Coming to an understanding of global, national, or regional policies and strategies in education a comparative perspective is inevitable. Not only, because scientific research is generally „penetrated“ by comparison, and „our reasoning is always guided by comparison, whether we intend it to be or not“ (Palmberger and Gingrich, 2013, 94). The role of comparative education research has been reconsidered and widened since the last years to come to a more complex understanding and elaborating of observed phenomena by focusing especially on the relations in between (Schriewer, 2000; Sweeting 2014) and their contextualizations (Egetenmeyer, 2016). On the one hand, comparison provides chances such as learning from experiences abroad, transferring knowledge and procedures, identifying benchmarks, knowing better our own history and place, fostering cooperation, and, finally stabilises peace. But, limitations, such as social constructions, errors of understanding and prediction, implicit categorisation should be kept in mind. The discourse analysis could uncover how comparative research is various, historically changing, and, theoretical and methodological (interdisciplinary) conceptualised. The first focus lays on the Symposiums’ perspective about interrelations between the socio-political context and the role of two global actors with its political data strategies (OECD and EU). Secondly, the documents which are used (PIAAC and AES) could show a “growing isomorphism” (Slowey, 2016, 14) within comparative research. Drawn from my research on temporal semantics, categories like progression and future orientation demonstrates deep political underpinnings. It is possible to conclude, that the power of ‚consent‘ policy-making and semantics is led by progression (Moutsios, 2010), and the occurrence and anticipation of future events (Hoeken, 2001). Current states of comparative education research follow a highly critical linear temporality.

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