On the difficulties of incorporating international comparative evidence into educational policy making. Lessons that the education sector could learn from political science

Abstract

International comparative studies in education are considered by their proponents as relevant sources of evidence for the improvement of public policies in education and are frequently referenced by policy makers. However, the increase in comparative evidence, especially thanks to the OECD's PISA program, does not seem to have translated into significant improvements in the quality of educational policies, as relatively few countries have improved their results. The tradition of public policy analysis sheds light on the main difficulties encountered by comparative studies to be used appropriately in the public policy formulation process. From this perspective, three of these barriers are analyzed: the perverse nature of the educational problems to which we are trying to respond; the communication barriers between researchers and producers of evidence and policy makers, as well as problems of the latter's capacity to handle the evidence; and, finally, the implementation gap. The analysis of these three barriers is completed with some final considerations on how to improve the dialogue between political science and public policy making in education.

Keywords: comparative education, comparative studies, education policy, evidence, political science, public policies.