During the last decades different types of welfare states, either in Europe or in North America, are in a process of transition that has been understood as restructuring because it redefines the nature of the welfare institutions and the mode of appropriation of social goods. Policies of restructuring, such as privatisation and marketisation, are apparently disseminated globally forming a ‘world movement’ (Meyer, 1997) whose dynamics lies in a wide range of technologies that allow for stabilisation as well as harmonisation of social practices. The harmonising and stabilising effects of these technologies and their discursive embeddings allow for interpretive and hands-on flexibilities within the circumstances and localities of their uses. Thus, the dynamics of the global movement of restructuring comes to the fore, it lies and depends not only in the spread and “travelling” (Czarniawska & Sevon, 2000) and “borrowings” (Steiner-Khamsi, 2006) of its ideas and technologies, but also on its innovative transformations within its practical embeddings of situated practices. Scholarly work has, we think, not only permission but also an obligation to complain, to add critique to what it value and give credit. With reference to our research experience as well as to other scholars in the field (such as Appendurai, 1990, Novoa & Yariv-Mashal, 2003, Lindblad, S. & Popkewitz, 2004, Lingard, B. and Ozga, J., 2007) we will address some of these challenges, especially concerning comparative studies. Except the already mentioned a) problems with over-generalisation and totalising, we address: b) the problems of understanding differentiation in hegemonic world orders, where differentiation among and within different types of orders, as well as the differentiated ways embedded elements respond or readjust to global trends are important issues, and, c) the problems of the knowledge-power links embedded in comparative studies generally.

The style of this paper is meta-theoretical in kind, as it addresses methodological challenges for comparative studies of globalised worlds. Philosophically we situate our arguments within the traditions of social epistemology (Fuller,1988) and Critical Realism (Bhaskar, 1979). However, the paper is also a result of our own empirical research, not least within the European Union project “Professional Knowledge: Restructuring work and life between state and citizens in Europe." This project involved 1. Literature Review of research on welfare state restructuring and the professions in education and health care.2. Production of national cases on professional education and restructuring in education and health in seven European countries. 3. Comparative studies on professional expertise based on surveys to 8.800 teachers and nurses in five European contexts. 4. A database of surveys to 8.800 teachers and 5. Production of life histories and thematic life histories with teachers and nurses in seven European contexts.

Relating to recent ways of handling and understanding the effects of an increasingly globalised world on education, we will give arguments for why comparative research are in need of more nuanced views on “knowledge, as well as more nuanced views on the production and reproduction of these knowledges in different worlds. We will also exemplify what theoretical implication this means.