Nordic Journal of Comparative and International Education (NJCIE) This article is licenced with CC-BY ISSN: 2535-4051 NJCIE 2021, Vol. 5(3), 23–35 http://doi.org/10.7577/njcie.4464 Mind the gaps: On the North/South Nexus in the ‘Sport for Develop- ment and Peace’ discourse Kabanda Mwansa 1 Research Centre for Child and Youth Competence Development, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Lillehammer, Norway Florian Kiuppis Department of Inclusive Education, Catholic University of Applied Sciences, Freiburg, Germany Copyright the authors Peer-reviewed article; received 18 May 2021; accepted 16 August 2021 Abstract In this conceptual article, we present the “Sport for Development and Peace” (SDP) discourse as a case of scientific rationalization. First, we shed light on the ongoing theory debate around the “global/local problematique” in globalization and global policy research in comparative and international education. We then link up with the SDP discourse and show that academic work mostly features research related to the fact that the majority of the SDP programmes and ways of implementing them have been conceptualized in the Global North, yet are to be implemented in the Global South. In that context, we illustrate International Organizations as sites of scientized knowledge production and translation. Scientific rationalization occurs when specialized technical knowledge and management techniques enter the discourse. Keywords: Sport for Development and Peace; Physical Education; Globalization; Global South; Scientific Rationalization Introduction Already a decade ago, globalization and global policy researchers in comparative and international education participated in – or at least witnessed – a theory debate between representatives of World Culture Theory (WCT) on the one side (e.g., Meyer et al., 2010; Bromley et al., 2011; Ramirez & Meyer, 2012; Baker, 2012; Wiseman, 2010), and scholars who have been challenging the hypotheses claimed within that sociological neo-institutionalist scholarship, mobilizing on the other side alternative conceptual assumptions drawn from their own field research (e.g., Rappleye, 2015; Carney et al., 2012; Silova, 2012). Out of this academic dispute, a third group of scholars joined the debate (see Schriewer, 2012a), consisting of researchers who tried to reconcile the disunited poles in the debate, by working on adequate 1 Corresponding author: kabanda.mwansa@inn.no