In 2021 Colleen McLaughlin and Alan Ruby  published a first look at global case studies of attempts to reform whole education systems or elements of them. They chose case studies written by authors who had been actors in some capacity to show the human process that it is. the book  focused upon the implementation of policy or its elements to show how hard it is. it was hoped  that it would help policymakers and practitioners to learn from the successes and failure of others. As Stenhouse said, ‘…. improvement is possible if we are secure enough to face and study the nature of our failures. The central problem of evidence-informed practice is the gap between our ideas and our aspirations and our attempts to operationalise them’ (Stenhouse, 1975, 2-3). We also realised that our case studies were partial, and it is this desire to represent all and all attempts that has driven this second book, which this synposium focuses upon. This work holds to the aims of the first book but  represents attempts to implement reform in countries where there may be limited resources in terms of civic development, or what has been called weak states. The  case studies in the second book are  here that are more representative of the globe and the societies who share it. 

In the summary of the first book, we emphasised five important features or necessary considerations to facilitate successful reform implementation (McLaughlin and Ruby, 2021). The first of which was the importance of the historical and political context of reform. This is the factor that has stood out in this current stories of reform. The historical and political contexts in our world are more complex, more volatile and more challenging than even two years ago. They are presenting new problems for educational policy makers and many that are familiar.  What is clear is that they demonstrate more profoundly than ever the need to educate our young people well and for policy makers and actors in change to engage in learning about how to implement policy or make things happen. 

This symposium presents two of the case studies of reform - Scotland and Kazakhstan as well as the overall obervations of all ten countries. 

McLaughlin, C. and Ruby, A. (2024) Politics And Knowledge Shaping Educational Reform: Case Studies From Around The Globe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, McLaughlin and Ruby, A. (2021) Implementing Education Reform: Cases and Challenges. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press Stenhouse, L. (1975) An Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development. London: Heinemann