This paper aims at producing a grounding for studying how ‘evidence’ and perceptions of ‘what works’ in education are and have been produced, interpreted and practiced in the Nordic countries, in policy, in research, and in practice.

Our study will explore three aspects of policy, governance, practices and research into the theme: First the phenomenon of the Nordic, the second is to elaborate on the concept and practices of evidence and best practice, and the third is to reflect on practices of educational comparison in policy and research.

We therefore first explore the phenomenon of the Nordic in its complex apparitions between the discursive myth of a coherent bloc of progressive and egalitarian welfare states and the cumbersome realities of political alliances that operate in more modest and conflictual realities. In international conversations this ambiguous entity called the Nordic appears in monikers like ’the Nordic education model’, ‘the Nordic way of regulating labour market and parliamentary democracy’, ‘the Nordic ways of thinking and behaving’, and so forth (Andersen et al., 2007; Blossing, Imsen, & Moos, 2013; Telhaug, Mediås, & Aasen, 2006). On the other hand, we know from a number of studies of our own and of colleagues, that it is difficult to point at Nordic uniformity, when going closer to actual policy, research and practices.

Powerful instruments for neo-liberal models of governance are the social technologies in public management and education policies. The production and distribution of social technologies (Dean, 1999; Foucault, 1991) like evidence and best practice are often being localised to transnational agencies like the OECD and European Commission (John Benedikto Krejsler, 2013; Moos, 2017), however we want to look into relations from the transnational agencies and European states to the USA.

This paper aim to produce a foundation for the study of what counts as evidence in school and education in five mutually different countries – the Nordic countries - with each their societal and educational systems is an arduous task that includes identifying the particularities of different societal and historical contexts and their configurations of dominant players in relation to education as a foundation for our comparisons. In this paper we shall introduce theories of global and national educational policies, theories of governance at diverse levels (like transnational, national and local), and theories of education.

Debate about ‘evidence’ and ‘best practice’ in education often deals with the binary between commonalities and differences. The crucial question here is, whether you can identify causal relations or at least correlations in education that shows what works, or maybe what does not work, irrespectiveof context (John B. Krejsler, 2017). On the other hand, it is often claimed, that context matters so much that talking about ‘evidence’ or ‘what works’ without reference to national and local contexts and their particularities makes no sense. And, to put the argument a little on the edge, one could argue that within policy and associated research paradigms (often school effectiveness) the Nordic countries have often tilted more towards the ‘context matters’ approaches as opposed to mainstream Anglo-Saxon approaches that have more often tilted towards looking for commonalities. The former often privileges more qualitative approaches whereas the latter more often gives preference to more quantitative approaches. Nonetheless, one could mention the OECD 2004 Washington meeting on ‘evidence’ where a US more evidence-based faith in global evidence and the priority of Randomized Controlled Trials was met with what was called the Nordic voice that emphasized the importance of context as well as the importance of recognizing many sources of ‘evidence’.

The Nordic contexts will be studied with critical discourse analyses (Fairclough, 1995) in historical perspective: How are relations and identities being developed in collaboration and in wars between the Nordic nations and between Nordic education discourses? Theory on governance (Foucault, 1983; Popkewitz & Brennan, 1998) will help us to understand how power relations and interplays between agencies and agents at many policy levels work: trans-nationally, nationally, regionally, locally and institutionally. That is relevant for our investigations here, because the core concepts of evidence and best practices are social technologies of governance, they are used by policy makers and administrators to influence agents and agencies to think and act accord-ing to certain values and logics. Comparisons (Moos, 2013) (Carney, 2008; Steiner-Khamsi, 2006), are both employed as tools for re-search on policy and education and by policymakers themselves. As comparative researchers we use comparisons to sharpen our view in order to get a clearer picture of practices and politics, while poli-cy makers use comparisons, when setting policy agendas based on international evidence, best prac-tice, or international standards. It is thus very important to gain a better understanding of the institu-tional context and the historical and societal background in and against which education is situated the policy webs, since educational thinking and practices, as well as individual and community social capital, are formed by the society, culture, and context of which they are a part. Stephen Ball (Ball, Maguire, & Braun, 2012) argues, that because educational institutions most often are only loosely coupled to the political system, policies need to be enacted by the institutions: they interpret and negotiate policies, they ‘do’ policy, in order to make it fit to practices. This underscores the need to explicate and investigate the contexts at multiple levels of governance. The Scandinavian neo-institutional theorist Kjell Arne Røvik (2011) give more details. He invokes the metaphor of a virus infection when identifying the ways in which the generic structure of political ideas—viruses’—generic structures are translated, changed or mutated in the interactions with local culture and val-ues.

We will produce a broader and deeper grounding for comparing transnational and national influences on education in Nordic countries, as they are analysed in each of the policy webs. By introducing and discussion concepts, theories and methods from diverse areas we shall combine or juxtapose perspec-tives, and insights from political webs. We shall build on country reports and thematic analyses from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. All country reports are built on the following anal-yses: 1. describe similarities and differences from this general description to your nation’s his-tory, pointing to phenomenon, that seem to produce Nordic-ness (like the personal un-ions influence on relations). Pre 1980 and post 1980. 2. describe global and trans-national agency-influences on your policy situation (like soft gov-ernance) 3. describe the trans-national influences on the national structures and policies 4. describe the development of governance-relations between national agencies (parliament, ministry, agencies) and local agencies (regional/municipal agencies) and institutions 5. which social technologies are made to work in your educational system? 6. describe development in educational structures over the past 40 years. 7. describe developments in the balances between educational discourses. 8. describe the stage, your educational system has reached in digitalization and it’s influences on education. 9. the background (history) of the particular forms of ‘evidence’ and ‘what works’ develop-ments have taken in your country, 10. the policy networks that made it possible; 11. how ‘evidence’ and ‘what works’ has resonated with the educational traditions in your country; 12. what has ‘evidence’ and ‘what works’ been received in schools and among professionals (accept >< contestations).

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