The elective affinity of qualitative research and cultural comparison and their meaning for education science - structuretheoretical prolegomena

Against the background that culture on the one hand seems to loose its meaning because of the progressing realisation of the idea of universal education and on the other hand seems to be reified, we develop a structure-theoretical concept of culture and ask for the epistemological and methodological meaning of this concept for education science. In this context we first line out the elective affinity of qualitative research methods and cultural comparison and then ask on the basis of a material analysis for the meaning of cultural comparison for questions of educational science. In the end we draft methodological premises for cultural comparison in education science from the perspective of qualitative research. Reprinted by permission of the VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Germany