The Comparative and International Education Course Archive Project
(CIECAP) is an on-line database and analysis of salient features of
the introductory course in comparative education as taught at
institutions around the world. Featured in the archive are key
elements of the introductory course, such as unit topics, journals
and texts used, and interests and specializations represented by
comparative education course instructors. On-going research on the
introductory course is conducted by graduate students and alumni,
under the supervision of Erwin H. Epstein, at Loyola University
Chicago.

A symposium on CIECAP was held at the CIES 2004 Annual Conference
where the CIECAP research team at Loyola described its work and
findings. Dr. Patricia Kubow, Associate Professor at Bowling Green
State University, and Debora Hinderliter, doctoral student at Indiana
University at Bloomington, served as discussants. Kubow suggested
that CIECAP may help scholars construct a comparative educator
identity or identities for clearly articulating the value of
comparative inquiry to other university colleagues, administrators,
policy makers, and teacher practitioners. In a similar vein,
Hinderliter advocated that doctoral programs in comparative education
consider how such knowledge might be incorporated into foundations
and teacher education courses, since Ph.D. students are more likely
to obtain faculty positions in education departments as opposed to
institutions offering doctoral programs in their field. How
comparative educators, located in a variety of higher education
institutions, incorporate the comparative dimension into their
introductory courses is a future direction for CIECAP. The project
invites submissions of introductory course outlines for inclusion in
the database.

The CIECAP website and directions for outline submissions may be found at

http: www.luc.edu/schools/education/ciegsa/