What is Wrong with the ‘What-Went-Right’ Approach in Educational Policy?

Abstract

This article critically examines how 'what-went-right' analyses are used to subsequently justify the transfer of reform packages or 'best practices' from one country to another. Similar to evidence-based policy planning, the what-went-right approach needs to be criticized for being presumptuous. There are three fallacies of the what-went-right analysis that the article dismantles: rationality, precision and universality. The article focuses on the façade of universality and examines how the claim to universal solutions is methodologically sustained. First, the author shows how standardized or normative comparison has in recent years overshadowed the other two types of comparison: comparison across time (historical analyses) and comparison across contexts ('simple comparison'). Then, she elaborates on why the what-went-right approach requires policy analysts to downplay differences between educational systems in order to establish comparability between cases. The emphasis on comparability and similarity of cases is a prerequisite to importing 'best practices' from vastly different educational systems. But what if transfer occurs regardless of difference? There is a curious phenomenon that the article addresses in greater detail: the retrospective definition of a local problem. Given the worldwide circulation of 'best practices' and traveling reform packages, policy analysts sometimes are under pressure to align their analyses of local problems with already existing global solutions. The article ends with a reflection on policy borrowing and lending research and situates the what-went-right approach in the broader question of why and how policy analysts 'buy' or 'sell' reform packages that worked well in one context for transfer into another. In this article I examine the reasons why the 'what-went-right' approach has become so popular, the methodological assumptions upon which it depends, as well as its impact upon agenda setting and policy formulation. This approach often leads to the erroneous assumption that what went right in one educational system will inevitably work well in another. Because it is associated with policy borrowing and learning, the approach has drawn the attention of comparative education researchers. The what-went-right approach is related to two other practices in policy studies: evidencebased policy planning and lesson-drawing. The latter is nowadays more commonly defined as learning from 'best practices.' If we were to place the three terms on a continuum ranging from analytical to prescriptive, evidence-based policy planning would be considered the most analytical, lesson-drawing the most prescriptive, and the what-went-right approach would fall somewhere in between. Evidence-based policy planning is, at least in its intention, an instrument for evaluating and understanding the effectiveness of a reform. At the other end of the continuum are 'best practices' that organizations export or import, lend or borrow or, more generally, transfer from one context to another.

Reshaping teacher education through the professional continuum

“…Perceived underperformance in such schemes is often the impetus for reform as governments and policy-makers try to identify the key causes for this and seek ready solutions (Steiner-Khamsi 2012). There is almost universal acknowledgement that these problems, and their solution, lie within the education system, but precisely where can seem like a shifting target.…”

When transnational curriculum policy reaches classrooms – teaching as directed exploration

“…In this study, I analyse a local policy context, a Swedish national curriculum and a number of compulsory schools in Sweden, to understand why and how global education policies are borrowed from one locality to another, when traveling across different spaces and contexts (Steiner-Khamsi, 2013). When transnational policies are explored from a local perspective, it becomes clear that the borrowing of policy is selective.…”

Knowledge partnerships between schools and universities: modelling the process of connection and relations

“…The data must be interpreted by the users for their own context (Cordingley, 2008). In line with that, Steiner-Khamsi (2013) criticises the "what-went-right" approach, when universal claims are made based on standardised international comparison without considering local and cultural conditions. These will run the risk of making false claims about "best practice", especially if it transfers between contexts without regard for differences.…”