In this position paper, I propose that research about the limits and possibilities for learning offered by different teaching traditions may be useful for teachers in thinking about and planning their teaching practices. Activities such as education, teaching and learning are constituted by choices of content and teaching strategies (Roberts and Östman, 1998). These choices communicate what counts as valid knowledge and the proper ways of creating knowledge within the practice. I argue that comparative didactic studies, identifying teaching traditions in different educational practices, subjects and/or countries, contribute to an understanding of the prerequisites for learning formed in each of the traditions. In so doing, the research can create knowledge about the relation between customs of teaching and the learning outcome. This kind of research contributes with conceptual resources useful when teachers make didactical choices and may thereby give them increased agency in the design of their teaching practice.