The paper asks which mechanisms pattern policy borrowing and transfer of education policies in the European Union. It draws on Lange and Alexiadou's (2010) typology of mutual, imperialistic, competitive and surface policy learning within the Open Method of Coordination as applied to education. In this vein, it discusses the research questions and the methods of analysis of two studies.

The first study has to do with policies against early school leaving (ESL) in Spain. In this area, the paper hypothesizes that both the central and (a sample of) regional governments recently adopted the EU recommendations by means of competitive learning. That is, these educational authorities were apparently interested in meeting some statistical targets but did not elaborate on the rationale and the implications of those recommendations. This argument draws on evidence collected for project ABJOVES during 2012-16 (IP: Aina Tarabini, Univ. Autònoma de Barcelona, http://abjoves.es). It is particularly relevant insofar as Spain records the highest ESL rate in the EU.

The second study has to do with lifelong learning policies. Since 2013, the Commission has tried to extend the Youth Guarantee Scheme from a few countries to all the member states. Here, the point is whether this process enacts a sort of mutual learning which entails developing a common and shared rationale for policy-making. In this regard, the paper draws on project YOUNG ADULLLT (IP: Marcelo Parreira, Univ. Münster, http://www.young-adulllt.eu). This work will be conducted between 2016 and 2019.

These two hypotheses are inspired by a more general thesis. Research on education policy borrowing and transfer has noticed that a varied array of mechanisms can make a huge difference in the reception of the same guidelines in different settings (Steiner-Khamsi & Waldow, 2012). The point is that ideas are extremely influential in political activity, but they are always enmeshed in complex webs of social relations (Schmidt, 2008). Thus, education policy normally proceeds by selectively enacting certain priorities that affect some aspects of teaching and school organisation (Ball et al, 2012). Unsurprisingly, Lange and Alexiadou's (2010) findings on education and Europeanisation are not exceptional compared to other policy areas. In fact, Europeanisation often proceeds by means of strategically using political and cognitive instruments to manage the relationship between the different layers of governance (Radaelli & Bolleyer, 2009; Radaelli et al, 2013).

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