This paper explores the extent to which comparative case studies can be scrutinised in understanding ways to facilitate sensitive policy transfer in re-orientating education towards the Sustainable Development Goals.  It will draw on an original doctoral study (Reed Johnson 2014) that allowed two cultural stories, from England and South Africa, to be compared as idiosyncratic cases through a common reporting structure that was based on aspects of communities of practice (Lave and Wenger 1991) and whole systems approaches.  

The research questions being addressed relate to how do we critically examine these transnational activities and their framings; and whether comparative studies provide food for thought and the potential to import and subsequently translate and internalise educational policies and practices at a national, regional, local or individual school level.  

By exploring the common interest between cases (from different contexts and countries) and the questions related to ways we view multiplicities in a 'one sole world' (Lotz-Sisitka 2010); how ecology (and Education for Sustainable Development ESD) is contributing to the political project of human emancipation where it is possible for everyone to live equitably and sustainably (as argued by Badiou 2007 and Morgensen and Schnack 2010), it may be possible to explore the participatory nature of these cases and the influences of indigenous meaning making (particularly in the South African case) that facilitates the capacity to re-orientate education towards the sustainable development goals through sensitive policy borrowing.

Many school case studies are often celebratory in tone.  Care must be taken when reading these case studies as they frequently fail to take a critically reflective approach (Wals, 2006) to describing the introduction of educational initiatives.  However the most valuable lessons that can be learned from case studies is how to deal with barriers and obstacles to change. We believe that sensitive translation of policies, practices and theories is a better approach to innovation than borrowing.

To be of maximum use to other professionals, case studies need to be critical and analytical, often guided by a set of guiding questions (Shallcross, Robinson and Wals, 2006) which facilitate the comparison of schools in different regions and even different countries.  This process is often called policy borrowing in comparative or international education.  While this term is useful if we think of borrowing as the deliberate transfer of an educational innovation from one context to another, borrowing is an awkward term as it implies repayment.  Also this transfer has to be selected by its host not imposed, as the American system was on Japan after World War Two or the English system on many former British colonies.  Imposition can make policy analysis of some educational systems difficult.

Extricating home-grown policy from that imposed by outsiders is very difficult in the case of, for example, South Africa and other African states with a chequered histories of colonial rule (Phillips and Ochs, 2004, p.755).  The copying or transplanting of policy, practice, research and/or theory in international education are frequently driven by a nation, organisation or individual seeking to learn lessons from another country that have implications for policy and/or practice at home.

The apparently straightforward process of policy identification-introduction-assimilation is far more fractured than it first appears when subjected to close scrutiny. While the study of foreign educational systems might be valuable, the belief that foreign examples can be borrowed and domesticated is quite another matter (Phllips and Ochs, 2004).  This paper will draw out some of the elements of that based on these two cases.

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