On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Journal of Curriculum Studies the content of this special issue will provide a relevant "state of the art" of curriculum research in the field of tension between the general and the local and between the international and the national. The purpose is to illustrate today's research front regarding comparative educational research, comprising policy research, ethnographic research, narrative research and research based on large scale comparisons – yet all with a focus on the relation between international educational policy and the implications for national school systems and school curricula. The comparative research approach is viewed as a response to the internationalization of education policy while education at the same time is understood as a highly regional and local activity. The contributing researchers, who are prominent representatives of their field of research, represent different countries and continents. In this special issue they illustrate the current research front regarding studies of international policies on education and their impact on national reforms and curricula. The relation between curriculum and teaching has been present from the beginning of the journal's fifty years of history. In the first issue from November 1968, questions of both moral education at school and what is learnt in English lessons are addressed. A few years later, P.H. Hirst asked the question “What is teaching?” and in the early 1990s, L.S. Shulman edited an issue portraying the same teacher through the eyes of different researchers. The following two examples from the forthcoming special issue of JCS illustrate the journal’s current themes and international relevance. Susan Robertson will explore how time, space and sociality, as strategic resources mobilised in the process of comparing, help us understand what is different about the current global governing projects (such as PISA and TALIS), and why they have managed to gain the traction of they have. Gita Steiner-Khamsi will discuss the situation in developing countries, where a new type of government-driven pilot schools has emerged over the past few years, associated with English as a language of instruction in selected subjects, critical/creative thinking, periodical assessment of students on 21st century skills, and the extensive use of technology in instruction.

Hirst, P. H. (1971). What is teaching? Journal of curriculum Studies 3(1), 5-18. Sorensen, T. and Robertson, S. L. (2018), The OECD program TALIS and Framing, Measuring and Selling – Quality Teacher. In M. Akiba & G.K. LeTendre (eds.). Routledge International Handbook of Teacher Quality and Policy. London and New York: Routledge. Shulman. L.S. (1991). Ways of seeing, ways of knowing: ways of teaching, ways of learning about teaching. Journal of curriculum Studies 23(5), 393-395. Steiner-Khamsi, Gita (2016). Standards are good (for) business: standardised comparison and the private sector in education. Globalisation, Societies and Education, online journals. 14(2), 161-182