Monday, April 22, 2013

Chapter 5: Literature Review -- Theda Skocpol and Comparative History

5c


Theda Skocpol and Comparative History
   I originally was drawn to Skocpol's introduction in her book "States and social revolutions" (1979) because she compares differing historical time frames in her research -- the French Revolution, 1978-1800, the Russian Revolution, 1917-1921, and the Chinese Revolution, 1911-1949. This provides support to the challenge of examining 20th century Canadian public education commission reports historically. The policies under review share the common factor of being commission reports (overall), just as the social revolutions share a common factor of being revolutions with a set of characteristics that the researcher is interested in revealing. Additionally, Skocpol's research also supports, in case such example were needed, that the comparison of commission reports from different decades as well as different systems (provinces/territories) as valid data sets to compare. As a scholar I am furthermore not limited by the constitution in theory. I can compare supposed diverse policies with the same investigative objective as Theda Skocpol might research for. Further, historical comparative opens up the possibility of understanding the role of the commission report in democracy, ideology, and culture in broad terms. We can check for changes, and find out what has changed in public education commission reports across a century. This is important to understanding democracy in Canada, and ultimately to developing theory.
   Along these lines, this is where Skocpol's guidance is most important. She writes, "Some books present fresh evidence, others make arguments that urge the reader to see old problems in a new light." Since many of the public education policy documents were "hidden" and others were excluded from general knowledge (such as those of the Canadian Territories), it could be said that part of the research here, particularly in the way it is brought together, presents 'fresh evidence' -- evidence of a Canadian history not available in overview and treatment in each province and territory. An 'old problem' is the missing 'big picture', a conceptualization of public education policy in Canada, and this research looks at the big picture through the evidence. Skocpol claims the latter category as her focus. She writes, "This work [States and social revolutions] ... offers a frame of reference for analyzing social-revolutionary transformations in modern world history." My work offers a frame of reference for analyzing the Canadian public education commission reports of the 20th century. Skocpol is dissatisfied with the Parsonian structural-functional explanation for revolutions. She decides to use comparisons among the three revolutions and some "contrasts of these cases to other countries, to clarify [her] critique of the inadequacies of existing theories of revolution, and to develop an alternative theoretical approach and explanatory hypotheses." She finds that comparative historical analysis is an excellent way to do this. In the case of this research, comparisons amongst and between the public education documents Canada's 20th century, clarify my critique of section 93 of the constitution in terms of requirements in the 21st century. Further the comparison as undertaken provides an alternative theoretical approach to Canadian public education policy analysis.  
   Skocpol's refers to the historians and area specialists who create a 'large existing literature' so that she may sift through and establish, "the interest and prima facie validity of an overall argument about causal regularities across the various historical cases."  In the case of this research, the 'large existing literature' is the Canadian public education policy documents, and the purpose is to assess, keeping in mind the three categories specific to Canada of English language, French language and First Nations/Inuit/Metis education bureaucracy (also interpreted as 'the various historical cases'), that the research is looking for an overall argument concerning what is Canadian about public education in Canada as a nation, and conceptualizing a Canadian public education policy. Skocpol writes:

The comparative historian's task -- and potential distinctive scholarly contribution -- lies not in revealing new data about particular aspects of the large time periods and diverse places surveyed in the comparative study, but rather in establishing the interest and prima facie validity of an overall argument about causal regularities across the various historical cases. The comparativist has neither the time nor (all of) the appropriate skills to do the primary research that necessarily constitutes, in large amounts, the foundation upon which comparative studies are built. Instead, the comparativist must concentrate upon searching out and systematically surveying specialists' publications that deal with the issues defined as important by theoretical considerations and by the logic of comparative analysis. If, as is often the case, the points debated by specialists about a particular historical epoch or event are not exactly the ones that seem most important from a comparative perspective, then the comparative analyst must be prepared to adapt the evidence presented in the works of the specialists to analytic purposes somewhat tangential to those they originally envisaged. And the comparativist must be as systematic as possible in searching out information on the same topics in their research and polemics from one country to the next. Plainly, the work of the comparativist only becomes possible after a large primary literature has been built up by specialists. Only then can the comparativist hope to find at least some material relevant to each topic that must be investigated according to the dictates of the comparative, explanatory argument that he or she is attempt to develop.
  
 The specialists' publications relevant to my research are the public education policy documents as collected, particularly the commission reports. The specialists understood in the context of the research are the commission's top representative, the commissioner with the commissioner's team as indicated. Part of the work of this research has involved the "searching out" of documents using Goulson's list. The list was not immediately known to me, so I initially tracked older documents through report bibliographies. When I was introduced to Goulson's collation by a librarian I responded to Goulson as a kind of 'specialist' and following Skocpol's outline, "adapt[ed] the evidence presented in the works of [Goulson] to analytic purposes somewhat tangential to those [he] had originally envisaged" -- using the evidence to develop deeper knowledge in state theory, for example. I also engaged in systematic collection of the specialists' publications, sorted them chronologically and attempted to begin to locate documents post-1983 when Goulson's list experienced cessation. But additionally, my research is interested in identifying a Canadian public education policy 'big picture' through the historical comparative carried out and this is also somewhat tangential to the original purpose of the reports. It is also clear that a "large primary literature has been built up by specialists," the commissions in this case, and that the dictates of the comparative are interested in providing a 20th century overview that facilitates knowledge concerning public education development in Canada to a degree that 21st century Canada can perhaps move forward with changes to section 93, some centralization, or some other policy changes not envisioned here.
  The challenges in this research are similar to Skocpol's. The working and reworking of the argument has felt just as she describes it, rather like struggling with a "giant jig-saw puzzle." This is precisely what I have found the challenge to feel like. Skocpol writes, "…the challenges I have faced have not been due to difficulties of finding basic information. Rather they have been challenges of surveying huge historical literatures and appropriately weighing and using the contributions of the specialists, in order to develop a coherent comparative historical argument." I spent many hours sorting through Goulson's list using filters for various categories (i.e.sifting out all the R1 documents -- the Royal commissions -- from the main list, for example) once all Goulson's entries had been entered onto a spread sheet. 
   Finally, "Comparative history grows out of the interplay of theory and history, and it should in turn contribute to the further enrichment of each." The comparative history emerges as I sort and situate each Canadian public education policy document, and the possibilities for theorizing 20th century Canadian public education policy increase enormously. The orientation is to provincial linear histories with some comparative applied in order to establish a valid pan-Canadian relationship, but since overall the Canadian paradigm is linear and provincial/territorial, the historical comparative as it emerges after the work of sorting, provides foundations for a very important paradigm shift in terms of theory, a shift to a national conceptualization of public education policy in Canada for the 20th century. The comparative policy history as it emerges provides exceptionally rich soil for theory. This is precisely how I understood the purpose of locating, sorting and transcribing for the purposes of access, the key Canadian public education policy documents of the 20th century and Skocpol had provided a useful comparative guide for this type of investigation. 

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