This paper presents the findings from an ongoing scoping review of the research literature on policy learning concerning education policy and governance globally. In line with the aims of scoping reviews, the objective of the paper is to map and discuss this literature (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005).

The paper addresses a remarkable gap in the research literature about education policy and governance. While the theoretical perspective of policy learning over the years has become prominent in the political sciences (Dunlop et al. 2024; Moyson et al. 2017), a review of how this perspective has been adopted for the study of education policy and governance has not yet been undertaken. This is unfortunate and somewhat paradoxical for at least two reasons. First, the vocabulary of ‘learning’ abounds in contemporary education policymaking, not least in the context of EU governance. Second, studies of contemporary education policy emphasise the pivotal role of knowledge production and ideas (not least in the EU context, see e.g. Cino Pagliarello, 2022; Lawn & Grek, 2012; Milana & Klatt, 2020). In this respect, while some studies mention the term ‘policy learning’, they tend not to engage with the theoretical literature dedicated to the topic.

Since its emergence in the 1960s, the policy learning literature has expanded and today comprises a ‘family tree’ embracing a range of ontologies and epistemologies (Dunlop et al. 2018). Among the numerous available definitions, a major review understood policy learning as “the updating of beliefs based on lived or witnessed experiences, analysis or social interaction” (Dunlop & Radaelli, 2013, p.599). In other words, policy learning involves behavioural changes consequent to new, different understandings of a matter of concern, based on a change in policy beliefs (Sabatier, 1988), which might be of a deeper cultural or value-based nature or related to more narrow or technical concerns that are easier to change (Nowlin, 2021; Stark, 2019). Such learning might concern, for instance, “how things happen (‘learning that’) or what courses of action should be taken (‘learning how’)” (Zito & Schout, 2009, p.1103).

The connection between policy learning and policy change is one of the main motivations for policy learning research (Moyson et al. 2017). Enabling a fuller understanding of policy processes and outcomes, the theoretical perspective of policy learning goes beyond the traditional focus in the political sciences to explain policy outcomes primarily in terms of the creation, pursuit and use of political power - and hence, conceiving policy actors as first and foremost winners and losers in the policy game. While the perspective considers power, the ontology of policy learning suggests a world of ambiguity and uncertainty where actors puzzle about how to solve policy problems as well as about how to employ political power. In other words, “actors do what they do, also as a function of what, how, and why they learn” (Dunlop et al. 2024, p.1980).

The paper examines the adoption of this theoretical perspective in the anglophone research literature on education policy and governance. Initially, our interest was mainly related to European Union (EU) education and training policy, where studies adopting the lens of policy learning have provided important empirical insights (Lange & Alexiadou, 2010; Normand, 2016). Yet, our tentative searches focusing on the EU resulted in surprisingly few titles. Therefore, we decided to expand the scope of this review to map and discuss the applications and potentials of the research literature about policy learning in the context of education policy and governance globally. 

We are currently (January 2025) developing a scoping review protocol, drawing on the “Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR)” (Tricco et al. 2018). Corresponding with the paper’s objective, the scoping review will take stock of the anglophone body of literature on policy learning and education policy and governance in terms of its extent, conceptual and theoretical boundaries, thematic foci, and main areas of agreement and dissent (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005). Although not a systematic review in the sense of an aggregative exhaustive review, our methodology is nonetheless systematic in following a series of iterative stages to reduce bias and increase the transparency of our decisions (Kennedy, 2007). The review will be undertaken exclusively by the two paper authors. The criteria for including publications in this review are: i) publications should explicitly address policy learning in education policy or governance, related to any stage or type of education (from early childhood to adult education) anywhere in the world; and ii) only peer-reviewed research literature (journal articles, and anthologies and monographs issued by publishing houses) in English will be considered. These might be conceptually or empirically oriented. Conference and working papers will be excluded, as well as the gray literature issued by different organisations. Consistent with the aim of scoping reviews, we aim to identify a substantial part of the relevant literature without aspiring to be exhaustive. Since electronic databases prioritise journal articles, our search strategy combines three components: i) purposive sampling of key contributions to the literature; ii) ‘hand search’ of bibliographies in significant publications (e.g. Dale, 1999; Lange & Alexiadou, 2010; Normand, 2016); and iii) electronic database searches in EBSCO, Scopus and Web of Science, identifying publications which include the terms ‘policy learning’ and ‘education’ in either the title, abstract, or author-supplied keywords. Subsequently, we will screen all publications identified by this search strategy by evaluating the titles, abstracts, and keywords, and in cases of doubt the full text. For the coding of the selected body of literature, we will develop a codebook, which will continuously be updated in an iterative process. Inspired by Zaki and colleagues (2022), our coding will overall be guided by the ambition to provide a field synthesis, mapping the growth of the relevant literature, systems and regions studied, specific areas or subsectors of education, the use of methodological approaches, theoretical lenses, and different types of policy learning.

Based on the first scoping review of the relevant literature on policy learning, this paper will provide a distinctive contribution to the scholarship on education policy and governance. The ubiquitous references to ‘learning’ in contemporary policymaking spells out the need for a review of the research literature about policy learning that gauges and critically discusses the epistemic gains and limitations of this theoretical perspective. As mentioned, this review is currently in progress. Concerning expected outcomes, the paper will identify patterns in the literature as a basis for synthesis and theory building. In particular, the ‘field synthesis’ (Zaki et al. 2022) will provide insights about the growth and uses of the notion of policy learning. Moreover, in discussing the theoretical boundaries of the literature, we will draw inspiration from two significant reviews of the more general policy learning literature. First, inspired by Moyson and colleagues (2017), we will identify patterns in the uses of three types of theoretical approaches: i) micro-level approaches focusing on individual policy actors; ii) meso-level approaches concerning policy learning in organisations; and iii) macro-level approaches interested in policy processes in one or several institutional systems. Second, drawing on May (1992), we will map the focus in the relevant literature concerning three different types of policy learning: i) instrumental learning (i.e., what was learned about specific policy instruments); ii) social learning (i.e., what was learned about the social construction of policy problems); and iii) political learning (i.e., what was learned about the feasibility of certain policy objectives and how to pursue them).

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