This presentation is framed as a comparative study of Danish/Nordic and Scottish/UK school policy with a view to examining how Danish policies ‘scale up’ regarding the Nordic dimension, and Scottish policies in relation to UK dimensions. By identifying tensions within the regional placement of these two countries, this presentation explores how Scottish ‘tensions’ with England within the UK leads to an anticipated Scottish exceptionalism that often refers to the Nordic region as a trope to emphasize ‘public good’, set against predominant market Discourses (Adams, 2022; Bryce et al. 2018; Gee, 2012) in dominant, English and (probably) Anglo-American conceptions for schooling. Simultaneously, we explore whether and to what extent Danish school Discourse fares between increasingly dominant adaptations of Anglo-American market D/discourses and Nordic ‘common-good’ values that (possibly) still pervade Danish and Nordic self-perception (Blossing, Imsen, & Moos, 2016; Krejsler & Moos, 2021). Such problematizations – we hope – will prove useful to qualify how Scottish-Danish educational collaboration can advance by drawing upon the larger regions they both situate within, both historically, regarding pedagogy, and contemporarily, regarding meaningful balances between ‘market’ and ‘public good’ approaches. This actualizes issues of how the two national cases have dealt with, taken in and transformed education according to major developments in education in terms of balances between markets and public good such as, in particular: (1) the transnational turn in school policy via interlocutors like the OECD, the EU and IEA (Lawn & Grek, 2012); and (2) the framing and adaptation of pedagogy according to their different positioning in relation to continental and Anglo-American educational theory, thinking and traditions (Uljens & Ylimaki, 2017); and, not least, (3) how the two national cases have reacted in the form of more recent contestations to transnational solutions as well as more national(ist) turns, including Brexit (Rizvi, Lingard, & Rinne, 2022; Krejsler & Moos 2023). Furthermore, the two cases serve as an exemplary lens to clarify tensions regarding both the purpose and organization of ‘schooling’ that has relevance at a larger European scale. In terms of theory the presentation draws on scalar and topological perspectives to understanding how ‘the national’ is increasingly framed (and possibly subsumed) between (within) complex regional and inter/trans-national relations, trends and developments (Amin, 2002; Lewis, 2020; Savage, Gregorio, & Lingard, 2021).

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