Everything flows... On the role of knowledge sources and the significance of comparative research in the modern world

Contemporary changes in the socio-cultural reality, associated with the revolution in the field of information and the development of new technologies, provide a context for reflection on the problem of the sources of knowledge. The wide access to resources of various data, information and knowledge, related nowadays, in particular, to questions about the manners and limits of using artificial intelligence (AI) at the borderlines of science and education, provokes reflection on the role of contemporary science and its representatives. The reflections are undertaken from the perspective of comparative education, which is treated as a scientific discipline that studies different materials (sources) and constitutes also a field (source) of knowledge. The text presents three aspects of reflection: the origins and development of pedagogical comparativism; its contemporary opportunities and challenges; and the role of the researcher embedded in a vision of the future. Comparative education is presented as the discipline which, through actions and works of comparativists, establishes the value of progress and continuity as inherent developmental forces in culture.