Niklas Luhmann's late concept of inclusion/exclusion in world society compensates for the lack of a systems theory of social differentiation, but ultimately remains incomplete. Moreover, it is remarkable that Luhmann apparently never linked the inclusion/exclusion concept to his late theory of the education system. The following considerations…

Globalization has become one of the most recurrent concepts in social and political sciences. More often than not, however, the concept is handled without much of a properly articulated theory capable of explaining its historical origin and expansion. For education researchers attempting to elucidate how global changes and processes affect their…

Increasing globalisation is concomitant with a growing lack of uniformity in the world. Hardly any satisfactory concepts are available which grasp both of these tendencies within the scope of a single model. While processes of becoming globally alike are central to world system theories, comparative research into institutions has identified a…

New theories and theory-based methodological approaches have found their way into Comparative Education--just as into Comparative Social Science more generally--in increasing number in the recent past. The essays of this volume express and critically discuss quite a range of these positions such as, inter alia, the theory of self-organizing social…

Discusses delivery systems in distance education and suggests that too much time is spent on choosing a delivery system rather than analyzing distance education as a whole. Presents a distance-education hierarchy that includes hardware systems, software systems, telecommunications systems, instructional systems, educational systems, societal…

Presents a conceptual framework that embeds ideas from world-systems theory within the larger context known as the theory of dissipative structures. This perspective reflects the interconnectedness of individual and separate places into a larger global system that is a single functioning spatial entity. (MJP)