences thus oscillated between two poles, scientific validation and historicity. But as Edmond de Lisle said in an issue of the International Social Science Journal devoted to international comparisons, one must be wary of distortions caused by the attitude of a researcher who is the product of one particular culture towards a context that is alien to him or her. This perfectly justified reservation cannot, however, be maintained when research findings are produced by an international network of researchers, as is the case of the three MOST projects discussed here. 1.2 Comparison with a view to future studies and policy evaluation The comparative approach was adopted in the political sciences from the moment political scientists wished to evaluate national systems of government and planning, particularly during the Cold War. It obliged researchers to venture outside their own reference system, and thus to raise more questions than they would if they had remained within a single framework. Some, such as Ian Masser, even saw the comparative method as the ideal tool for transferring experiential data from one country to another. In the opinion of Karl Deutsch, who was particularly interested in the study of political regimes at the time of the Cold War, comparison responds to a concern for political efficiency and a continual quest for rationality in the exercise of power. Its purpose is to assist in decision-making, as the following extract from his article makes clear: Comparison can thus be used to define safety margins, as do engineers who know the limits of a bridge’s resistance and also know how much extra capacity they should allow for. This reasoning by analogy leads the researcher to place emphasis on the imperative need for a greater awareness of the frequency of government error so as to give societies more protection against such risks. The comparative approach makes it possible to explain the development of social structuring in time and space and can thus assist in the framing of public policies to regulate these processes. Comparability, as shown in works dating back to the 1950s, 1960s and
1970s, could just as easily lead to the transferability of public policies
and programmes as limiting oneself to theory validation in terms of a set
objective.
2. GENERATING KNOWLEDGE IN A CONTEXT OF GLOBALIZATION In recent years a new awareness of the differences between a number of countries in the South and the North in the field of research has become much more widespread. UNESCO has thus undertaken to narrow this gap by bringing researchers from the North and South together on the same team so as to prevent researchers from the North from conceptualizing all research on the basis of their own experience and their cultural referents. On to this first political objective is grafted a second, which acknowledges the globalization of economic movements and their repercussions on social, economic and cultural transformations, together with the emergence of themes such as the environment or drugs which form part of this new representation of the global village. The initiative directly affects the generation of scientific knowledge and the conditions for its construction and also aims to revitalize the social sciences by making them more action-relevant. 2.1 Adding value to national scientific findings The three MOST projects analysed here are based on the establishment of an international network of researchers from very different cultural, national and academic backgrounds. The project on drugs thus brings together participants from five countries: India, Mexico, Nigeria, China and Brazil; the project on integration policies brings together researchers from different European cities including Amsterdam, Barcelona, Leicester and Liège; and the project on gender relations brings together researchers from Senegal, Burkina Faso, Benin, Argentina, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Bulgaria and Romania. The aim of a network involving researchers from both North and South and Eastern and Western Europe is to add to the scientific value of national findings. Networks make it possible to observe, understand and explain processes that are now transnational, although their impact makes itself felt at local level, from an angle that is no longer narrowly national. Given this new situation in which social phenomena are perceived more as global phenomena, the comparative approach cannot confine itself to juxtaposing the findings from case studies which are probably relevant but have been prepared without any transnational consultation. It will, rather, operate in the context of a team of researchers belonging to an international network who, together, equip themselves to develop the necessary common framework before carrying out work in the respective fields and agree on a common system of interpretation which makes it possible when the results are reported back to conduct a transverse or transnational interpretation of the variety of case studies involved. But these arrangements require a coordinator who can handle communication and exchanges through skilful negotiation that enables the researchers to learn from each other’s experience. For that reason, following the new awareness of economic globalization linked to new information and communication technologies and specific social phenomena, comparative research is essential to the extent that it analyses, understands and explains the entire process over and above the constraints of national frontiers. In the case of drugs, researchers describe the processes that create links between neighbouring countries such as Mexico and the United States. A comparative approach that incorporates researchers from various countries and therefore different sensibilities also has the advantage of no longer limiting itself to a single referential framework, thereby enabling each individual to benefit from others’ viewpoints. The comparative approach reflected in the dynamics of an international network not only sheds a new scientific light on social and economic transformations but can also assist in devising forms of action and more relevant policies in terms of the objectives pursued, provided that the requirements of the principle of comparability are laid down beforehand. 2.2 Defining the principle of comparability To construct a common conceptualization means providing oneself with a transverse, cross-cultural, cross-national system of interpretation, which requires prior agreement on the components of the subject matter and the conceptualization likely to be the focus of comparison. But should one opt for quantitative or qualitative indicators? How, for instance, can one assess in a comparable manner the role and the weight of neighbourhood associations in different contexts? Must one merely rely on reporting the number of associations or on the number of their members? Are statistical data sufficient to assess the weight they carry or their efficacy on the political scene? What criteria should be used to do this? Could the number of projects initiated by the associations be a useful guide? All these questions show to what extent the construction of a common interpretation system presupposes common indicators and categories of observation. But their selection immediately comes up against problems arising from differences in the definition of the concepts and the categories used which are due to linguistic differences. However these differences are all the more difficult to resolve in that they stem more often from differences in the conception and the representation of social phenomena in terms of national history than from the actual nature of the phenomena studied. For instance the division of individuals into categories such as worker, employee, etc. varies from one cultural context to another as Alexis Desrosières, head of the "comparative methods" division at INSEE, pointed out in an interview given to Le Monde. He accepts that States do not use the same accounting principles and he deduces that it will be difficult to compare GDPs or poverty indices, given the different conditions under which these indicators are drawn up. Apart from modes of representation which vary from one context to another, any process of reflection in the social sciences also comes up against the division of labour between disciplines. The example of the concept of "nationality" illustrates this situation perfectly. The view of the legal sciences is that juridically and politically the individual concerned belongs to the population group forming his/her State, whereas other social sciences, particularly anthropology, define it in terms of ethnicity. An "ethnic group" is defined as a group of individuals united by a number of civilizational characteristics, in particular knowledge of a particular language and culture. In fact these disciplinary divisions have led to acceptance of the idea that the terms "nation" and "ethnic group" reflected different situations - nationality referring to a juridico-political community and ethnic group to a cultural community. The comparative approach can thus be used to bring together the different juridico-political and anthropological dimensions that research traditions had separated. Any comparative study thus implies on the one hand identifying relevant concepts which transcend divisions between the social sciences and, on the other, defining categories which pre-suppose comparability across national frontiers. It requires not only an effort to promote standardization and harmonization but also a clarification of the scientific vocabulary which goes beyond semantic differences. The aim is to single out common variables while agreeing on the attribution to each of these variables of an identical empirical value. The project "Multicultural Policies and Modes of Citizenship in European Cities" (MPMC), whose objective is to create a typology of modes of citizenship and civic participation, clearly underscores this concern for standardization since the participants spent the first two meetings defining a concept of citizenship in terms of an economic, political and cultural situation. The principle of comparability, whilst it forms part of any comparative approach, comes in a variety of forms, however, according to the object of the research. To transfer knowledge on best practices concerning, for instance, an immigrant integration policy is not the same as research to add to knowledge of the functioning of the drug network or research on a new approach to gender relations. 2.3 Different versions of the comparative approach: three MOST projects Analysis of the three MOST projects which are based on an international network of researchers - the decision on which goes back to 1996 (although the participating researchers only held their first meeting in 1997 and hence the projects have only been in existence for two years) - underlines the diversity of the forms that a comparative approach can take. The project "Multicultural Policies and Modes of Citizenship in European Cities" (MPMC) is based on the idea that ethnic minorities made up primarily of descendants of immigrants exist almost everywhere in Europe. They have unquestionably contributed to the host countries’ economic success, but they are subjected to certain forms of exclusion: minorities do not have access to all the labour markets, are not always able to practise their religion easily, take little part in political life and do not have the legal status of citizen in a number of countries. The aim is to create a typology of modes of citizenship and participation by minorities in European cities that would facilitate the dissemination of information on best practice. On the basis of this joint statement for all the contexts studied, the first meeting of MPMC clearly defined the goal of the research as being how to improve the social integation of immigrants (i.e. involve them more actively in the political, economic and cultural spheres), using as a basis the views of elected municipal representatives and of immigrant associations. At the first two meetings, the network set itself the objective of transferability. The researchers therefore decided to define citizenship as a concept applying simultaneously in three spheres - economic, politico-juridical and cultural - which made it possible to transcend disciplinary and national divisions. They also decided to prepare a synoptic note for each city. This note, the "City Profile Template", sets out information pertaining to a wide range of disciplines concerning not only the geographical extent of a city and region, the demographic weighting, the spatial density but also data on history, immigration and political life. The Template is organized in the following way. The first part gives the different spatial levels of the urban area concerned (from the city to the province), the cycles and the composition of population movements, economic and residential concentrations and the associations formed by these population groups. The second part, entitled "political structure", contains information on the responsibilities of the elected representatives in the decision-making process, the access of minorities to political life and also an example of a mediation process whose success was due to the intervention of an association. The third part outlines the history and the social features of the immigrant groups. The purpose of the City Profile Template, produced by a team of researchers from different disciplinary fields, is to give an overall view of a wide range of aspects, in order to define the framework of reference for the comparisons being carried out. The project "Economic and Social Transformations and the International Drug Problem" differs from the first project in that it did not impose the use of a reference framework common to all researchers from the outset. It set out, rather, to tackle the complexity of the cross-frontier drug network and perhaps even to reformulate it thanks to an international network of researchers. Five countries (India, Mexico, Nigeria, China and Brazil) were chosen because of their past history in drugs. The aim of the MOST programme, however, is to highlight the way this process has accelerated with globalization and to identify the main beneficiaries of these changes, thus defining social transformations more clearly. Stress is placed here more than in any other project on the need to gain a better understanding of a cross-border socio-economic network and on developing the means to inventory the measures and programmes adopted by the authorities in the countries involved. Here the emphasis is deliberately placed on adding to the store of knowledge. The project "Cities, Environment and Gender Relations" is situated between these two positions. It does not set out to update scientific knowledge or to identify the best public policies. Those responsible for this third project have chosen to allow the objectives to emerge from the network’s own dynamics. The first stage thus consisted of coming to an agreement on the conditions that needed to be met before starting work in the field and listening to the advice of the coordination team entrusted with the task of ensuring overall coherence. At the second meeting, at which the entire team submitted its preliminary survey report, the debate focused efforts on a collective analysis of the initial findings and readjusted a conceptual approach designed to interlink the themes of the city, environment and gender relations. The attention accorded to the quality of the network’s dynamics with a view to enabling researchers from the North and South to learn from each other thus made it possible to identify a common concept - that of "empowerment". Here this word is defined as a process for developing individuals’ negotiating abilities so as to lead to a more equitable distribution of power. The documents charting the progress of these three projects which all
adopted a comparative approach based on an international network of researchers
demonstrate the importance of coordinators (or coordination teams). They
are in fact responsible for introducing and maintaining a certain standardization
of concepts and categories and for drawing up the comparative research
framework while providing for its continual readjustment on the basis of
negotiations with the different teams. In addition to proven competence
in their original discipline and also in other disciplines, and to their
commitment to the comparative approach, those in charge of coordination
must be skilled negotiators in order to keep the dynamics of the network
on track. These are very much the responsibilities of a "leader" of a new
approach to research. Some even contend that the leader and researchers
must be committed to the objective of the research and refer to "commitment
to an advocacy role". In this case, the international network of researchers
could have a practical side and act as an international lobby group with
official bodies.
3. FOR A STRATEGIC VISION: AVOIDING ISOLATIONISM The comparative method seems the most suitable approach to this new angle on target-oriented research in the social sciences at a time of globalization of economic and social processes and the emergence of a new cognitive approach to social problems and challenges. It could revitalize social science research and make it more relevant to decision-makers’ concerns, at the same time spreading the idea of a political approach incorporating so-called "bottom-up" processes that take NGOs into account. The comparative methods adopted in international networks of researchers, far from always being the same, present different facets, as can be seen from the three MOST projects on the integration of immigrants, the drug network and gender relations. In some the emphasis is on the quality of the procedure and of exchanges within the network, even if that means continually redefining and bringing up to date the objectives and the means used to achieve them, while in others the objective is very clearly defined in pragmatic terms on the basis of a strict definition of the methodological framework. 3.1 Defining convergence criteria in the context of transferability The comparative approach, which defines the concepts underpinning the research process clearly and precisely from the outset, raises the question of transdisciplinarity quite explicitly. It implies transcending the frontiers between disciplines, which some consider to be a serious handicap to efforts to answer decision-makers’ questions. Research is structured on a problem-oriented basis established by politicians rather than on continued attempts to answer questions formulated within the discipline, the sole aim of which is to maintain the paradigm of that discipline. As Nadia Auriat writes, the promotion of efficient governmental action is the watchword of participants in the international social science programme implemented by UNESCO (MOST). The MPMC project, which concentrated from the outset on developing a common reference framework, attributes great importance to the convergence criteria that will subsequently ensure the transferability of the public policies recognized as being the most effective. The development of this framework, whose usefulness stems from the fact that it includes the viewpoints of municipal decision-makers and those of associations, clearly illustrates this concern for comparability as a stepping-stone to transferability. This project was equipped with a system of clearly specified rules from the outset and will achieve its goals within a limited period. The results of this research should also be easily exportable and disseminated outside the network, as its objective was transferability. This network of researchers has political means enabling it to lobby for a specific policy with official, national and international bodies. 3.2 A better grasp of cross-national phenomena Research carried out by a team operating as an international network and adopting a comparative approach is certainly more effective than that of a national team when the subjects studied are transversal or cross-national in scope, for example, the environment or drugs. As the object of research is now perceived as more complex than in the past, the pooling of resources and capacities in a network - taking care to ensure comparability through the adoption of the same conceptual approach and the same system for reporting back the results of the research - proves to be the best way of tackling today’s problems and perhaps even of renewing the social sciences and their methods. Use of a comparative approach in a network composed of researchers belonging to different cultural areas and different disciplines within the social sciences requires continuous comparison of viewpoints and, as a result, involves both individual members and the entire team in a major learning process. In fact all researchers should be able to distance themselves more from their own field and their own methods of investigation. The social sciences are based precisely on the ability of individuals to distance themselves from the social phenomena they are observing and studying. There is a strong likelihood that increasing numbers of cross-national teams of researchers may, in the medium term, modify working methods in the social sciences and even affect those of national institutions. The comparative approach to cross-national phenomena thus leads, through a process that is mutually enriching for the researchers participating in an international network, to a harmonization of their concepts and methods. This harmonization is effected by the researchers themselves, rather than being imposed in an authoritarian manner by an institution situated at the top of the hierarchy. 3.3 Collective learning from network research for the benefit of research for action Comparative research carried out by an international network bears within it the seeds of a new approach to action. It must, obviously, assist policy-makers, but it must also try to develop among individuals, associations and civil society negotiating abilities that would make for more equitable situations in real life. The concept of "empowerment" as a means of ensuring that social transformations result in greater equity emerged explicitly in the project on gender relations, whereas it remained beneath the surface in the other two projects. Comparative approaches to social science research that have as their objective the transferability of public policies or the updating of scientific knowledge on a given subject do not all operate in exactly the same way. But whatever the modus operandi of a network engaged in comparative research, it benefits from not being subject to an external sponsor or limited to strengthening the social science disciplines, and it also incorporates new dimensions concerning the involvement of civil society. This is true of all the three MOST projects we have considered, despite their differences. The comparative approach can be used in different ways, depending on
the objective pursued, which may concern the transferability of a public
policy, the added value for science of achieving a better understanding
of cross-national phenomena or offering the researchers involved the opportunity
to learn from each other with a view to renewing the forms of collective
action designed to achieve greater equity. These three approaches are also
set in different time frames: it takes longer to use the dynamics of relations
within the network to advance by reconceptualizing the object of study
in the course of the project than to work on the basis of a framework and
objectives that are established at the first meetings of the network.
THE COMPARATIVE APPROACH IN THE SERVICE OF
The three MOST projects carried out by an international network of researchers clearly demonstrate variations in the application of the comparative approach according to the objectives pursued. But whether that objective concerns the transferability of public policies, obtaining a better grasp of cross-national phenomena or a target-oriented approach to forms of research for action, they offer a new method for research in the social sciences. Although the comparative approach is not new in the social sciences, it raises again here the question of comparability and of the identification of transverse concepts and criteria. In fact its purpose is less to validate one scientific theory or another than to gain a better understanding of cross-national phenomena and the action required to deal with them, and at the same time to provide a common frame of reference for all researchers. Although they affirm that the purpose of generating scientific knowledge is to assist in collective action, these three MOST projects which use the comparative approach in three international networks of researchers never raise the subject of the persons for whom the research is intended. Who are they? Would they be only politicians? What about the other partners in public action, such as professional associations and users’ associations? These questions clearly show that we are now in a different context from the one in which the social sciences first emerged and that its beneficiaries are no longer so clearly defined. Perhaps these three MOST projects, which give the impression that they are no longer observing the traditional distinction between stakeholders and shareholders, ought to allow themselves to develop and affirm capacities which would enable them to include these two categories of actors. This is also in keeping with the view expressed by the Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II, City Summit) organized by the United Nations in Istanbul in 1996, which emphasized that policies for action should involve decision-makers in official national and local bodies and also civil society in the form of NGOs. Habitat II also advocated a new partnership between the many different actors actively involved in the city.
Specialized journals Comparative Political Studies
Books Dogan, M. and Kazancigil, A. Comparing Nations: Concepts, Strategies and Substance, Oxford, Blackwell, 1994. Harloe, M. "Notes on comparative urban research", in Urbanization and Urban Planning in Capitalist Society, edited by M. Dear and A.J. Scott, 1981, pp. 179-185. Lawrence, R.J. "Domestic space and society: A cross-cultural study", Society for Comparative Study of Society and History, 1982, pp. 105-130. Przeworski, A. and Teune, H. The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry, N.Y., Wiley & Sons, 1970. Sartori, G. and Morlino, L. La Comparazione nelle science sociali, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1991. Walton, J. and Masotti, L.H. (ed.), The City in Comparative Perspective: Cross National Research and New Directions in Theory, Sage Publications, 1976. Weiss, C. Social Science Research and Decision-Making, N.Y., 1980. Cynthia Ghorra-Gobin, doctor es-Lettres in Geography (Paris I) and Ph.D. in urban planning from UCLA, is Director of Research at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and teaches at the Institute of Political Studies (Paris) and at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne. Her research focuses on the city in terms of a material construction as well as social and cultural practices linked to political dynamics. She seeks to point out the differences between the American and European conceptions of the city. This comparative approach stems from a university career spanning France and the United States. It thrives on the new methods being used to generate knowledge in the social sciences given the current influences of cross-national socio-economic processes.
The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not commit UNESCO. The designations employed in this publication and the presentation of the facts it contains do not imply any position on the part of the UNESCO Secretariat concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. |
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