From policy transfer to policy plurality: pluriversal approaches to education policy-making

Education systems often import ‘best practices’ on the assumption that models can travel intact across contexts. Drawing on policy translation, pluriversal thought, and epistemic justice, this conceptual article advances policy plurality as an alternative to policy replication. It argues that policy travel is an epistemic, ontological, and political problem concerning whose knowledge counts and how learning, evidence, achievement, and accountability are defined across unequal contexts. Through a critical conceptual synthesis, the article proposes a seven-component framework– context mapping, evidence plurality, co-design, multi-sited pilots with reverse transfer, a local lexicon, equivalence-based assessment, and an open learning loop– to support negotiated policy design. Three mini-cases on English-medium instruction, single-score assessment regimes, and micro-credentials illustrate how traveling reforms may be recontextualized through local meanings, plural evidence, and opportunity-to-learn indicators. As a pre-implementation contribution, the article reframes validity in terms of equivalence, treats contestation as central to policymaking, and offers a design-oriented framework for future empirical validation.