Mapping diverse perspectives on school decentralization: the global debate and the case of Argentina

JORGE M. GOROSTIAGA; ROLLAND G. PAULSTON

Re-imagining Comparative Education

RoutledgeFalmer

Lugar: New York; Año: 2004; p. 255 - 284

The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of social cartography potentials via intertextual mappings of the phenomenon of school decentralization.  We investigate the meaning of school decentralization at the global level and in a particular national context, Argentina, from a critical pluralistic perspective that is sensitive to differences.  The study focuses on the arguments and perspectives about school decentralization as they are constructed in texts.  It includes arguments about what is (the origins, objectives and implications of implemented policies) as well as claims concerning what ought to be central in school decentralization plans.  With close reading of the texts, this study identifies and maps key arguments and major perspectives, and demonstrates via textual and visual interpretive representation of the debate field how comparative education inquiry today might be re-invented with close attention to rhetoric, texts, discourse, and to the spatial patterning of rhetorical difference.