The evidence-based policy movement emerged from a desire to remove ideology from the policy process in order to increase the credibility of policy proposals; an approach that was also incorporated in the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). The focus of this study is to explore international policy discourses and “international standards” underpinning school reforms, with the current school reform in Sweden used as an example. The purpose is (i) to examine what arguments and actors in the international education arena are relevant to the national reform priorities, and (ii) to explore how comparative research perspectives can contribute to unravel aspects of (in)equalities in national school reforms against a backdrop of international educational policy discourses.