This book covers the seven-year project involving China, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, and the US, to show how collaborative research can help expand worldwide knowledge of education.

Noel McGinn designed and participated in a unique comparative international education research project, the Six Nation Education Research Project, a seven-year effort involving China, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, and the US, to show how collaborative research can help expand worldwide knowledge of education. This book examines the effects of the different comparative educational research conducted. The research involved cross-cultural comparison on a variety of topics, including language instruction, educational indicators (testing results), reform of higher education management, secondary vocational education, and determinations of school effectiveness.

However important the school may be as a vehicle to institutionalize and perpetuate democracy, it has been ignored by contemporary scholars of democratization in developing and former socialist countries. This book maps out directions for comparative inquiry on the role of education in democratization and transitions from centralized authority.