The inaugural issue of FIRE: Forum for International Research in Education begins a new chapter in the scholarly and professional discussion of comparative and international education research, policy, and practice. Comparative and international education research has become increasingly isolated from educational policymaking as well as school- and classroom-level decisionmaking as the amount and diversity of research in the field has grown. FIRE is an international, peer-reviewed publication, which seeks to bridge this gap by promoting interdisciplinary scholarship on the use of internationally comparative data for evidence-based and innovative change in educational systems, schools, and classrooms worldwide. FIRE provides an open source and widely accessible platform for disseminating research on education from multiple cultural, organizational and national perspectives. To introduce FIRE to the community of researchers, policymakers, and educators this introduction provides an overview of the journal
Mapping the Purposes of Comparative and International Education Research: A Comparative Study of Four Leading Journals