A Study On Edmund J．king's Cultural Relativism Paradigm Of Comparative Education

In the field of the comparative education, the paradigm not only lies in the core of theory, but also is an important symbol of scientific disciplines and the standards of the subject maturity. It determines the quality of comparative education research and the academic level of development. Each comparative education researchers must be starting from a specific point or a theoretical analysis paradigm, then to study and explore the object or the issue when they begin to carry out the activities, thereby to obtain the corresponding results. The paradigms of comparative education have undergone a couple of changes since its birth in 1817, and some relatively mature paradigms such as historicism, empiricism, cultural relativism and functionalism appeared with the transform of the study. Under the context of globalization and internationalization at the present, comparative education is not only confronted with identity crisis induced by comparative education itself, but also with the perfection and development issues of theory and methodology itself. For this reason, the comparative education should continue to broad its field of research and construct a more solid theoretical system and methodology system in order to keep the comparative education out of crisis.Under the context of the political, economic and the cultural globalization, the comparative education should be based on the individual as the main subject, continuing to promote the respect, the understanding and the tolerance among individuals within a culture, as well as the diversity of human culture. The cultural relativism methodology just stands by the position of the differences between the culture and the value. It contends to using the cultural approaches and making the education and the culture as two parameters in the comparative research.Edmund James King is regarded as a distinguished comparative educationist in Britain and the most important representative figure of cultural relativism paradigm. He has established the specific analytical framework theory and the methodology system which based on particular historical contexts and academic background, and also has some unique insight and understanding by means of a large number of educational practices and the multinational field trips. They have provided a new perspective to understand the national education and the cultural relativism methodology.Furthermore, Edmund King, who has been proposed as the first person of the"analysis model", has pointed out that the paradigm is regarded as the model and the research framework. He has pointed out that we should have the own analytical model and the framework in the field of the comparative education. The comparative education is a research which studies the most complex forms of human behavior, advocating that the research should stand on the perspective of cultural relativism to study the different education. Different educational methods should be based on specific educational purpose, directions and the results. In the comprehensive social and cultural background, the comparative education should examine and study education in the way of ecological style, just in order to remain an epiphany of insight and make some service for education decision.The dissertation which comprehensively using the literature analysis method, historical analysis method and the comparative analysis method, discusses the backgrounds, theories, contents, main features, limitations and the influences of King's cultural relativism paradigm, in order to construct the theoretical system of comparative education and to make up for the shortage of the research in our country.The whole paper consists of five parts. Prefaces puts forward the topic reason of the paper, and reviews the relative literature of cultural relativism paradigm research at home and aboard. In the meanwhile, it introduces the concepts of the paradigm and the cultural relativism paradigm. On a basis of literature, this part introduces the purpose, content, methodology and the meanings of the research.The first part explains and defines the core concepts and the significance. It also clarifies the significance of the development paradigm for the discipline by clarifying the meaning of key terms.The second part tracks the history, the environment, the social background, the cultural background and the theoretical basis of Edmund King's cultural relativism paradigm.The third part introduces the core idea of Edmund King's cultural relativism paradigm comprehensively, specifically from the contents and the objectives.The fourth part further discusses the features and the limitations of Edmund King's cultural relativism paradigm.The fifth part makes a summary and a reflection on the status of comparative education. It also points out the problems of comparative education, and the impacts of development trend compared by the cultural relativism paradigm. So it is pragmatically and necessarily to analyze and study the cultural relativism paradigm of Edmund King at present.