Using International Research to Contest Prevalent Oppositional Dichotomies

International comparative research has the capacity to problematise our most basic assumptions. Dichotomies such as teacher-centred versus student-centred classrooms, telling versus not-telling, speaking versus listening, and even teaching versus learning can restrict educators and educational theorists to a fragmented view of the classroom. Constructing such dichotomies as oppositional creates a set of false choices, sanctifying one alternative, while demonising the other. International research offers insight into possible explanatory frameworks within which such dichotomies are no longer oppositional, but instead can be seen as complementary and fundamentally interrelated. The acceptance of such complementarities is a first step towards an inclusive theory of classroom practice and learning.