This research guide is intended as an overview of library resources and services of particular relevance for students in Professors Carol Benson's and Oren Pizmony-Levy's Fall 2020 course ITSF 4091, Comparative Education. The resources, primarily electronic and accessible on and off campus, have been selected as ones that support the aims of the course: to introduce "theories in comparative and international education, along with comparative methods and current issues in the field related to cross-national assessment, educational development indicators, educational transfer and borrowing, gender analysis and linguistic and cultural issues." The guide also includes a section describing research consultation and assistance services and options for document retrieval and delivery available to all members of the Teachers College community.

Resources designated (CU) are accessible online through Columbia University Libraries.

Library Resources

Online Catalogs

EDUCAT - The most definitive record of the holdings of the Gottesman Libraries at Teachers College, including books, e-books, journals, e-journals, dissertations, media, and other specialized collections of all kinds.

CLIO Catalog - The union catalog of Columbia University Libraries (exclusive of the libraries of Teachers College, the Columbia Law School, and Jewish Theological Seminary), providing the most definitive record of individual libraries' holdings of books, e-books, journals, e-journals, dissertations, media, and other specialized collections of all kinds.

WorldCat - The union catalog of the contents of over 10,000 libraries worldwide, providing the means to do exhaustive searching by author, title, subject, and numerous other criteria and to find locations for specific items in libraries nearby and elsewhere. WorldCat is also freely accessible at worldcat.org.

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) are the official subject terms prescribed by the Library of Congress for the cataloging of books and are in use in essentially all academic libraries. To find works pertaining to comparative education and related subjects, it may be useful to use some of the subject terms, or combinations of terms, listed below when searching the online catalogs of libraries at Teachers College, Columbia University, and other institutions.

• Comparative education [LB43]
• Comparative education -- Research
• Comparative education -- Research -- Methodology
• Cross-cultural orientation [GN345.65]
• Cross-cultural studies [GN345.7 (Anthropology)]
• Culture and globalization
• Education -- Social aspects
• Education -- Social aspects -- Cross-cultural studies
• Education and globalization
• Education and globalization -- Cross-cultural studies
• Education and state [LC71-LC188]
• Education and state -- Cross-cultural studies
• Educational change
• Educational change -- Cross-cultural studies
• International education [LC1090]
• International education -- Research
• International education -- Research -- Methodology
• Nationalism and education [LC71]
• Nationalism and education -- Cross-cultural studies

For an overview of the call number system used in our library and many other academic libraries, see the Library of Congress Classification Outline page.

Periodical Indexes

Education Databases

ERIC - Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education to provide extensive access to education-related periodical literature, ERIC (which stands for Educational Resources Information Center) provides coverage of conferences, meetings, government documents, theses, dissertations, reports, audiovisual media, bibliographies, directories, books, and monographs. In addition to this version, made available via the ProQuest platform, ERIC is also accessible via the U.S. government ERIC site and through Ebsco ERIC.

Education Full Text - Provides comprehensive coverage of an international range of English-language periodicals, monographs, and yearbooks. Indexing coverage begins June 1983; abstracts are included beginning spring 1994; full text of some journals is available beginning in January 1996.

Education Index Retrospective - Provides cover-to-cover indexing for an international range of English-language periodicals and yearbooks; coverage from 1929 through mid-1983.

Education Research Complete - Provides indexing and abstracts for more than 2,100 journals, as well as full text for more than 1,200 journals, and includes full text for nearly 500 books and monographs.

Professional Development Collection - Designed for professional educators, this database provides a highly specialized collection of nearly 520 high-quality education journals, including more than 350 peer-reviewed titles. The database also contains more than 200 educational reports.

International Studies Databases

Africa-Wide Information (CU) - Citations and abstracts for journal articles, books, and other types of publications pertaining to African studies across disciplines.

Hispanic American Periodicals Index (HAPI) (CU) - Citations to articles and book reviews in scholarly journals published in Latin America and the Caribbean, or those dealing with topics relating to Latin America, the Caribbean, and Hispanic Americans.

International Political Science Abstracts (CU) - Indexes and abstracts articles in the field of political science (including the sub-fields of public administration, political theory, and international relations) published in journals and yearbooks published worldwide.

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts (CU) - Provides abstracts and indexing of the international literature of political science and international relations, along with complementary fields, including international law and public administration/policy. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,500+ serials publications and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and working papers.

Social Science Databases

International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (CU) - A valuable online resource for social science and interdisciplinary research, IBSS includes over two million bibliographic references to journal articles and to books, reviews and selected chapters dating back to 1951, providing broad coverage of international material and incorporating over 100 languages and countries.

PAIS Index (CU) - Contains citations to journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, "gray literature," research reports, conference reports, publications of international agencies, and Internet resources pertaining to public affairs and public policy issues; coverage from 1915 to present.

Social Sciences Full Text - Provides coverage of English-language journals across social science disciplines, with indexing from 1983, abstracting from 1984, and select access to full text from 1984 to the present.

Multidisciplinary Databases

Academic Search Premier - A multidisciplinary database providing full text for more than 4,600 journals, including nearly 3,900 peer-reviewed titles. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals. See also Academic Search Complete (CU), a scholarly, multidisciplinary full-text database, with more than 8,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1887.

EBSCOhost Research Databases (CU) - Provides access to numerous databases across disciplines, indexing journals and other scholarly publications; full text provided in many instances.

JSTOR (CU) - An online archive of over 1,200 leading scholarly journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work. Journals are always included from volume 1, issue 1 and include previous and related titles.

ProQuest (CU) - Provides broad multidisciplinary coverage of scholarly journals, newspapers, dissertations, and other types of publications; for international coverage and access to full texts of dissertations only, search ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global, a subset of ProQuest.

Federated Search Engines

Super Search (via Gottesman Libraries) - To search some or all of our periodical indexes, plus EDUCAT and CLIO, simultaneously for books, journal articles, reports, dissertations, etc.

Quicksearch (via Columbia University Libraries) - To search the catalog, multiple periodical indexes, and other web resources simultaneously within a variety of subjects and disciplinary subcategories.

Google Scholar - Provides the means to search for scholarly research across many disciplines and sources:  articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities, and other web sites.

Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

Print Resources

Encyclopedia of Educational Research, 6th Edition (1992)

International Encyclopedia of Education (1994)

International Encyclopedia of National Systems of Education (1995)

E-Resources

Encyclopedia of Education (2nd Edition) - The 2003 version of the classic resource in education and related fields.

Europa World Plus (CU) - Economic, political, historical, and geographic profiles of 250+ countries and global regions.

International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (CU) - This key reference work comprises 4,000 articles, commissioned by 52 Section Editors, and includes 90,000 bibliographic references as well as comprehensive name and subject indexes.

World Education Encyclopedia (2nd Edition, 2002) - Provides detailed essays on the histories, legal foundations, and primary and secondary educational systems of 233 countries., including coverage of reorganized educational systems and high-interest topics such as technological advances.

World Factbook (CU) - Produced by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, this resource provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 266 world entities.

E-Collections

Alexander Street Press Databases (CU) - Themed collections of print documents, video, and recorded sound across disciplines; notable databases include Alexander Street Literature (cross-searchable collections covering the literatures of place, race, and gender), Caribbean Literature (a collection of poetry and fiction produced in the Caribbean during the 19th and 20th centuries), Ethnographic Video Online and Anthropology Online (intended to be a visual encyclopedia of human behavior and culture, online in streaming video), and North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories (personal views of what it meant to immigrate to the United States and Canada between 1880 and 1950).

CIAO (Columbia International Affairs Online) - "Publishes a wide range of scholarship from 1991 onward that includes working papers from university research institutes, occasional papers series from NGOs, foundation-funded research projects, proceedings from conferences, books, journals and policy briefs. CIAO is also widely-recognized source for teaching materials including original case studies written by leading international affairs experts, course packs of background readings for history and political science classes, and special features like the analysis of a bin Laden recruitment tape with video."

Ebook Central - Online books across a range of subject areas; searchable, under Browse Subjects, by Education, History & Political Science, Social Science, etc. and various sub-topics, and by author, title, and other criteria.

Oxford Scholarship Online (CU) - Provides the full text of classic and newly published Oxford University Press books in economics and finance, law, political science, and other disciplines.

RAND Published Research - Contains more than 20,000 RAND Corporation publications, most of which are available as free eBook downloads, dating back to 1946.

SAGE Knowledge (CU) - "A database of ebooks and reference books published by SAGE covering the social sciences and education, including such areas as African American Studies, Aged & Gerontology, Anthropology, Communication and Media Studies, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Economics, Education, Gender & Sexuality Studies, History, Politics, Psychology, Social Issues, Social Work & Social Policy, and Sociology."

Handbooks of Research

Print Resources

Routledge Handbook of International Education and Development (2015)

The SAGE Handbook of Research in International Education (2007) (see also electronic version in E-Resources)

E-Resources

International Handbook of Comparative Education (CU) - This 2009 compendium "brings together leading scholars from around the world, who provide authoritative studies of the old and new epistemic motifs and theoretical strands that have characterized the interdisciplinary field of comparative and international education in the last 50 years" and "analyses the shifting agendas of scholarly research, the different intellectual and ideological perspectives and the changing methodological approaches used to examine and interpret education and pedagogy across different political formations, societies and culture."

International Handbook on Globalisation, Education and Policy Research: Global Pedagogies and Politics (CU) - Published in 2005, this resources aims to present an international overview of developments in education and policy change during the last decade, attempting in 47 articles to address some of the issues and problems confronting educators and policy makers globally. See also the Second International Handbook (2015) below.

SAGE Handbook of Research in International Education (CU) - This 2007 collection by diverse experts in the field comprises 39 chapters divided into five parts: Part I: Historical Roots, Definitions and Current Interpretations; Part II: Students and Their Learning; Part III: Teachers and Their Development; Part IV: Organizing Formal Institutions for the Promotion of International Education; and Part V: Current Issues and Future Challenges.

SAGE Handbook of Research in International Education (2nd Edition, 2015) (CU) - "The aims of the present edition remain the same as for its predecessor: to provide a detailed and critical overview of the field's history, contemporary research, practices and challenges. In order to maintain the initial volume's approach and style while recognizing the advancements listed above, this second edition has preserved and updated some of its content, while devoting approximately one-third of the chapters to new entries. It retains the overall structure of grouping the chapters by parts that identify the principal emphases that currently concern practitioners and researchers alike. However, the parts have new and more relevant foci."

Second International Handbook on Globalisation, Education and Policy Research (CU) - Comprising two main parts, this 2015 handbook "first examines globalisation and education policy reforms, including coverage of main trends as well as specific policy issues such as gender, equity, minorities and human rights. Next, the handbook offers a comparative perspective that evaluates the ambivalent and problematic relationship between globalisation, the state and education reforms globally. It features coverage on curricula issues and education reforms in schools around the world as well as the curriculum in the global culture."

Reviews of Research

Current Overviews of the Literature

Annual Reviews (CU) - Reviews of topics in social sciences and other disciplines published as annual journals; see series for Economics, Political Science, and others.

Review of Educational Research - A publication of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the RER publishes quarterly critical, integrative reviews of research literature bearing on education, including conceptualizations, interpretations, and syntheses of scholarly work.

Review of Research in Education - A publication of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the RRE provides an annual overview and descriptive analysis of selected topics of relevant research literature through critical and synthesizing essays.

Citation Indexes

Google Scholar - Provides the means to search by author or publication title, and indicates and provides links to works that have cited the documents retrieved.

Scopus (CU) - Abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and quality web sources with smart tools to track, analyze, and visualize research.

Web of Science (CU) - Comprising the Arts & Humanities Citation Index, the Social Sciences Citation Index, and the Science Citation Index Expanded, this database supports searching by topic, author, or publication name, and is also a major means for doing cited reference searching, to find articles that cite a person's work.

Digital Archives

Academic Commons - Columbia University's online repository, where current faculty, students, and staff can deposit the results of their scholarly work and research.

Internet Archive - A non-profit digital library offering free universal access to books, movies, and music, as well as 150 billion archived web pages.

PocketKnowledge - The social archive of Teachers College, including unpublished manuscripts and archives from the library's collections, documents from other departments and administrative offices College-wide, and the work of TC students, faculty, and researchers.

Bibliography and Citation Management Programs

Citation Management Software - An extensive description of and guide to the use of Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote, courtesy of Columbia University Libraries.

Library Services

Ask a Librarian - Explore a variety of kinds of research support: submit an email reference query to librarians; request a research consultation with a Gottesman librarian; review frequently asked questions via the library's Knowledge Database.

Course Reserves - E-Reserves provides online access to digital course readings, including e-journal articles and book chapters, as well as call numbers for physical course reserves materials (books, DVDs, videos, etc.). More information about E-Reserves and physical Course Reserves can be found on the Course Reserves page.

Requesting New Materials - Teachers College students, faculty, and staff may use the materials request form to request library materials not owned by Gottesman Libraries, or the Columbia Morningside Campus Libraries.

Workshops - The Gottesman Libraries' education program offers a calendar of workshops on citation management, research techniques, and academic writing processes. Visit the Events page on the library’s website to learn about and RSVP to upcoming workshops.