Discursively learning outcomes has been embedded within a wider education policy context characterised by a shift from teaching to learning. In the dominant education policy discourse learning outcomes have come to play an important role in education governing by a strengthened emphasis on product more than process. This development has been criticised as scientific management that places too much emphasis on learning’s measurable outcomes. In education research calls have been made for reconsideration of alternative interpretations and widened understandings of learning outcomes. This can be regarded as a renewal of older perspectives on learning outcomes brought forward by the works of  Eisner. The aim of this study is to renounce the concept of learning outcomes as they have come to be interpreted in contemporary education policy and instead explore them within the framing of teaching and learning presented by Eisner. By an analysis of policy developments and the introduction of learing outcomes in two Scandinavian countries we ask - what is taken for granted in the interpretation of learning outcomes? Further, the analysis contribute to a widened narrative on what education is or could be about by illuminating alternative ways of interpreting and reconceptualizing learning outcomes in education