The Relationship Between Societal Changes and the Expansion of Education

The Expansion of Education
Author(s): John E. Craig

Source: Review of Research in Education, Vol. 9 (1981), pp. 151-213
Published by: American Educational Research Association
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Chapter 4
The Expansion of Education

JOHN E. CRAIG
University of Chicago
Why do children go to school? Why do they now spend more years in

school than in the past? Why does education expand? If we could answer
these questions we would know much about the nature of formal education
and about the evolving relationship between education and the social order.
Yet, until recently scholars rarely even asked such questions. As a subject of
serious analysis, the expansion of education enjoyed little of the glamour
and popularity of economic development, the population explosion, and
other constituent parts of what have been termed societal growth (Hawley,
1979). In the world of research on social change, it was a second-class citizen.
This is no longer the case. In recent years scholars in several disciplines
have exhibited mounting interest in the causes of educational expansion.
They have explored the subject in a variety of settings and have advanced
numerous hypotheses relating the growth of schooling to such processes as
industrialization, urbanization, and the rise of the modern state. One can no
longer complain that the subject is unduly neglected.
But there remains cause for concern. Although there are now several
excellent studies of educational expansion in specific contexts, the overall
impression left by the literature is one of fragmentation and incoherence. As
yet there has been little dialogue across disciplinary or ideological frontiers.
There also has been little attention paid to comparisons across societies or
across historical periods; few students of educational expansion have drawn
on evidence from more than one country or from more than one period. This
is not to suggest that studies of the sort that now characterize the literature
have outlived their usefulness. In the future most research on the causes of
educational expansion should and no doubt will involve case studies of
specific societies in specific periods. But such research can only profit if it is
I am grateful to C. Arnold Anderson, Robert Dreeben, Marie Thourson Jones, Carl F.

Kaestle, Robert T. Michael, Norman Spear, and David B. Tyack for their critical comments on
an earlier draft of this essay. Carl Kaestle and David Tyack were the editorial consultants.
151
152 Review of Research in Education, 9
more informed than it is now by interdisciplinary collaboration and by

comparisons across space and time.
This brings us to the theme of this chapter. The objective is to explore the
possibilities for generalization concerning the causes of the expansion of
formal education. The chapter is in three parts: The first reviews the extant
hypotheses; the second attempts to reconcile these hypotheses and to
develop a conceptual framework applicable to the analysis of educational
expansion at any time and in any place; the third surveys the empirical
literature on educational expansion in both the developed countries and the
Third World, and relates the patterns noted to the hypotheses and the
conceptual framework outlined previously.
Before proceeding, a note on usage is necessary. As in most of the
literature, educational expansion is defined in terms of increases in rates of
enrollment. Increases in enrollment that merely reflect changes in the size of
the relevant cohorts are not considered problematic, and other aspects of
educational expansion, such as increases in the length of the school day or
the school year and increases in expenditure per student, are only addressed
in passing.
EXTANT HYPOTHESES
All students of the subject assume that education does not expand
automatically, but beyond this the consensus dissolves. In attempting to
account for why education does expand, scholars have advanced a number
of distinct and often contradictory hypotheses.
One of the oldest is the consumption hypothesis. This considers education
to be a normal good that is sought for the satisfactions it provides.
Accordingly, if tastes and costs remain constant, the demand for schooling
will rise with real income, resulting in educational expansion (Fishlow,
1966).
Conceptually similar is what can be termed the population ecology
hypothesis. It relates educational expansion to increases in the capacity of
such organizations as the state to support education. One variant focuses on
the ratio of the size of the school-aged cohort to the number of wage earners
and taxpayers. Declines in this ratio permit increases in the provision of
schooling and reduction in the cost of schooling for individual students and
their parents and, hence, should lead to higher enrollment rates (Arriaga,
1972; McPartland, 1979; Neilsen & Hannan, 1977; O'Connor, 1978; J. G.
Richardson, 1980).
Another approach is the human capital hypothesis. It relates levels of
schooling to demands in the marketplace for skilled labor. Basically the
hypothesis is that a growing demand for skills increases the individual's
monetary returns to investment in schooling-to investment in his or her
human capital-and, hence, that unless the real and opportunity costs of
Craig: The Expansion of Education 153
formal education or the demand for unskilled labor increase proportionate-

ly, levels of schooling will rise (Becker, 1964; Mincer, 1958; T. W. Schultz,
1961).
The human capital hypothesis may be considered a special case of the
technical-functional hypothesis. The latter also argues that education
expands in response to an increasing market for skilled workers. Due to
changes in technology and in the organization of production, the proportion
of jobs requiring highly trained labor grows, and there is a tendency within
job categories for skill requirements to be upgraded. Because the amount of
education needed for employment increases, those planning to enter the
labor market spend more and more time in school, and education expands.
The chief difference with the human capital hypothesis is that the
mechanism keeping educational levels and, the requirements of the job
market in functional adjustment is not necessarily the response of
individuals to monetary incentives. The technical-functional hypothesis
could be applied also to feudal or totalitarian societies in which individuals
have little control over the amount of education they receive or the jobs they
hold (B. R. Clark, 1962; Trow, 1961, 1962).
Another economic argument is the screening or signaling hypothesis.
Initially advanced as a critique of the human capital approach, it argues that
employers use credentials and other indicators of educational attainment to
predict the trainability and productivity of potential employees or,
alternatively, that job seekers use educational attainment to signal their
suitability for desired positions. The emphasis is shifted from the cognitive
and affective outcomes of schooling to the function of schools as agencies
that necessarily select and rank persons on the basis of criteria considered
relevant to occupational as well as educational success (Arrow, 1973; Riley,
1979; Spence, 1974). To the extent that screening is institutionalized, the
returns to educational attainment are raised and levels of enrollment
increase (Collins, 1979; Dore, 1976; J. W. Meyer, 1980).
Yet another hypothesis relating educational expansion to economic
changes involves the concept of social control. This concept carries with it a
variety of definitions, most of them founded on alleged processes and
outcomes of socialization. Broadly stated, the social control hypothesis
asserts that formal education develops in response to the demands of an
emergent, hierarchically ordered, rationally administered industrial system.
Schooling, by emphasizing punctuality, discipline, individual responsibility,
and respect for and subordination to extrafamilial authority, is seen as
particularly suited both to the development of a docile and industrious
working class and to the maintenance of ruling class hegemony.
Accordingly, industrialization should result in educational expansion
(Bourdieu & Passerson, 1977; Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Field, 1974; Katz,
1971; M. F. D. Young, 1971).
154 Review of Research In Education, 9
Related to the social control hypothesis in that it may imply one group's
domination over the education of others is the political integration
hypothesis. This argues that it is in the interests of political elites to expand
education as a means of integration with national political cultures or as a
means of creating such cultures. Theories of political development maintain
that the emergence of a nation or at least a national civic culture depends, in
part, on the attenuation of regional and parochial subcultures and on a
corresponding growth in formal mechanisms to ensure the stability and
legitimacy of a national political community. Important here is the
institution of citizenship. In a national political community, citizenship is
characterized by a reciprocity of rights and duties, and only through this
reciprocity is stability and legitimacy ensured. Among the rights and duties
extended historically to members or citizens of a nation-state in return for
the consent to be governed are the right to an education and the duty to take
advantage of this right. Accordingly, the emergence and consolidation of
nation-states should result in the expansion of education (Bendix, 1964;
Flora, 1972, 1973; Marshall, 1964; Meyer & Rubinson, 1975; Rokkan,
1975).
The political integration hypothesis can be considered a specific case of
what might be termed the normative integration hypothesis. Normative
integration refers to the development of patterned expectations concerning
modes of social action and the values attached to these modes. In an
increasingly differentiated and interdependent economic and social order,
successful participation at all levels comes to be characterized both by
common patterns of behavior and by common dispositions. Individuals must
adjust to the more specialized and complex demands of the economy and
society and, at the same time, acquire the common language needed to
communicate across differentiated boundaries. In short, modernity implies
both complexity and homogeneity, and to be modern one must be at home
with each. This is relevant to educational expansion, for it can be argued that
it is largely out of the need to develop the requisite dispositions and patterns
of behavior that those seeking participation in the emerging industrial and
commercial order invest in schooling (Craig & Spear, 1978; Deutsch, 1953;
Dreeben, 1968, 1972; Inkeles & Smith, 1974; Lerner, 1958).
Tangentially related is what can be termed the world system hypothesis.
There are two variants of this hypothesis: one highlighting the impact of
national elites and the other that of individual or social demand. According
to the first, the norms of an increasingly integrated world-of an evolving
world system--cause governments to converge on the meaning and value of
national development and on the need to promote education both to foster
development and to legitimate their authority domestically and abroad.
According to the second, there is a diffusion among and within countries of
such norms of the world system as belief in progress and belief in education
as the agent of progress. The result is a rapidly developing popular demand

for education that is unrelated to changes in the relevant local or national
environments. Both variants relate educational expansion to normative
integration, but unlike the other integration hypotheses, they emphasize
norms mandating education rather than those developed as a result of
education (Meyer, Ramirez, Rubinson, & Boli-Bennett, 1977; Ramirez &
Rubinson, 1979).
At some remove conceptually from all of these integration hypotheses is
the conflict hypothesis. In its simplest form it argues that competition among
status groups within societies results in high demands for schooling and its
expected effects on the distribution of rewards, thus inflating enrollment
rates. The hypothesis rests on three assumptions. First, the very existence of
dominant status groups is seen as depending on the monopolization of
certain attributes conferring rights and privileges. These attributes include
defined levels of educational attainment. Second, it is assumed that in
modern occupational systems there are structural strains toward a smaller
proportion of unskilled occupations and toward an upgrading of skill
requirements for almost all occupations. Third, it is assumed that education
is commonly perceived as an avenue of upward social mobility. Thus
subordinate status groups challenge the monopoly of dominant groups
through investment in education. If dominant groups are to maintain their
monopoly of desired attributes in a situation already characterized by a
tendency toward the upgrading of skill requirements, educational standards
must be raised even further. The result is an inflation of attainment levels
that far exceeds actual occupational requirements (Collins, 1971, 1979).
Yet another approach treats educational expansion as, in large measure, a
result of the internal processes and natural propensities of educational and
other organizations. Some focus on the political system, relating enrollment
trends to the degree to which control over education is politicized and to the
dynamics of the political process (Archer, 1979; Cameron & Hofferbert,
1974; Verner, 1979). Some consider expansion to be a more-or-less natural
by-product of the growth of bureaucratic control and the attendant
formalization of education (Perrow, 1970; J. D. Thompson, 1967; West,
1975). And some relate expansion to the vested interests of the teaching
profession, suggesting that because their status and income tend to increase
along with enrollments, teachers use their influence to foster a higher
demand for education and, where necessary, to frustrate the efforts of others
to reduce either the demand for or the provision of educational services. The
result is a ratchet effect, with education expanding when circumstances are
favorable but failing to contract when they are not (Green with Ericson &
Seidman, 1980; J. G. Richardson, 1980).
The proponents of these different hypotheses have naturally offered
empirical support for their own approaches, and often they have tested
competing approaches and found them wanting. Yet, as the very number
and variety of extant positions suggest, they have had limited success in
convincing others. In part this can be attributed to poor communications
across and even within disciplinary bounds, for many of those involved seem
unfamiliar with much of the relevant literature. But there are other, more
fundamental problems. Some of the hypotheses rest on heroic assumptions
or make huge inferential leaps. Some draw their empirical support from
studies based on deficient data, on crude proxies for the variables of interest,
or on seemingly inappropriate levels of analysis. Some measure levels of
enrollment and rates of expansion in ways open to challenge. And the few
not vulnerable to such criticisms seem valid only under specific conditions.
In short, there are no theories of educational expansion purporting to apply
universally that command anything approximating general assent.
What should we conclude? Some have concluded that the very quest for
general theories is misguided. Typically they believe that differences in
levels of schooling and rates of expansion are to be explained above all by
differences in the historically determined characteristics of the areas and
societies in question. The proper approach to the subject, they suggest, is
historical and particularistic, not comparative and universalistic. Since there
seem to be sharp differences across societies and across chronological
periods in patterns of educational expansion, generalization is deemed
inappropriate (Laqueur, 1980; L. Stone, 1969; R. Stone, 1976).
Others favor a middle way, one that attempts to reconcile the historical
and the comparative approaches. They agree that patterns of expansion
differ across societies and across time for reasons relating to the historically
conditioned characteristics of the societies and periods in question. But they
are unwilling to put their emphasis on particularistic arguments. Rather,
they favor a selective and eclectic use of the available explanatory
hypotheses. In practice, this generally means arguing that the relative utility
of specific hypotheses-their relative explanatory power-varies from case
to case and across time (Craig & Spear, 1980a; Tyack, 1976). But it can also
mean arguing that in given situations different theories account for
expansion at different levels of the educational system or for different social
groups. Thus, a recent study of the development of mass education in the
United States concludes that the consumption hypothesis fits the case of the
entrepreneurial elite, the human capital hypothesis that of the managerial
class, and the screening hypothesis that of the urban working class (Perrone,
1978).
These two broad orientations, the historical or particularistic and the
eclectic, have been the most popular refuges for those unwilling to subscribe
to any of the specific hypotheses outlined above. But there is another option.
We can also move to a higher level. Instead of accepting or rejecting the
specific hypotheses on their own terms, we can develop a general analytic
framework that transcends and attempts to reconcile them. What follows

outlines the parameters and develops the implications of such a framework.
The purpose is not to advance yet another theory, but rather to highlight
assumptions and relationships not commonly recognized, and to indicate the
circumstances under which specific hypotheses may be applicable. The
value of the enterprise obviously lies in its utility for the analysis of
educational expansion, a subject considered in the final section of the
chapter.
A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
The extant hypotheses can be divided into two groups: those that focus on
the provision of education and those that focus on the demand. Scholars in
the former group put their emphasis on what might for heuristic purposes be
termed corporate actors, that is, on organized groups united by a shared and
self-conscious commitment to specific goals: to egalitarian reform,
economic growth, national integration, social control, or whatever. They
argue or suggest that the key determinants of educational expansion lie
either with those directly responsible for educational policymaking (political
or religious leaders, bureaucrats, teachers, etc.) or with the interest groups
they represent. Scholars in the other group assume that individual or social
demand is the primary determinant of educational growth. They put their
emphasis on what might be termed primary actors, defined either as discrete
individuals or as groups, notably the family, that are organized on the basis
of primary rather than secondary relationships and hence have diffuse rather
than specific functions. Although concerned with the supply of schooling as
well as the demand, these scholars tend to believe that in the long run the
supply is highly elastic and essentially determined by the demand, whereas
the demand is essentially determined by exogenous conditions. Accord-
ingly, less attention is given to the determinants of the supply than to the
more problematic determinants of the demand.
But it is possible to unite these two outlooks. We can integrate both levels
of action in a common framework, while leaving open the question of which
has primacy. Thus it can be argued that both corporate action and primary
action are always relevant, but that their specific character and relative
importance vary from case to case. Seen from this perspective, enrollment
patterns are governed by action at both the corporate and the primary levels.
If enrollments expand, they do so because more education is sought either
by corporate actors, by primary actors, or by both.
But why would more education be sought? The answer will vary from case
to case, but all possible answers for either corporate or primary actors can be
subsumed under two broad headings: education as a consumption good and
education as an investment.
Education is a consumption good to the degree that those concerned

derive immediate satisfactions from actually receiving an education or from
permitting, encouraging, or compelling others to receive one. To the extent
the benefits continue into the future or only come later, education should be
considered an investment. Thus for parents, education is a consumption
good if the goal is to get their children out of the house and an investment if
the goal is to improve the family's prestige or the children's life chances. For
college students a course in music appreciation is a consumption good to the
degree it offers immediate enjoyment and an investment to the degree it
facilitates meeting academic requirements or enhances students' disposi-
tions and capacities to enjoy music later in life. For a benefactor,
contributing to the endowment of a school represents consumption if he or
she actually derives pleasure from giving, and investment if the gift improves
his or her self-image or social standing or reduces a tax burden. But how
important in the aggregate is the consumption value of education? It is
almost certainly much less important than the investment value. For
corporate actors, to judge by the reasons they offer for supporting or
promoting education, it is negligible except for those in the teaching
profession. For primary actors it may not be much greater, particularly if,
as seems legitimate, education sought to facilitate consumption in the future
is considered an investment. Of course, many individuals pursue an educa-
tion in part because they enjoy the actual experience of studying and
learning. But against them must be weighed the many for whom education
itself, as distinct from the expected future returns, is far from enjoyable.
Indeed the latter appear to be much more numerous (Green et al., 1980;
Lazear, 1977).
The logic behind viewing education as an investment is the benefit-cost
logic identified with the human capital approach. The argument is that if
education produces desirable outcomes, and if the appropriately discounted
value of these outcomes exceeds the costs, there will be investment in
education. For our purposes these outcomes should not be restricted to
higher lifetime earnings, the dominant concern of human capital theorists.
In fact, with the exception of the consumption hypothesis, all of the specific
approaches surveyed above at least implicitly treat education as an
investment. Thus when primary actors seek an education to facilitate future
consumption, to raise their social status, or to learn to read the Bible and
thereby to improve their chances for salvation, they are investing in future
returns. Similarly, corporate actors are making an investment when they
promote education with the intention of producing an industrious and docile
labor force, raising the status of teachers, furthering national integration, or
symbolizing their country's commitment to modernity. Such returns may
not be expressed easily in the monetary terms favored by scholars in the
human capital tradition, but the underlying logic is the same.
Seen from this perspective, what distinguishes most of the specific

hypotheses reviewed above are their differences over the returns that
motivate investment in education. Each focuses on a single outcome or class
of outcomes: higher earnings, social control, political integration, and so on.
Yet there is no reason to assume that education produces only a single
outcome, or that it is seen this way by the concerned actors. In given
situations different individuals and groups may invest in education in pursuit
of different objectives, and specific individuals and groups may invest in
pursuit of multiple objectives. Of course, the precise patterns will tend to
vary. For scholars seeking to determine these patterns, however, there are
three general questions that will always merit attention: What are the actual
outcomes of education? What are the perceived outcomes? What are the
costs? In each case some general observations are possible.
There is no need to elaborate on the actual .outcomes highlighted in the
extant hypotheses. Suffice it to note that under certain conditions each of
these outcomes appears to be real as well as perceived: Education can result
in higher earnings, in social control, in national integration, and so on. But
education can also have numerous desirable effects that have as yet received
little or no attention in the literature on educational expansion. Let us
restrict ourselves to a few examples for which there is theoretical and
empirical support. (For more thorough reviews, see Bowen, 1977; Michael,
in press.) Education can lead not only to higher wages in the labor market
but also to better working conditions and fringe benefits (G. J. Duncan,
1976; Freeman, 1978; Lucas, 1977). It can enhance allocative efficiency, that
is, the efficiency with which actors acquire, decode, and process market and
technical information (Chaudhri, 1979; Huffman, 1977; T. W. Schultz,
1975). More specifically, it can increase the efficiency with which individuals
and groups migrate (A. Schwartz, 1971, 1976) and manage their assets
(Ehrlich & Ben-Zion, 1976; Solmon, 1975). Schooling can make individuals
more proficient learners and increase their propensity to seek new
knowledge (Goody, 1977; Heckman, 1976; Hyman, Wright, & Reed, 1975).
It can also make them more efficient consumers, thus raising their real
income (Michael, 1973). It can contribute to better health and greater life
expectancy (Grossman, 1975). It can result in a better allocation of men and
women in the marriage market and hence in more suitable and rewarding
marriages (Becker, Landes, & Michael, 1977). It can reduce fertility rates
(Michael, 1975). It can produce more conscientious and child-centered
parents and contribute in other ways to the life chances of the next
generation (Becker & Tomes, 1979). It can have desirable effects on values,
making individuals more tolerant of nonconformity; more concerned about
the suffering of others; more committed to freedom of speech, to equality of
opportunity, and to the protection of privacy; and more likely to adhere to
personal values when they are out of fashion (Hyman & Wright, 1979;
Stouffer, 1955). And in the aggregate, schooling can have additional effects
of significance. For instance, it can make it possible for new organizational
forms to evolve (Stinchcombe, 1965), it can help to institutionalize new
criteria of social selection and new ways of ranking social roles (Green et al.,
1980; J. W. Meyer, 1977), and it can permit new and more effective forms of
social protest (Almond & Verba, 1963; E. P. Thompson, 1963). Naturally
the strength of these and other outcomes will vary depending on the
character and level of schooling, the endowments of those being schooled,
and the larger environment. It may be assumed, however, that in any
situation education produces many potentially desirable outcomes in
addition to those featured in the literature on educational expansion, and
that the aggregate returns are significantly higher than those easily
expressed in monetary terms.
At this juncture many scholars would be tempted to turn to the costs,
reasoning that it is the interaction of benefits and costs that determines the
demand for education. The temptation should be resisted, however, and for
two reasons. In the first place, it is impossible for potential investors to know
what the returns will be to a particular form or level of education. Even the
most omniscient cannot predict the future demand for the skills and other
attributes identified with education, nor can they predict how long they will
live and hence how long they can expect to receive returns on their
educational investments. Second, there is always a risk that the desired level
of education will prove unattainable for reasons relating either to the ability
or luck of the students concerned or to the character of the instruction they
receive. Thus, decisions to invest in schooling, like decisions to invest in
anything else, are necessarily made under conditions of uncertainty
(Levhari & Weiss, 1974). This means that to understand why children go to
school we should focus not on the actual benefits but rather on how the
concerned actors perceive both these benefits and the possibilities of
attaining them.
In the case of primary actors this can be difficult, for few students or
parents are explicit about why they invest in education. Accordingly, it is
hardly surprising that studies of educational expansion have tended either to
ignore the subject altogether or to restrict themselves to inferences drawn
from actual patterns of enrollment and from the observed consequences of
attendance. But there have been a few studies both in developed and
developing countries that address the issue directly and systematically. This
research indicates that there are important variations within societies in the
way education is perceived that are related to sex, to social status, and to
educational attainment. At least in developed countries women seem to put
more emphasis than men on the nonmonetary returns to education (E. G.
Cohen, 1965; Hirnqvist, 1978; Meier, 1970; Robertson, 1977). And across
societies those of relatively high status and educational attainment appear to

be more conscious than others of the nonmonetary returns and no less
conscious of the job-related returns. Thus a study based on evidence from
Brazil, Ghana, and India has found that appreciation of the value of
education in the labor market is more or less constant across groups, but that
those who have had more contact with modernity are more likely to believe
that education also fosters curiosity, promotes moral development, teaches
children how to get along with others, prepares the young for marriage and
responsible citizenship, and in general equips people to lead better lives
(Park, 1980; also see Marvin, 1975; Meier, 1970; Seymour, 1974). Findings
such as these suggest what one might expect; namely, that within societies
those in relatively favored positions have more complete and accurate
information about the returns to education.
Of course more complete and more accurate information need not result
in a higher valuation of education. Occasionally it has the opposite effect
(Feldman & Hurn, 1966; Park, 1980). But most relevant studies, including
the many that analyze rates of individual return to investment in schooling
(Psacharopoulos, 1973, 1980), indicate that the more one knows about the
benefits of education the more one is likely to value these benefits. Indeed,
data from the United States reveal that of the major items of household
expenditure, education has by far the highest education-specific elasticity:
Holding income constant, as the education of the head of household
increases, expenditure on education grows more than twice as rapidly as
expenditure on any other item (Michael, 1973).
The matter of differential access to and valuation of information about
school effects is relevant to two themes frequently encountered in the
literature on educational expansion. The first concerns the variations in
levels of enrollment which tend to be associated with social, religious,
ethnic, and regional differences. Scholars concerned with such differences
generally attribute them to discrimination by those supplying educational
services, to discrimination by those hiring the educated, to differences
across groups in the ability to afford education, to differences in the values or
tastes of the groups in question, or to.some combination of these factors. But
these variations probably result in large part from differential access to the
relevant information (see Cibois, 1979). Studies of status attainment in both
developed and developing countries show that educational aspirations and
achievement are strongly influenced by the information about education
and its benefits conveyed directly or indirectly by significant others: by
parents in particular, but also by peers and teachers (Hansen, 1977; Sewell &
Hauser, 1975; Spencer, 1976; Williams, 1972). And members of social
groups that exhibit a relatively high demand for education are obviously
more likely than others to come from families that value education
highly-social groups tend to be aggregations of families-and to have peers

and, perhaps, teachers who share this outlook. As a result they should be
more likely than those in other groups to invest heavily in education. This
means that the disparities in question, whatever their origins, will tend to
persist.
This reasoning has implications for the debate over the relative merits of
the generalizing and the historical approaches to the analysis of educational
expansion. If otherwise inexplicable disparities in levels of enrollment can
be attributed in whole or in part to differential access to accurate
information, there is less cause to resort to arguments stressing the enduring
impact of cultural differences. This need not lessen the utility of the
historical approach. Indeed, differences in access to information can
perhaps best be understood through examining the evolution of the
institutional and social structures that control the distribution of informa-
tion. But at least in principle, the development of such structures can be
explained, whereas the development of cultural differences cannot. (For a
similar argument, see Stigler & Becker, 1977.) Accordingly, to the extent
differences in information rather than differences in cultural values or tastes
account for otherwise unexplained variations in the demand for education,
the possibility of developing a theory of educational expansion, one
integrating the generalizing and the historical approaches, is enhanced.
The second theme concerns the diffusion of schooling. It has often been
observed that within populations the demand for particular types of
education tends to expand in accord with the sigmoid or S-shaped curve
associated with the diffusion of innovations (Anderson, Bowman, & Tinto,
1972; Haigerstrand, 1965; J. W. Meyer, et al., 1977). This is because the
spread of new ideas and new patterns of behavior is governed by both floor
and ceiling effects: information about innovations and their advantages
spreads least rapidly when it is known either to very few or to virtually all.
But it is wrong to assume, as some have, that educational expansion that fits
an S-shaped curve is contagious or self-generating and, hence, that the
origins of the process are all that require explanation. It is necessary to
explain why diffusion continues as well as why it begins: The pace-setters are
not the only ones with reasons for adopting innovations. It is also necessary
to account for the pace of diffusion: The shape of the diffusion curve may be
predictable but its slope is not.
In the case of corporate actors, evidence concerning the expected returns
to educational investment is abundant. Representatives of interest groups
favoring or opposing educational expansion, governments included, tend to
be explicit about their objectives and motives, and records of their opinions
often survive. As for the quality of their information, one might assume that
governments and other corporate actors would have reasonably accurate
"perceptions of education's effects, or at least of those relevant to their
particular interests. It must be recognized, however, that corporate actors

have less opportunity than primary actors to profit from the experience of
others-they have fewer appropriate models--and that their mistakes can
be slow to emerge and difficult to correct. Indeed the likelihood that the
consequences of investing in education will be unintended and undesirable
may be greater for corporate actors than it is for primary actors.
For both corporate and primary actors it is not the expected benefits that
determine levels of investment in education, but rather the relationship
between the expected benefits and the costs or, to be consistent, the
perceived costs. Although this is obvious enough, most studies of
educational expansion give the costs less careful attention than they deserve.
At best they limit themselves to measuring or estimating the direct monetary
costs and the opportunity costs, with the latter defined as the earnings
foregone while receiving an education. But if the nonmonetary benefits are
to be considered, it is also necessary to consider the nonmonetary costs.
And, as suggested above, it is necessary to distinguish between the actual
costs and the perceived or expected costs. Differential access to information
can affect the concerned actors' estimation of the costs as well as their
perception of the benefits.
The largest monetary expenditures for primary actors are those for the
tuition, supplies, and support of students and, less directly, the tax payments
and donations earmarked for education. The largest expenditures for
corporate actors are those for buildings and supplies, teachers' salaries and
benefits, administration, and scholarships. But in both cases there are often
additional monetary costs. Among them may be the costs of lobbying-of
attempting to persuade others to take action or to bear a larger share of the
burden-and the costs of acquiring or disseminating or hoarding that
valuable, scarce good information. Examples include the costs to parents of
efforts to persuade churches or governments to increase their commitments
to education, and the costs to international agencies of supporting research
on school effects and of publicizing the results.
The nonmonetary costs, like the nonmonetary benefits, are impossible to
measure accurately but are potentially sizable. In the case of primary actors
they can include the expenditures of effort, patience, and tolerance for
boredom and anxiety, which are to varying degrees expected of students.
They can also include the psychic costs related to the questioning of beliefs
or the distancing between children and their parents which often results from
education (see Boudon, 1974). For corporate actors the nonmonetary costs
can include the disincentive offered to others-to those known in the
literature on public goods as free riders-to invest more heavily in
education. They can also include the good will and the support of other
corporate and primary actors. Thus churches or governments that promote
education for reasons of their own may risk alienating the intended clients or
stimulating a tax revolt among those expected to foot the bill. If taken into
account by the appropriate policymakers, such negative externalities should
be considered among the costs.
In the human capital literature the opportunity costs of education are
generally defined in terms of the foregone earnings of individuals. They
consist of the potential income from employment that individuals forego to
receive some or more education. Defined this way the opportunity costs are
not trivial; in fact, they usually are larger than the direct monetary costs
(Fishlow, 1966; Welch, 1970). For our purposes, however, the conventional
definition is inappropriate. In the interest of consistency it is desirable to
have a definition of opportunity costs that can be used for corporate as well
as for primary actors and for nonmonetary as well as for monetary costs.
Perhaps the best solution is to define the concept in terms of foregone
opportunities.
For corporate actors the foregone opportunities are essentially foregone
investments. They consist of the, activities yielding future returns that are
sacrificed in order to commit resources to education. These activities may
also involve education. Thus governments may slight one form of schooling
in order to invest more in another, or churches may shift resources from
domestic parochial schools to missionary schools overseas. If the foregone
investments do not involve education directly, they may still have similar
perceived returns. Thus an overriding commitment to national integration
or to economic growth may cause a government to invest heavily in a
road-building program at one time and then, in effect, to shift resources
from road building to education. Similarly a continuing concern with
upgrading its public image may cause a corporation to sponsor fewer
television shows in order to endow a scholarship program. Finally, the
foregone investments may involve competing objectives. Thus a shift in
priorities may cause municipal authorities to spend less on parks and
recreation in order to raise teachers' salaries.
For primary actors foregone opportunities, like education, can have both
consumption and investment components. Foregone consumption consists
of the activities providing immediate pleasure or satisfaction-fishing,
playing cards, attending sports events, and so on-that are sacrificed in
order to receive more education. The value of consumption foregone is
impossible to measure accurately, but will tend to vary inversely with the
value of foregone investments. The latter embrace all perceived foregone
activities that could be expected to yield future returns. Obviously these can
include the investments in stocks and bonds and real estate that might have
been made with the money committed to education and with the foregone
earnings. But they can also include foregone opportunities to move to and to
establish oneself in another part of one's country or in another country. They
can include foregone investments in nonformal or informal educational
activities such as studying on one's own or apprenticeship or traveling

abroad. And they can include the foregone opportunities to cultivate the
personal contacts and to demonstrate the industry, loyalty, and ambition
that may be necessary to become established in certain careers. As these
examples indicate, the foregone opportunities of primary actors, whether in
the consumption or the investment category, are generally time-consuming
activities. Time is prominent among the scarce. resources that primary actors
commit to education, and hence the alternatives sacrificed to receive an
education tend to be ones that require large or continuing commitments of
time.
Whatever the particular situation, other perceived opportunities will not
normally be foregone by corporate or by primary actors unless the expected
returns to education are greater. Although this may seem self-evident, the
implications have rarely been developed in the literature on educational
expansion. Most recognize, at least implicitly, that commitments to
education should increase if the expected benefits rise relative to the
perceived costs, and vice versa. But they tend either to ignore the
opportunity costs altogether or else to define them in terms of the foregone
earnings of students. They fail to consider a large and variable component of
the overall costs, one that can have a significant impact on the ratio of the
expected returns to education to the perceived costs. A few examples will
suffice to illustrate the point. If a government increases its expenditures on
education, it need not mean that it places a higher value on the benefits of
education or that it is responding to pressure or that for some reason it has
greater resources at its disposal. Such a change should also occur if the
returns to the government's other investments are considered, in the
aggregate, to be in decline. Similarly, if, over time, members of a particular
social group manifest a growing demand for education, it need not mean that
their incomes are rising or that the expected returns to education are
increasing or., for that matter, that better information about education is
being acquired. Such a pattern would also result if the alternatives available
to the group either currently or in the future are perceived as worsening. To
be more specific, if the jobs available to the uneducated are becoming or
seem likely to become less numerous or rewarding while the benefits and the
direct costs of education remain constant, there should be educational
expansion. In sum, if we are to understand why children go to school, it does
not suffice to consider what it is about education that may be attractive; it is
also necessary to consider the alternatives.
Rather, it is necessary to consider the perceived alternatives. The
importance of differential access to information about education, about the
benefits and about the probability of attaining them, has already been
emphasized. But the same logic applies to the other opportunities available
to corporate and to primary actors: How groups and individuals evaluate
their noneducational options depends on what they think they know about
these options. By extension, the acquisition of new information about these
options can cause them to seek more information about education or to
reassess what they have. This can help to explain why governments have so
often taken new educational initiatives in the aftermath of unsuccessful
wars. Military defeat can give governments valuable information about their
countries and about the returns to policies previously pursued, and in
numerous cases-the Netherlands after 1795, Prussia after 1806, Russia
after 1856, Denmark after 1864, France after 1871, Japan after 1945-the
effect, to judge by changes in the allocation of public resources, has been to
raise the expected returns to investment in education. Similar reasoning can
help to explain why enrollments often rise during economic slumps or
depressions. The conventional explanation is that increased unemployment
and declining wages in the short run reduce foregone earnings but have little
effect on the future returns to education, and hence, that the rate of return to
educational investment rises. But for many of those affected, an economic
crisis can also convey new information that leads to a higher demand for
education. Thus it has been noted that the depression of the 1930s gave many
members of the English working class an awareness of the benefits of
education which they would not otherwise have acquired (Runciman, 1966).
The great depression of the late 19th century had a similar effect for the
artisans and shopkeepers of Germany (Craig, 1980), and the rationalization
of agriculture since World War II has had the same effect for the peasants of
France (H61ias, 1978; Morin, 1970). And, to give but one more example, the
population growth and resulting pressure on the land that beset the Kikuyu
of Kenya in the early decades of this century resulted in a receptivity to
western-style education not evident among such neighboring tribes as the
Kamba and the Maasai, neither of which faced a comparable crisis (Tignor,
1976).
Cases such as these suggest that students of educational expansion can
learn much from the more developed literature on another form of
investment in human resources, migration. This literature conventionally
groups the factors determining levels of migration under two general
headings, "pull" and "push." Migration can result from "pull" factors such
as information about higher wages in the place of destination, or from
"push" factors such as unemployment in the place of origin, or from both.
Seen in these terms, the literature on educational expansion has focused
almost exclusively on "pull" factors: perceived increases in the benefits of
education. Changes on the "push" side, changes that reduce the appeal of
other alternatives and thus increase receptivity to the idea of investing in
education, have not received the attention they deserve.
The framework that has been presented does not presuppose the primacy
of either corporate action or primary action. The intention has been to
develop an approach to the analysis of educational expansion that can

incorporate both levels of action and have as much utility for one as for the
other. As for the particular character and relative importance of action at
each level, presumably they vary from situation to situation. But this said,
we have not exhausted the possibilities for generalization. There remain
certain common features specific to action at each level and certain common
patterns that characterize interaction between the two levels. Let us confine
ourselves to a few of the more salient.
Corporate action relevant to education falls into four general categories:
the policies of governmental and other organizations that supply
educational services; the activities of agents of these policies, specifically the
teachers and the administrators; the lobbying of interest groups; and the
hiring and accrediting practices of employers and professional organiza-
tions. The activities of particular corporate actors can and often do fall into
more than one of these categories. Thus governments can influence levels of
enrollment both through their educational policies and through their hiring
policies, and professional groups can have an effect both through lobbying
and through altering their requirements for certification. The particular
level and form or forms of involvement are determined by the interests and
resources of the groups in question and by the opportunities and constraints
provided by primary action.
Primary actors can affect the educational system in two general ways.
They can form, join, or support corporate groups in order to further their
interests. And they can act in their role as discrete individuals or primary
groups, both by deciding whether and how to participate in the system (i.e.,
by deciding if, where, and for how long to enroll), and by mobilizing and
committing monetary and other resources to education. As primary actors
they may utilize the available educational services for purposes that are not
compatible with the objectives of any of the corporate actors, and that have
not been anticipated by any of the actors, primary or corporate. They do not
consciously attempt to shape the development of the system, at least not in
their role as primary actors, but in the aggregate they can have consequences
that are profound. The extent to which they do have such consequences
depends on their specific interests and on the perceived capacity of
education relative to that of other types of action to further those interests. It
also depends on the ways in which primary action and corporate action
constrain each other, a topic to which we now turn.
The basic mechanisms through which corporate actors condition both
primary action and, as a result, levels of enrollment have been central
concerns of most studies of educational expansion. They include such
activities as the establishment of schools and scholarships, child labor
legislation, the introduction of free schooling, the introduction and
enforcement of compulsory attendance, the differentiation of formal
education, the institutionalization of credentials, and the dissemination of

information and misinformation about education and its effects. Clearly,
corporate actors take such initiatives, and clearly the implications for
primary actors and for educational expansion are significant: Corporate
action can compel participation in specific forms of education, and it can
offer inducements structured to affect both the pattern of participation and
the resources mobilized by participants. But by the same token, primary
action can give shape and direction to corporate action. Thus, variation in
the demand for education among primary actors, as measured by changes in
the level of participation, can induce corporate actors to respond. If primary
actors have the capacity to form corporate groups to further their interests,
the very prospect of such a combination and the implications for the
monopolistic ambitions of existing corporate groups can encourage the
latter to respond to the perceived demand. If primary actors lack the
capacity to form corporate groups, the exit option remains: They can
migrate or become ideologically disaffected. The possibility that they will
resort to the exit option may well induce the relevant corporate actors to
respond to the perceived demand (A. O. Hirschman, 1970). In short, both
in open and in closed societies constraints can be put on corporate actors by
what has been termed the law of anticipated reactions (Merritt & Coombs,
1977). Similarly, the resources of primary actors can limit the options
available to corporate actors. Although the latter control the collection and
distribution of the monetary resources required for education, their policies
are severely constrained by the assets of primary actors, from whom the
monetary resources are ultimately extracted, and by the law of anticipated
reactions. As for the nonmonetary resources of primary actors, corporate
actors are dependent on the choices made by primary actors. The ambition,
effort, and other attributes of individual students and their families, along
with variations in these attributes among students and their families, set the
parameters within which instructional activity is organized, thus limiting the
options of teachers and other corporate actors. There may be corporate
efforts to remove these constraints, but such efforts rarely have a signifi-
cant impact. (For an elaboration of these points, see Craig & Spear,
1980b.)
EMPIRICAL STUDIES
A comprehensive review of the empirical literature on educational
expansion is beyond the scope of this chapter. What follows merely offers
some general impressions and guidelines. The intention is to indicate the
basic trends and patterns revealed by recent scholarship, to highlight the
major controversies, and to suggest the utility of the specific hypotheses and
the general analytic framework outlined above. The survey is in three parts.
The first concerns educational expansion in the western world in what
historians term the early modern period, essentially the 16th, 17th, and 18th
centuries. The second considers trends in Europe and North America from
the onset of industrialization to the present. The third reviews developments
in the Third World countries.
I. Educational Expansion in the West, 1500-1800

For the early modern period, direct evidence about enrollment at the
primary level is and will remain fragmentary. No central authorities
collected comprehensive data on primary enrollment prior to the late 18th
century, and the records of individual schools, to the extent records were
kept, have rarely survived. Occasionally it has been possible to piece
together enrollment trends from local records, but most interested scholars,
lacking the requisite evidence or the requisite patience, have approached
the subject less directly.
Specifically, they have focused not on levels of primary schooling but
rather on levels of literacy. Here there are also evidentiary problems, but
they are less intractable. Generally scholars have accepted Roger
Schofield's (1968) argument that since schools commonly taught reading
before writing, the ability to sign one's name is a good measure of the ability
to read fluently. Some have gone further, contending on the basis of
mid-19th-century correlations that the ability to sign is also a good measure
of the ability to write, especially if the signature appears to have been
produced with ease (Furet & Ozouf, 1977; Longuet, 1978; Parker, 1980). As
for the necessary documentation, marriage licences have been preferred
because in the early modern period they were the only documents likely to
be marked or signed by the great majority, of men and women. When
marriage licences are unavailable, scholars have used legal depositions,
petitions, wills, or other documents.
Signatures may provide an acceptable measure of literacy, but does
literacy imply schooling? Not necessarily. Many learned to read and write
and count from parents or siblings, others learned from friends or tutors, and
still others learned from the merchants or shopkeepers to whom they were
apprenticed (Engelsing, 1973; Kaestle, 1973; Longeon, 1975; Perrot, 1975;
Spufford, 1979). But for most, perhaps the great majority, the elements of
literacy and numeracy were acquired either at school or not at all. In
addition, many attended school who never learned to write their names or
else forgot the skill in the interim between leaving school and marrying or
making a will. All this suggests that a group's literacy rate may provide an
adequate, rough indication of the proportion who had attended school, or at
least that significant changes in literacy levels reflect earlier changes in levels
of schooling. Of course, to estimate the actual levels of schooling it would
also be necessary to estimate the number of years the typical pupil enrolled.
Here again the evidence is fragmentary. It is likely, however, that 2 or 3
years of sporadic attendance were generally enough to acquire the

rudiments of reading and writing, and few students sought more.
Over the period as a whole, literacy and, by extension, primary schooling
made impressive gains. In 1500 the ability to read and write was, except
perhaps in Italy, a skill confined to small and almost entirely male minorities
composed largely of clergymen. Three centuries later, in several countries
most adult males were literate, and so were at least a third of the adult
women of those countries. The greatest gains and the highest rates occurred
in the predominantly Protestant countries, particularly those with large
numbers of Puritans or Calvinists. At the beginning of this period the Italian
states probably held the lead, with male literacy rates that may have
approached 20 percent. Next came England and perhaps the Low
Countries, with rates around 10 percent, and the German states and France,
which probably had rates between 5 and 10 percent. But by 1800, leadership
had passed to Scotland (almost 90 percent for males), the United States
(close to 90 percent for white males), and the Netherlands (probably over 70
percent for males and almost 60 percent for females) (Cremin, 1970; de
Booy, 1977; Hart, 1976; Lockridge, 1974; L. Stone, 1969). These countries
were followed by England and Wales (around 60 percent for males and 45
percent for females), Belgium (61 percent and 37 percent), and France
(roughly 55 percent and 30 percent) (Cressy, 1980b; Fleury & Valmary,
1957; Furet & Ozouf, 1977; Pisvin, 1963). Also at this general level, to judge
by other evidence, were the German-speaking areas of central Europe and,
perhaps, Denmark and Norway (Dixon, 1958; Engelsing, 1973; Schenda,
1970). But most other European countries were far behind. By 1800 the
Italian state of Piedmont had rates approaching 45 percent for men and 35
percent for women (the rates had almost doubled in the 18th century), but
the levels for the Italian peninsula as a whole were almost certainly lower
(Cipolla, 1969; Duglio, 1975). To continue the grand tour, levels in Spain
and Portugal, at least for males, probably approached those in Italy
(Larqui6, 1981; Rodriguez & Bennassar, 1978), but in the Balkan peninsula
and most of Europe the rates were much lower. Except perhaps in Poland, it
is unlikely that the rates in 1800 exceeded 15 percent for men and 5 percent
for women in any region of eastern or southeastern Europe. There remain
the special cases of Sweden and Finland. Of the adults in these countries, no
more than 20 percent could write at the end of the period, but thanks to a
vigorous campaign launched late in the 17th century virtually all could read.
It was through home instruction that they learned to read, however, while
those who could write generally acquired the skill at school. Thus the ability
to sign may be as good a measure of schooling rates in Sweden and Finland as
it is elsewhere (Johansson, 1973; Wid6n, 1973).
In attempting to account for these patterns, historians have usually
focused on the contributions of corporate actors. The impact of organized
religion has received particular attention. The striking progress exhibited by

Protestant areas both absolutely and relative to Catholic and Orthodox
areas is seen as justifying this approach, as is the progress exhibited by
predominantly Calvinist or Puritan societies relative to other Protestant
societies. These differentials seem consistent with the varying emphasis put
by the relevant denominations on the value of reading the Bible and other
religious literature (Cipolla, 1969; Le Roy Ladurie, 1966; L. Stone, 1969;
Vogler, 1975). As for the gains in predominantly Catholic countries such as
France, they have often been attributed to the Counter-Reformation and,
specifically, to the efforts of the Catholic church, prodded by the Protestant
challenge, to use schooling as an instrument of religious indoctrination and
of recruitment to the clergy (Chartier, Compare, & Julia, 1976; Dainville,
1955, 1957). This interpretation has affinities with the conflict hypothesis
mentioned above in that it attributes educational expansion to the
competition of status groups, in this case organized religions, for the
monopoly of a scarce good, in this case the allegiance of the faithful.
Some historians have given as much or more attention to another
corporate actor, the state. Beginning in the 17th century, several states
organized rudimentary educational systems, offered free schooling to the
poor, and issued decrees making instruction obligatory. In certain instances
their motives were religious (this was true in the Netherlands, Scotland, and
New England), while in other cases governments were more interested in
political indoctrination or in economic development (this was true in Prussia
and other central European states). But whatever the motives, it is
commonly assumed that the resulting policies had a major effect on levels of
enrollment.
Although historians have usually stressed the role of corporate actors,

either religious organizations or governments, there are exceptions. Some
consider educational expansion in the early modern period to have resulted
primarily from a growing demand for education among families and
individuals. Numerous reasons for this growing demand have been noted.
For those in certain denominations there were religious incentives. The
ability to read the Bible and the psalter and the hymnal was often valued as
highly by individual laymen as it was by their clergymen, both for religious
reasons and because of the status it might confer within one's community
(Brooks, 1978; Mathew, 1966; Spufford, 1979). There were also the
incentives offered by the increasing availability of cheap publications on a
widening array of subjects. Printing gave the humble access not only to the
Bible and other religious literature, but also to how-to manuals, almanacs,
political pamphlets, and adventure stories. The growing availability of such
varied materials made reading an increasingly rewarding skill (Bollbme,
1965; Schenda, 1970; Wiles, 1976). In addition there could be economic
incentives: For land-owning peasants, the ability to read contracts and other
legal documents could mean freedom from periodic and often unjustified
dependence on the integrity of others. For the mobile, literacy made it easier
to learn of better job opportunities. For entry to the professions literacy was
essential. And for shopkeepers and for many artisans, literacy and
numeracy were increasingly necessary for daily transactions. Indeed in more
and more trades, literacy was a prerequisite for acceptance as an apprentice,
a fact that alone could account for much of the rise in demand for schooling
(Agulhon, 1964; Spufford, 1974, 1979; Stratmann, 1967; Vovelle, 1975).
While the merits of these distinctive approaches depend on the particular
place and time considered, a few general observations are possible. To begin
with, laws making instruction compulsory appear, at least in the short run, to
have had limited impact. The evidence reveals no sharp increases in
enrollment when such laws were introduced; sometimes enrollment was
high already, and when it was not the subsequent increases tended to be
gradual and, it seems, largely attributable to other factors (Maynes, 1977;
Vogler, 1975). This does not mean that governmental policies were
insignificant. The efforts of certain states, particularly in central Europe, to
increase the supply and to lower the costs certainly affected enrollments, and
so did laws making primary schooling requisite for entry to certain trades or,
as in Prussia after 1731, to any form of apprenticeship. By raising the
incentives the state could stimulate enrollment. But the state could also
impede the development of primary education. Thus the efforts of certain
governments to limit access to higher levels of education (a subject
considered below) reduced the incentives for investing in primary schooling.
So did the censorship of printed matter and the efforts to curb the itinerant
chapmen and colporteurs who peddled printed matter. In addition, state
policies that eroded the resources available to churches and to local
communities, such as those pursued following the French Revolution, could
seriously disrupt education (Maynes, 1979). In fact if one considers the West
as a whole, it is not clear that the net contribution of states to the
development of primary education in the early modern period was positive.
For religious organizations compulsion was not an option. If they were to
foster educational expansion it would have to be through persuasion or
indoctrination and through increasing the availability and lowering the costs
of schools. Obviously, many did contribute in these ways. In this respect
there is no cause to question the emphasis historians have tended to place on
the role of organized religion. But we should not stop here. It is necessary
also to consider the motives of those receiving the schooling made available.
And those motives, to the extent they can be disentangled, may have been
primarily secular. The very expansion of literacy and schooling suggests as
much because the secular incentives became stronger through the period
while the religious incentives did not. It is noteworthy, too, that most of
those who learned to read apparently learned to write as well, for the latter
skill was much more relevant to the world of trade and commerce than it was
to fulfilling one's Christian obligations. It is also noteworthy that many
religious leaders, Luther and Melanchthon included, found it useful when
promoting schooling to stress the economic as well as the religious returns,
and that wills calling for the education of the deceased's children put at least
as much emphasis on the practical as on the religious benefits (Chalkins,
1965; Strehler, 1934; Vogler, 1975; Wrightson & Levine, 1979).
An interpretation stressing secular motives is consistent with what is
known about variations in literacy and schooling rates according to region or
occupation. For instance, in France the overwhelmingly Catholic yet
relatively developed regions to the north and east had much higher literacy
rates at the end of the 17th century and again a century later than did the rest
of the country, where the Protestant minority was concentrated (Fleury &
Valmary, 1957). A comparison of a religiously mixed region in southwest
Germany with a religiously mixed but less prosperous region in southeast
France reveals relatively small differences in schooling rates between
Protestants and Catholics within regions but pronounced disparities
between the regions (Maynes, 1977). Studies of English counties, American
colonies, and Belgian and French provinces have suggested that the wide
variances in literacy rates observed among villages with similar religious
compositions can be attributed to differences in the relationship of these
villages to the market (Butel, 1976; P. Clark, 1977; Cressy, 1980a; Julia,
1970; Lockridge, 1974; Ruwet & Wellemans, 1.978; Spufford, 1974; Tully,
1972). And several studies have revealed associations between literacy and
occupation that seem unaffected by religion. Thus, in the late 16th century,
urban notables and merchants in Catholic Poland were about as likely to be
literate as their counterparts in Protestant England (Cressy, 1980b; Urban,
1977; Wyczaiiski, 1974). In the late 18th century, Catholic merchants and
artisans in France and in the Rhineland seem to have been as literate as
Protestant merchants and artisans in the United States (Dreyfus, 1968;
Garden, 1976; Lockridge, 1974; Longuet, 1978; J. Meyer, 1974; Queniart,
1974). And in a religiously mixed province in the Netherlands, at the end of
the 18th century, the literacy rates for Protestants and Catholics according to
occupation were essentially the same except for the working class, where the
rate for Catholics was 73 percent of that for Protestants (de Booy, 1977).
These studies demonstrate the importance of controlling for occupation
and, in the case of farmers and peasants, for the degree to which production
was oriented toward the market. When such controls are introduced the
variance attributable to religious differences declines dramatically. No
doubt it would decline even more if the direct costs confronting primary
actors were controlled, for these costs were almost certainly higher for
Catholics than for Protestants. Yet religious differences were important.
They probably accounted for much of the variance observed among rural
populations and hence, given the size of these populations, for much of the
disparity among countries. In addition, religious differences were important
for reasons relating to the Weber thesis. It has been suggested that literacy is
the key missing variable in Weber's formulation linking Protestantism and
capitalism (Eisenstein, 1979; Stinchcombe, 1965). To develop the
argument, the promotion of education by religious and other corporate
actors, whatever the motives, facilitated success in the world of trade and
commerce for primary actors and thus contributed to the development of
capitalism. Whether one prefers this reasoning or Weber's emphasis on the
psychological implications of the Protestant ethic, the entrepreneurial
activity and economic growth clearly associated with Protestantism could be
expected to increase the demand for literate workers. And to the extent
primary actors in Protestant communities profited economically from their
literacy, they could be expected to place a higher value on primary eduation
for their children. In this respect they may have been no different from their
Catholic or Orthodox counterparts, but proportionately they were more
numerous. In short, the association between Protestantism and literacy can
be attributed in part to the tendency in Protestant communities for a
relatively large proportion of the population to be in occupations associated
everywhere with high literacy rates.
For secondary and higher education in the early modern period there are
no proxies-no counterparts to literacy rates-that can be used to estimate
enrollments. If the matter is to be pursued, one must rely on the
matriculation and other records of individual schools and universities.
Fortunately such records are more likely to have been maintained and to
have survived than is the case with primary schooling. But scholars have only
begun the arduous task of locating and compiling the available data and
subjecting them to careful analysis. Although certain patterns are beginning
to emerge, much remains to be learned.
What is known indicates that secondary and higher education, unlike
primary education, did not expand steadily throughout the period. Rather
the trends, to the extent they can be generalized, were cyclical. In the case of
higher education there was growth through most of the 16th century and in
some cases into the 17th century followed by a prolonged period of
stagnation and decline. In a few countries, including France, there was a
return to expansion in the 18th century, but except in the American colonies
and in Portugal, it is unlikely that the increase outpaced the increase in
population. In fact if population growth is taken into account, no major
European country regained the levels attained around 1600 until well into
the 19th century (Chartier & Renel, 1978; Chartier et al., 1976; Cremin,
1970; Frijhoff, 1979; Kagan, 1974, 1975). One country, England, probably
did not regain the level of 1600 until the 1930s (L. Stone, 1964).
For secondary education the evidence is still too fragmentary to permit
establishing trends with much confidence. It is a reasonable guess, however,
that in the 16th and 17th centuries, when these schools were oriented toward
preparing youths for higher education, enrollment trends tended to parallel
those at the universities. In the 18th century, the grammar or Latin schools,
hitherto dominant at the secondary level, faced a mounting challenge in all
but the most backward countries from institutions that used the vernacular
and concentrated on preparing students for practical pursuits. Because these
newcomers are known to have prospered, it may be surmised that secondary
enrollments overall grew significantly in the 18th century, even if allowing
for the large increases in population (Feliciangeli, 1974; Frijhoff & Julia,
1975; Julia & Pressly, 1975; Kagan, 1974; P. Marchand, 1975; Neukamm,
1956; Tompson, 1971).
Attempts to explain the general and often pronounced expansion in
secondary and higher enrollments in the 16th and early 17th centuries have
focused on three related developments. First, at least chronologically,
Renaissance humanism had transformed classical education into an object
of conspicuous consumption. Among aristocratic families, traditionally
disdainful of advanced learning, education beyond basic literacy became
something of a fad, and well-to-do burghers were quick to emulate their
betters. Second, there was a marked increase in the number and size of
endowments earmarked for educational purposes and in the support of
education by churches and municipalities. This development could be traced
in part to the influence of humanism, in part to the growth of towns and the
rise in per capita income that characterized the 16th century, and in part to
the religious strife provoked by the Reformation. Third, there was a rapid
growth in the number of jobs requiring more than functional literacy.
Thanks to the Reformation and Counter-Reformation there was a rising
demand for clergymen and teachers of all persuasions, and the growth of
towns and centralized political authority greatly increased the demand for
bureaucrats and professionals (Charlton, 1965; Chartier et al., 1976; Fischer
& Lundgreen, 1975; Heiss, 1978; Jordan, 1959; Kagan, 1974; Kramm, 1964;
O'Day, 1979; Prest, 1972).
As for the downturn in the 17th century, it is generally interpreted as a
reaction to overinvestment in education in the previous period. The earlier
expansion of school places and job opportunities had stimulated a demand
for education that eventually outstripped the supply of suitable positions for
the highly educated. This crisis had a number of consequences. It made
success in the job market increasingly dependent on one's ability to wait
until suitable opportunities appeared-that is, on the wealth of one's
family-and on personal connections and patronage. This trend lowered the

returns to education for those of relatively humble origin, a group that had
contributed significantly to the earlier expansion. At the same time
governments, concerned over the potentially disruptive consequences of an
overproduction of the educated, limited access to advanced education either
by reducing the number of institutions or by imposing restrictions on entry.
They also joined forces with the nobility in downplaying the value of formal
education as a route to coveted governmental positions. In the competition
for rewards, an education in the classics now lost ground to home tutoring, a
command of fencing, riding and dancing, and the grand tour-to activities
and skills less accessible or appealing than education to those of plebeian
blood. In time these interrelated developments contributed significantly to
the restoration of equilibrium between advanced education and the job
market (Brockliss, 1978; Cipolla, 1973; Dainville, 1957; Fletcher, 1967;
Kagan, 1974; Morgan, 1978; R. Mtiller, 1975; Rothblatt, 1976; L. Stone,
1974).
Another set of factors merits attention. The declining appeal of advanced
education to bourgeois and more humble families did not result entirely
from an inability to afford or gain access to secondary or tertiary institutions
or from a decline in returns to educational investments. In much of Europe,
by the late 17th century the returns to investing in noneducational activities
were rising. Critics of the earlier expansion in enrollments had often noted
that it fostered a growth of parasitic institutions, particularly churches and
governments, at the expense of productive activities. Although these
observers may have been less concerned with increasing production than
with reserving the parasitic institutions for the aristocracy, there was much
truth in the complaint. Viewed from this perspective, it can be argued that
the declining appeal of advanced education in the 17th century encouraged
primary actors seeking upward mobility to transfer their ambitions and
investments to entrepreneurial ventures, ventures that yielded high returns
not only for primary actors but for the society generally. In many western
countries the stagnation and stultification of secondary and higher education
after the early 17th century coincided with increasing entrepreneurial
activity in agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce. Put another way, the
opportunities for upward mobility through noneducational activities, the
value of the foregone opportunities, were increasing. To the extent this was
a factor encouraging commoners to lose interest in secondary and higher
education, the emphasis commonly put on the declining returns to education
or on the efforts of elites to limit access should be muted.
If advanced education and productive activities were incompatible in the
17th century, this was less true in the century that followed. During the 18th
century, as noted above, schools catering to the particular needs of
manufacturing and commercial interests-schools using the vernacular and
offering instruction in mathematics, foreign languages, political economy,

and vocational subjects-began to appear and to flourish. In response, the
once dominant grammar and Latin schools, committed above all to survival,
began to modify their programs so they could compete more effectively. The
resulting growth in enrollment was accounted for by the same groups largely
responsible for the boom of the late 16th century: by the sons of bankers,
merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, yeoman, and, to a lesser degree,
husbandmen and peasants (Chartier et al., 1976; Feliciangeli, 1974; Frijhoff
& Julia, 1975; Heinemann, 1974; Klingenstein, 1978; Tompson, 1971). But
this time the objectives tended to be different. Although some still aimed for
the professions-particularly law and, for those of peasant origins, the
clergy-most were now less interested in credentials or in conspicuous
consumption than in skills useful in trade and commerce. Education beyond
basic literacy and numeracy was not yet essential to entrepreneurial success,
but it was becoming more relevant.
II. Educational Expansion in the West, 1800 to the Present

From the second quarter of the 19th century, rates of enrollment in
primary education in most western countries can be measured directly.
Thanks to the labor of countless school officials and government clerks, it is
no longer necessary to draw inferences from literacy rates or from case
studies. Problems remain, to be sure. The records are not always accurate.
There was wide variation within and across countries in the length of the
school year and in the relationship between enrollment rates and attendance
rates. Often there was double-counting-those enrolled in two schools
within a year were counted twice-and often those at proprietary or
parochial schools were not counted at all. There also were changes over time
in the definition of the relevant age cohort and, especially in the 19th
century, many enrolled from outside this cohort. But despite these
limitations, the data do permit establishing general trends and making
instructive comparisons.
The trends can be summarized quickly. In each country there was a
more-or-less steady increase in schooling rates for both boys and girls from
the time enrollment data were first collected until primary schooling was
universal. As early as the 1870s enrollment was essentially universal in
Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland, and most
other industrialized countries reached this level by World War I. The
countries that remain, all of them in southern or eastern Europe, attained
universal primary schooling either between the wars or shortly after World
War II.
The literature on these developments has been dominated by two
debates: one over the role of the state and the other over the role of the
economy. The first debate focuses on the causes and consequences of the
introduction of compulsory primary education. The second is essentially
over the strength and character of the relationship between educational
expansion and industrialization. In a few cases the second debate is
irrelevant because enrollment was virtually universal before all but the
earliest stages of industrialization. This was true in the Netherlands, the
Scandinavian countries, and many of the German-speaking states. But in all
other countries the economic and social changes associated with the
Industrial Revolution were well advanced before schooling became
obligatory or universal. Accordingly, it is appropriate to begin with the
second of the debates: the debate over the relationship between enrollment
trends and economic developments.
Although cross-national studies tend to reveal positive correlations
between industrialization and levels of primary enrollment, within-nation
studies frequently do not. In the United States, for instance, there was from
the 1860s until the 1930s a consistently negative association at the state level
between per capita manufacturing product and enrollment (J. W. Meyer,
Tyack, Nagel, & Gordon, 1979). The pattern was similar in England and
Wales in the first half of the 19th century, in Belgium in the second half of the
century, and, to move to a lower level, in the state of New York in 1845, in
Massachusetts in 1860, and in the Nord, the most industrialized department
of France, through the middle decades of the 19th century (Furet & Ozouf,
1976; Kaestle & Vinovskis, 1974, 1980; Lesthaeghe, 1977; Mitch, 1978). In
addition, comparisons across time reveal that rapid industrialization was
often associated in the short run with actual declines in enrollment rates.
This was true in Lancashire, in the Nord, and in the textile towns of
Germany, and between the 1780s and the 1820s it may even have been true
in England as a whole (Engelsing, 1973; Furet & Ozouf, 1976; Laqueur &
Sanderson 1974; Leblond, 1968; Pierrard, 1965; Sanderson, 1968, 1972).
Many contemporaries-employers, schoolmasters, bureaucrats, reform-

ers of all types-attributed the relatively low and occasionally declining
rates of enrollment and attendance in industrial towns to parental
indifference. If only parents appreciated the benefits of education and cared
about their children, they reasoned, the problem would be solved. In a
similar vein, some recent studies have concluded that features of the work
done by most members of the industrial labor force (and of the work done by
most peasants in feudal societies, many of whose descendants enter the
industrial labor force) result in a disposition away from self-direction,
expansiveness, and, by extension, schooling, a disposition that tends to be
passed across generations (Kohn, 1969; Schooler, 1976; Willis, 1977). But
most scholars find other arguments more compelling. In the first place, for
industrial workers the direct costs of schooling-the costs of tuition,
supplies, and appropriate clothing-could be prohibitive. Second, the

job-related benefits of education were not significant during the early stages
of industrialization. Most jobs in factory towns did not require literacy or
numeracy or any of the special skills that might be acquired with the aid of
literacy. Third, and most important, the foregone earnings associated with
schooling were substantial. The earnings and services of children-as
factory workers, errand boys, babysitters, beggars-were often essential to
balancing the family budget. In addition, it can. be argued that the objective
features of life outside the workplace (the quality and location of housing,
the opportunities for leisure, the character of local schools and of their
clienteles) reinforced workers' separation from other social groups and,
hence, limited their access to accurate information about the possible
returns to schooling. Once these factors are given their due, there is little left
to assign to the antischooling values of workingclass families or to the
inability of these families to determine their own best interests (Braun, 1960;
Davey, 1978; Meacham, 1977; Parsons, 1978; Pierrard, 1965; Tyack, 1974).
It should be noted, too, that a decline in rates in industrial towns need not
mean that children received less education than their parents had received.
The declines may be attributable to differential fertility rates-to a tendency
for poorly educated parents to have more children-or to the migration of
poorly educated families from rural areas to factory towns (Laqueur in
Laqueur & Sanderson, 1974; West, 1978). It also should be noted that
comparisons of urban and rural enrollment rates in the 19th century convey a
misleading impression of relative levels of educational attainment. Those at
urban schools generally learned more in a year than those at rural schools,
not least because their school year was longer (Jensen & Friedberger, 1976;
Kaestle & Vinovskis, 1980; Soltow & Stevens, 1977). And children in
industrial towns often studied reading and writing at institutions other than
primary schools, notably at Sunday schools. Such institutions were less
common and influential in rural areas (Cremin, 1980; Laqueur, 1976a;
Mitch, 1980; Oberl6, 1961; Wardle, 1971).
Whatever the initial impact of industrialization, levels of primary
enrollment in factory towns eventually rose. But why? Among those who
think the reasons were primarily economic there are two general schools of
thought: one emphasizing the role of corporate actors and the other, that of
primary actors. Those in the former group take their cue from the easily
documented concern of many 19th-century industrialists and "friends of
education" over the presumed indifference or hostility of the working class
to schooling. Often these 19th-century observers insisted that the
irresponsibility of working-class families should be of concern to all because
it contributed to poverty and to crime. This reasoning, together with
industrialists' more direct interest in acquiring disciplined and deferential
workers at someone else's expense, frequently resulted in efforts to
persuade religious organizations or philanthropists or the state to take steps

to increase enrollment. For those who subscribe to the social control
hypothesis, these efforts were largely responsible for bringing an end to the
decline in schooling rates in industrial towns, where there had been a
decline, and for the subsequent growth in enrollments (Bowles & Gintis,
1976; Burgess, 1976; Colls, 1976; Field, 1974; Graff, 1979; Katz, 1968, 1971;
Quick, 1974; S. K. Schultz, 1973).
Scholars on the other side put their emphasis on the decision making of
primary actors. While conceding that corporate actors occasionally
promoted education for purposes of social control, they reject the
implication that working-class families were passive bystanders incapable to
recognizing or furthering their interests. Unless corporate actors succeeded
in making schooling compulsory-a subject considered below--education
could expand only if primary actors decided that more schooling was worth
the investment. By altering the incentives, corporate actors might influence
these decisions, but so could many other factors over which corporate actors
had little control. Accordingly, for scholars in this group, eduational
expansion can best be explained by focusing on the changes in the benefits
and costs of schooling perceived by primary actors (Desert, 1980; Furet &
Ozouf, 1977; Hogan, 1978; Houston, 1978; Kaestle & Vinovskis, 1980;
Laqueur, 1976b).
But what were these changes? Literature in the human capital and
technical-functional traditions has emphasized shifts in the market demand
for skilled labor. Such an interpretation could be consistent with low and
perhaps declining initial levels followed by expansion, for in most countries
the rapid growth of skilled factory jobs and white-collar employment came a
generation or more after the onset of industrialization. But recent research
indicates that such changes in the occupational structure did not occur until
after most working-class children were being educated at least to the level of
literacy. Thus in England between 1841 and 1871, changes in the distribution
of occupations according to the level of education required for entry
accounted for only a fifth of the pronounced improvement in male literacy in
this period (Mitch, 1979b). More difficult to measure are the effects of a
shifting demand for "schooled" as opposed to skilled labor; that is, for
workers with the punctuality, discipline, and other job-related attributes
thought to be instilled or reinforced by schooling. Many factory owners
would hire only workers who had been to school, while others paid the
schooled more than the unschooled, gave them greater opportunities for
on-the-job mobility, and retained them when forced to lay off workers. To
the extent that such rewards to schooling increased over time, or were
preceived as increasing, primary education in industrial towns could be
expected to expand (Mitch, 1979a; Pallister, 1969; Tenfelde, 1977). It
should be added that if those with schooling had higher wages, steadier
employment, and greater opportunities for intragenerational mobility,

primary actors had an interest in social control. Employers were not the only
ones to benefit when workers were punctual, disciplined, and industrious.
The importance to industrial workers of the nonmonetary benefits of
schooling varied from country to country and, it seems, from industry to
industry. In English mining towns, for instance, workers seem to have
perceived only the direct monetary returns to schooling (Hurt, 1979;
Pallister, 1969). In many other industrial centers, however, educational
expansion cannot be explained without reference to the desire of workers to
follow the political events of the day, to consume the wares of the
colporteur, or to communicate with relatives in the countryside or overseas.
Thus in Swiss manufacturing towns in the early 19th century there was a
great demand for the pulp literature peddled by the colporteurs. In these
communities it was not religion but the pulp novel that was the opium of the
masses, with predictable consequences for educational enrollments (Braun,
1960).
Of course the monetary and nonmonetary benefits need not have risen at
all if the costs were falling, and generally the costs were falling. Thanks to the
efforts of philanthropists, churches, and governments, the direct costs of
primary schooling tended to decline over time, and the effects on enrollment
could be significant. In England, for example, it has been estimated that 30
to 40 percent of the substantial increase in primary enrollment between 1833
and 1870 can be attributed to increases in the provision of subsidized
schooling (Mitch, 1980). In addition there were sharp declines over time in
the foregone earnings of those receiving primary schooling, in part because
of the introduction and enforcement of child labor legislation and in part
because of economic changes that made children less desirable employees
(Nardinelli, 1980). Because in the early stages of industrialization foregone
earnings tended to account for more than half of the monetary costs of
schooling, the implications of this trend for enrollment were significant.
Thus far the discussion, like most of the literature on industrialization and
educational expansion, has focused on the urban working class. Yet in
virtually all countries-England and Belgium may be the only exceptions-
most of the increase in primary enrollment following the onset of
industrialization was accounted for by other groups, particularly by the
children of shopkeepers, artisans, farmers, and rural laborers. This
component of educational expansion has received little attention from those
who subscribe to the social control hypothesis, and for good reason: to the
extent a desire for social control among corporate actors was a factor outside
industrial towns, the chief effect was to curtail the growth of educational
opportunities in rural areas (Akenson, 1970; Briggs, 1978; Ellis, 1973;
Johnson, 1970; Nipperdey, 1968; Ransom & Sutch, 1977). Other scholars
have addressed the subject, however, and in ways that continue to
emphasize the impact of industrialization and of the attendant economic and

social changes. These scholars have advanced three distinct but compatible
arguments: one stressing the changing character of jobs outside the
industrial sector, one stressing changing patterns of geographic and social
mobility, and one stressing the effects of the demographic transition.
The first argument has affinities with the human capital and technical-
functional hypotheses in that it stresses variations in the returns to specific
skills. Particular attention is given to the effects of improvements in
communications and of the associated commercial revolution. Over time
functional literacy and numeracy became more and more essential for
shopkeepers and artisans as well as for the growing proportions of farmers
and peasants who produced for the market. The ability to follow price
trends, to make lists, and to read advertisements and mail order catalogues
could yield sizable monetary returns. In addition, improved communica-
tions increased the availability and lowered the costs of newspapers and
other publications, thus enhancing the nonmonetary returns to literacy.
According to this argument, schooling expanded largely because of a
growing desire to participate in the wider communities to which literacy and
numeracy offered access (Corbin, 1975; Craig & Spear, 1978; Eklof, 1981;
J.W. Meyer et al., 1979; Thabault, 1971; Weber, 1976).
The second argument emphasizes the impact of industrialization on

geographic and social mobility. On the one hand, as the technical-functional
hypothesis notes, industrialization and the related changes led to the
expansion of occupations for which at least some primary education was a
prerequisite. On the other hand, industrialization undermined many
occupations and forced the rationalization of others, thus limiting
opportunities to enter or to remain in these occupations. This was
particularly true of certain types of artisan production and of agriculture.
For those directly affected, those driven out of the crafts or off the land, the
most common destination was the urban working class. But many attempted
to avoid this fate, not least by investing in the education that, with
persistence and luck, might lead to white-collar employment. Thus it was not
only because of the changing requirements of their own occupations that
parents in the old middle-class and in rural areas sent their children to
school. They might also do so because they expected their children would
have to enter other occupations and did not want them to fall into the
proletarist. According to this argument industrialization contributed to
educational expansion in part by dislocating populations, in part by
increasing the number of jobs requiring education, and in part by creating a
working class that, for many, made the obvious foregone opportunity to
investing in education--joining this class--unacceptable (Blackbourn,
1977; Craig & Spear, 1979; Gerger & Hoppe, 1980; Gildea, 1976; Jensen &
Friedberger, 1976; D. Mfiller, 1977).
The third argument, like both of the preceding, is consistent with the
human capital hypothesis. It focuses on consequences of the rising life
expectancy and the declining fertility that characterize the demographic
transition. The argument is that rising life expectancy increases the returns
to education, and that declining fertility enables parents to invest more in
each child. For these reasons the demographic transition results in
educational expansion above and beyond that attributable to other factors.
Initially this should widen disparities between social strata in levels of
educational investment and attainment, since groups of high status tend to
pass through the demographic transition before others. This may help to
explain the pronounced disparities in rates of schooling and literacy
observed in the early modern period. But in the 19th century, when the mass
of the population in most western countries experienced the demographic
transition, the effect should have been to lessen the disparities (Banks, 1954;
Becker & Tomes, 1979; Leet, 1977; Pallister, 1969; Tilly, 1973).
How much in the aggregate did these economic, social, and demographic
developments contribute to educational expansion? Before addressing this
question directly we should turn to the second of the debates mentioned
above: debate over the origins and the impact of compulsory schooling.
The particular constellation of forces that led to the adoption of
compulsory schooling differed from country to country. In some cases the
drive for compulsion was identified with an evangelical religious movement.
In some cases it drew support from entrepreneurs seeking social control. In
some cases it had the backing of organized labor. In some cases the emergent
teaching profession gave strong support. And in some cases the chief
impetus came from the state itself, the objective being to promote national
integration, to stimulate economic development, or to weaken the influence
of organized religion. But whatever the specific configuration, the results
included not only compulsion but other measures increasing the state's
involvement in education. For most countries it is useful to think in terms of
three distinct stages. In the first, the state becomes increasingly involved in
the building and subsidizing of schools, the training of teachers, and the
standardization and supervision of instruction. In the second, compulsory
attendance is introduced. In the third, the trend toward the formalization of
schooling is continued, and, of particular relevance for our purposes, the
laws making attendance compulsory are enforced.
In most western countries the direct impact of compulsion appears, in the

aggregate, to have been small. Unless accompanied by sanctions or
additional incentives, the introduction of compulsion hardly affected the
existing trends. And generally compulsory attendance was not enforced
until the great majority of those affected were already enrolled. This was
certainly the case in the United States, as a number of studies have
demonstrated (Edwards, 1978; Everhart, 1977; Landes & Solmon, 1972;
J. W. Meyer et al., 1979; J. G. Richardson, 1980). And apparently it was
also the case in Canada and in most if not all of the European countries.
Even in countries that introduced compulsion prior to industrialization,
such as Prussia, the great majority of the relevant cohorts appear to have
been attending school before compulsion was enforced (E. N. Anderson,
1970; Lundgreen, 1971). Admittedly the evidence for the European
countries is not yet conclusive. There remains a need for studies that
distinguish between what have been termed symbolic and bureaucratic
compulsion: between the introduction of compulsory attendance and its
enforcement (Tyack, 1976). But the character of enrollment trends and the
dates of the laws introducing compulsion suggest that the amount of
expansion directly attributable to compulsion was small. The proportion
may not have exceeded 20 percent in any country, and it is unlikely that it
exceeded 10 percent in the West generally.
But it is important to distinguish between the impact of compulsion and
the impact of the state. If enrollment was almost universal before
compulsory attendance was enforced, this was in part because of incentives
already provided by the state. The growth of governmental bureaucracies
and the introduction of meritocratic criteria of recruitment greatly enhanced
the appeal of schooling, particularly for those otherwise facing the prospect
of downward social mobility. The introduction of universal military
conscription made literacy more desirable for peasants' sons not likely
otherwise to leave their families and villages (Brooks, 1978; Eklof, 1981).
The enforcement of child labor laws lowered the opportunity costs. And
each step toward greater state involvement in schooling tended either to
reduce the direct costs to primary actors or to increase the perceived
benefits. Particularly important were the building of schools in rural areas,
the subsidizing of schools, and measures designed to improve the
qualifications of teachers and hence the quality of their schools (Boon, 1969;
Briand, Chapoulie, & Peretz, 1980; Girod, 1962; Rubinstein, 1969; Solmon,
1970). Although such reforms would have no effect on those for whom
schooling was irrelevant, they could be decisive for the many valuing literacy
and numeracy yet unable to bear the direct costs of schooling or without
access to a competent teacher. Through making schooling available,
inexpensive, and effective, the state almost certainly contributed much
more to raising enrollment levels than it did through introducing and
enforcing compulsory attendance.
But measuring the size of the state's contribution with any precision is
impossible. For one thing, it can be difficult to separate the effects of the
state's policies from the effects of economic, social, and demographic
changes. Thus while it may be assumed that the growth of employment in the
public sector raised the demand for education, this growth may have
resulted less from governmental initiatives than from environmental or
technological changes. In addition it can be difficult to determine who
deserves credit for the state's policies. To the extent the state is merely
responding to the pressure of other corporate actors or of primary actors in
the aggregate, the results can be credited to the factors that motivated this
pressure. Finally, the effectiveness of the state's policies, compulsion aside,
depends on the existence of an unsatisfied desire for education among
primary actors. Even if we can explain why educational services are
supplied, it remains necessary to consider why they are in demand.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, as in the early modern period, enrollment
trends in secondary and higher education have not paralleled those at the
primary level. There has been considerable expansion, to be sure, but in
every western country most of it has come since the attainment of universal
primary schooling. Indeed, through much of the period secondary and
tertiary enrollments hardly kept pace with population growth. As late as
1870 no more than 2 or 3 percent of the relevant cohort attended secondary
schools in most western countries, and less than one percent received a
higher education. (In the United States the rates in 1870 were approximately
4 and 2 percent, respectively.) After 1870 the rates increased everywhere,
but except in North America the improvement remained gradual until at
least the interwar years. In the 1930s the rates of secondary and tertiary
enrollment rarely exceeded 15 and 3 percent, respectively, outside the
United States (where they were 70 and 15 percent) and Canada. But since
World War II the growth has been dramatic. In most developed countries in
the West, secondary education is now virtually universal and at least 15
percent of the relevant cohort is enrolled in higher education. The countries
of southern and eastern Europe exhibit lower rates, especially at the tertiary
level, but the trends are similar.
Some of the expansion at the secondary level can be attributed to
increases in the age to which attendance is compulsory. Although such
increases have had little impact in the United States or Canada-they have
come after the great majority were already enrolled to the age in
question-they have had an effect in some European countries, particularly
since World War II. In these countries, however, growing proportions are
remaining in school beyond the minimum leaving age, suggesting that the
impact of laws compelling attendance is diminishing (Chiswick, 1969). And
in any case, such laws can account for only a small proportion of postprimary
enrollment. To explain the expansion of secondary and higher education,
we must put most of the emphasis on other factors.
One of these factors, certainly, is the rising demand for educated labor.
Once past its initial stages, industrialization stimulated a rapidly growing
demand for technicians, engineers, managers, clerks, and, less directly,
bureaucrats and professionals. In addition, growth in the size of firms and of
the public sector, together with a rising concern for efficiency and equity, led
to a shift within many occupational categories from ascriptive to
universalistic criteria for hiring (Bleek, 1972; Roach, 1971; Stolzenberg,
1975; M. D. Young, 1958). These related developments-the changing
composition of the job market and changing patterns of recruitment to
specific jobs-greatly increased the incentives to invest in secondary and
higher education.
This argument, one identified with the human capital and technical-func-
tional hypotheses, can account for much of the growth in postprimary
enrollments over the last century or so. Yet in the opinion of many, a sizable
residual remains. It is frequently argued, and has been off and on throughout
the period, that the supply of the highly educated in the job market has
grown more rapidly than the demand, resulting in an inflation of credentials
and in declining returns to specific levels of educational attainment. For our
purposes it is this residual that is problematic. Two questions require
attention: Has there been a secular trend toward an overproduction of
educated men? If so, what are its causes?
In attempting to answer the first of these questions it is important to
distinguish between cyclical and secular trends. Clearly there are short-term
fluctuations in the job-related returns to specific levels of education. For any
number of reasons the demand for highly trained workers in specific
occupations can rise or fall rapidly, and because secondary and higher
education requires large commitments of time it takes a while for the market
to adjust (Freeman, 1971). In addition, demographic changes can affect the
returns to education for entire cohorts, regardless of careers sought: Those
born during baby booms can expect to face greater competition for coveted
positions and other rewards, and so can those entering the labor market
when relatively few are approaching the age of retirement (Dresch, 1975;
Smith & Welch, 1979). What remains in dispute is the character of the
secular changes behind these cyclical fluctuations in the economy and in
fertility. This is a subject that has yet to receive the careful attention it
deserves. Enough is known, however, to conclude that in most western
countries the value in the labor market of specific levels of educational
attainment has tended to decline. Such a conclusion is consistent with the
argument that there is a growing overproduction of the highly educated, but
as we shall see, it does not constitute proof.
Some attempts to account for the devaluation of specific levels of
education assign the initiative to corporate actors. This is the case with the
screening hypothesis and also with the argument that certain occupations,
particularly emerging professions, systematically raise their educational

requirements in order to improve their status and the fees they can charge
their clients (Collins, 1979; Kocka, 1978; Redlich, 1971; Runeby, 1976). No
doubt arguments of this sort have some validity, but they do not suffice. For
one thing, they shed more light on how employers and professions respond
to an oversupply of the highly educated than on what causes the oversupply.
In addition, they leave open the question of why enrollments continue to
grow when the job-related value of specific levels of education is in decline.
Accordingly it is also necessary to consider the factors that motivate primary
actors.
In this regard a common approach, particularly in the 19th century, has

been to emphasize the inability of those considered responsible for excessive
expansion to recognize their own interests. According to this reasoning, the
students concerned overestimated the job-related returns to education, and
the resulting increase in enrollment led to a devaluation of credentials and
the production of what came to be known as an academic proletariat (R. D.
Anderson, 1975; Musgrove, 1959; O'Boyle, 1970). Many observers went on
to argue that the problem could be solved only if those relatively low in the
social order, correctly considered responsible: for much of the growth,
developed more realistic aspirations. To this end there were efforts to
publicize the worsening job market for the highly educated and efforts to
raise the academic obstacles for those not otherwise deterred. Indeed many
of the organizational and curricular trends in 19th-century European
education, including the development of vocational and technical institu-
tions and the continuing commitment of leading institutions to such
seemingly impractical subjects as Latin and Greek, can profitably be seen
against this background. One objective, only thinly disguised, was to stem or
to divert pressures likely to result in a devaluation of the credentials of the
most distinguished institutions (Alston, 1969; Kraul, 1980; D. Miiller, 1977;
O'Boyle, 1968; G. Richardson, 1963; Ringer, 1979; Vasil'eva, 1976).
A second approach, one less frequently encountered, emphasizes the
nonmonetary returns to postprimary education. Occasionally, 19th-century
observers complained that many sought a secondary or higher education
largely for the status conferred by a familiarity with Latin or a particular
diploma, and no doubt they were correct. (Where they were wrong was in
suggesting that pursuing an education in order to enhance one's status is
irrational.) Of course, the nonmonetary returns could only contribute to
educational expansion if their influence increased over time, but there is
reason to believe it has. In this regard, it is appropriate to refer back to the
earlier discussion of variations in the perception of the nonmonetary returns
to education according to sex, social status, and the educational level of
parents. Because of educational expansion and changes in the occupational
structure, the proportion of children reared in families placing a high value
on these returns has almost certainly increased markedly over the last
century. Important in this connection have been the gains in secondary and
higher education for women. Highly educated mothers seem to be
particularly alert to the nonmonetary benefits of education and to have more
influence than their husbands over the educational aspirations of their
children. Support for this reasoning comes from the findings that parents
tend to educate their children at least to the level they attained and that
within each occupational category the more educated put greater emphasis
on the education of their children (Claeys, 1974; B. Duncan, 1968; Mitch,
1978). As to the significance for educational expansion, studies using
American and German data suggest that about a third of the growth in
secondary and tertiary enrollments in the last century can be attributed to
shifts in the social composition of the relevant populations (Craig & Spear,
1980a; Hauser & Featherman, 1976).
A third approach focuses not on the benefits of education, real or
imagined, but on the costs. It is important to remember that if the benefits of
education are declining but the costs are declining more rapidly, the rate of
return to investment in education increases. In such a situation education
should expand even though the value of specific credentials or levels of
attainment is falling. But how common is this configuration? The evidence,
fragmentary as it is, suggests that in most western countries over the last
century or so it has been present more often than not. Certainly the direct
costs of secondary and higher education have tended to decline. In addition,
trends in adolescent unemployment suggest that in the last two or three
decades, when the growth of postprimary education has been particularly
rapid, the earnings foregone by those enrolled have been in decline. And,
perhaps most importantly, the value of foregone investments appears to
have fallen significantly since the mid-19th century. Shifts in the
occupational structure-notably the decline of artisan production and of the
agricultural sector-have greatly reduced the proportions of youths who can
expect to inherit their fathers' businesses. At the same time, many of the
alternatives once available to those seeking security or upward mobility are
no longer appealing. Few can now expect to make their way as self-made
men or women, or to rise from the bottom of a firm to the top, or to migrate
to a country where opportunities are more plentiful. Accordingly, it is not
surprising that more and more of those seeking upward mobility, or seeking
to forestall downward mobility, have focused their aspirations and resources
on secondary and higher education (Barichello, 1979; Ben-David, 1964;
Craig, in press; Craig & Spear, 1979; Elder, 1963; Gildea, 1980; Troen,
1975; Wilson, 1969). This does not imply, to repeat, that the benefits of
postprimary education are rising. All it means is that they are rising relative
to the costs or, to put it another way, that the alternatives to investment in
education are becoming less promising.
This approach has implications for the claim that there is an

overproduction of the highly educated. Proponents of this view have tended
to consider only the market for those with high levels of technical or
professional training. But there can also be a surplus in the market for those
without such training. And from the perspective of those deemed
responsible for an overproduction of the educated, it can be this
surplus-the overproduction of the uneducated-that is most relevant. The
possibility that one may be overeducated for one's future occupation is easy
to accept if those without advanced education have low incomes, low status,
and little security. Once again, it is necessary to consider the alternatives.
Ill. Educational Expansion in the Developing Countries

At the beginning of this century the countries of Europe and North
America probably accounted for about 90 percent of those in the world
receiving a modern education and for more than 95 percent of those enrolled
at the secondary and tertiary levels. Now these countries contribute no more
than a quarter of all students, about 30 percent of those at the secondary
level, and less than 60 percent of those in higher education (UNESCO,
World Survey, 1971; UNESCO, Statistical Yearbook, 1980). This change in
relative position cannot be attributed to declining enrollment rates in the
West, for these rates have risen, particularly at the secondary and higher
levels. Rather, it must be traced to demographic factors and, above all, to
the rapidly rising demand for modern education in the rest of the world.
The demographic factors are those responsible for the different rates of
population growth that distinguish the western and nonwestern countries. A
single example will suggest their significance: since 1930 the proportion of
the world's children of primary school age residing in Europe and North
America has fallen from about 30 percent to under 17 percent. Thus, even if
enrollment rates had remained constant, a rising proportion of all
enrollments would be in nonwestern countries.
More importantly, however, has been the striking growth in enrollment
rates in nonwestern countries, particularly in the last three decades. Since
1950, enrollment throughout the world in modern education, that is, in
education on the western model, has more than tripled. About 30 percent of
the growth has resulted from the increasing size, of the relevant age cohort.
Of the rest, 88.5 percent can be traced to rising enrollment rates in the
developing countries (UNESCO, Statistical Yearbook, 1966 and 1980).
Tables I and II illustrate the basic patterns for males and females at each
level of education and for each major group of countries. Of course these
tables do not reveal the wide variations found among the countries within
each geographic grouping and among the regions within each country. But in
virtually every country and region the trend is in the same direction.
Throughout the Third World education on the western model is expanding.
TABLE I
Enrollment Rates by Level of Development
and Region:
Males
Percentage
1950 1960 1970 1977
Primary
Developed Countries..................... 123.5 118.0 121.0 115.9
Developing Countries................ 56.5 75.9 83.6 93.3
Latin America................................ 63.9 84.0 104.6 113.6
Sub-Saharan Africa.................... 34.8 55.4 65.4 86.2
Arab States.................................. 36.8 57.0 83.7 92.9
Asia except Arab States ............ 67.2 83.3 84.9 92.5
Total.................... .............. 82.9 91.2 94.6 99.2
Secondary
Developing Countries.................... 7.8 14.5 29.0 35.4
Latin America.......................... 8.9 15.0 28.9 31.8
Arab States ................... ........... 6.1 15.1 31.1 44.1
Asia except Arab States........... 16.5 22.5 36.9 42.0
Total.............. ............. 19.4 28.8 39.7 44.9
Tertiary
Latin America............... ........... 3.6 5.0 10.0 19.1
Sub-Saharan Africa.................... .3 .6 1.4 2.4
Arab States.................................. 1.7 3.9 7.8 13.6
Asia except Arab States............ 2.9 4.6 12.4 12.9
Total.. .... ................... ..... ........ 6.5 9.2 18.2 19.9
Note: These figres are for all countries except China, North Korea, and North Vietnam. All
rates are based on cohorts of 6 though 11 for primary education, 12 through 17 for secondary
education, and 18 through 21 for tertiary education. (For all countries the average duration of
primary schooling is currently 6.4 years, the average duration of secondary schooling is 6.0
years, and the average age at which schooling begins is 6; see UNESCO, Statistical
Yearbook, 1980, pp. 80 ff.) If the rates indicated are above 100%, it is because in the regions
concerned the average duration of particular levels is greater than the world-wide average.
Data: developed from UNESCO, Statistical Yearbook, 1966 and 1980.
Why? The most systematic attempt to answer this question, a study by

John Meyer and others, has tested various conventional hypotheses and
found them wanting. Using the country as the unit of analysis, the study finds
that the "world educational revolution" that began around 1950 cannot be
explained by theories linking expansion to economic growth, to political or
social modernization, to strong and authoritative governments, to ethnic
homogeneity, or, negatively, to political or economic dependence on
another state (J. W. Meyer et al., 1977). A related study has examined three
additional hypotheses and reached similar conclusions: In the period
TABLE II
Enrollment Rates by Level of Development
and Region
Females
Percentage
1950 1960 1970 1977
Primary
Latin America............................. 59.0 80.7 100.5 109.2
Arab States.................................. 16.5 33.5 47.1 59.4
Asia except Arab States ............... 37.8 51.1 59.0 64.3
Total..................... .............. 62.5 71.7 77.4 81.1
Secondary
Latin America............................... 7.3 13.3 26.7 30.5
Arab States.......... ...................... 1.8 5.3 13.3 24.8
Asia except Arab States........... 8.9 12.1 19.8 24.7
Total............................. .......... 14.7 22.6 29.9 35.3
Tertiary
Developed Countries........................ 7.1 111.1 24.1 33.6
Developing Countries.................... .5 1 .0 3.4 5.4
Latin America................................ 1.1 2.3 5.4 14.4
Sub-Saharan Africa.................... .2 .2 .4 .6
Arab States .................... ........ .2 .8 2.5 5.3
Asia except Arab States ............... .6 1.4 4.6 5.5
Total............................. ......... 3.1 4.8 10.7 14.4
See note to Table I.
considered, educational expansion was not significantly related to the

degree of state control over education, to status competition, or to class
conflict (Ramirez & Rubinson, 1979). On the basis of these findings the
authors contend that cross-national differences in levels of economic,
political, and social development cannot account for the world educational
revolution. But how is the vacuum to be filled? For the authors the most
promising approach is the world system hypothesis.
This is an hypothesis that deserves serious attention. Before turning to the
subject, however, it will be useful to consider certain themes not addressed
in the studies just cited. They relate both to the educational policies of
corporate actors and to the demand foreducation among primary actors.
For most of the developing world schooling was not a western invention.
In virtually every society of Asia and North Africa, as well as in the Mayan,
Aztec, and Incan societies of the new world, formal education was well
established prior to contact with the West. Generally, the control and the
objectives were religious: Youths attended Quranic schools, temple
schools, or pagoda schools to study the scriptures and, often, to prepare for
the priesthood. But in some cases, including ancient Egypt, ancient Persia,
India, and China, the training of doctors and bureaucrats was also
important, and at least in East Asia basic education was widely sought for
essentially economic reasons (Dore, 1965; Rawski, 1979). Admittedly,
much of the formal education offered was limited to those from or destined
for religious or ruling elites, and much of the rest provided no more than drill
in the arts of memory and self-discipline. But in several societies,
particularly those under the influence of Buddhism or Confucianism, there
was widespread education of males to the level of functional literacy. In the
16th century, for instance, adult male literacy appears to have been more
common than not in Burma and to have compared favorably with western
levels in Sri Lanka, Thailand, IndoChina, the Philippines, and some Indian
kingdoms and Chinese provines (Furnivall, 1943; Gough, 1968; Ho, 1962;
Mendelson, 1975; Myrdal, 1968).
How contact with the West affected these patterns depended both on the
character and strength of the indigenous traditions and on the policies
pursued by the West and its agents. Yet there remains room for
generalization. Let us begin with the educational policies of the West and
then consider their impact and legacy.
In areas subjected to imperial rule, that is, in most of the nonwestern
world, the eduction provided under western auspices typically progressed
through two distinct but overlapping stages. In the first, western education
was virtually a monopoly of Christian missionaries. As such it had much in
common with the formal education indigenous to many of the colonies: The
objectives were to teach youths the scriptures and to recruit and train
clergymen, and often instruction was in the vernacular and stressed rote
memorization (Clammer, 1976; Goor, 1978; Markowitz, 1973; K. Schwartz,
1971; Wyatt, 1969). This stage generally lasted at least until the beginning of
this century, except in Latin America where most nations had already
attained independence. In the second stage, education came increasingly
under the control of imperial authorities. In some cases (notably the
Belgian, British, Dutch, and Portuguese colonies) the emphasis was on
primary education for the purpose of training clerks, secretaries, and
craftsmen (Abernethy, 1969; Azevedo, 1980; Foster, 1965; King, 1971;
Loh, 1975; Thomas, 1970; vanderPloeg, 1977). In other cases (notably the
French colonies) more attention went to the training of an assimilated elite
(Bouche, 1975; Clignet & Foster, 1966; C. Marchand, 1971; Turin, 1971).
But regardless of the orientation, education in this stage tended to be in the
language of the colonial power and to be largely or exclusively secular in
character. In short, it was more "western" than the education offered by the
missionaries.
Developments were similar in the few countries that maintained their

independence. In most of them Christian missionaries were the first to offer
schooling on the western model. And in all of them the challenge from the
more developed and expansionist West eventually caused local rulers to
promote modern education as a means of national defense. The most
obvious example is Japan, where the Meiji regime (1868-1912) developed a
centralized educational system incorporating features borrowed from
France, Germany, and the United States, and enrollments rose to levels
close to those in the advanced states of the West (Dore, 1965; Taira, 1971).
But an official commitment to the westernization of education was also
strong, if less effective, in Thailand from the 1880s on, in China after the
Boxer Rebellion (1900), in Turkey beginning in the 1920s, and, more
recently, in Iran and Afghanistan (Fattahipour-Fard, 1963; Ho, 1962;
Kazamias, 1966; Rawski, 1979). Of course in these countries, unlike the
colonies, the objective was independence from rather than subservience to
the West, but the consequences for the provision of education had much in
common.
So did the consequences for the demand. The mission schools produced
converts to Christianity, and the government schools convinced many of the
superiority of French civilization, the English way of life, or the Japanese
race. But for primary actors in nonwestern societies the most obvious and
valued benefits of education on the western model were neither religious nor
cultural; they were economic. Those exposed to modern education learned
that literacy, numeracy, knowledge of a western language, and the
associated credentials could bring jobs in the emerging modern sector of the
economy, greater security, and higher status in the eyes of westerners and,
increasingly, of one's peers (Ben Salem, 1967; A. Cohen, 1981; Dunn &
Robertson, 1973; Epstein, 1962; Geertz, 1963; Peil, 1973; Zolberg, 1976).
To the extent Christianity and the abandonment of one's cultural traditions
were identified with these tangible benefits, they might also be viewed
favorably. For many, however, these outcomes represented costs rather
than benefits; they were among the sacrifices required if one sought the
economic returns and higher status seemingly promised by education on the
western model (Dubbeldam, 1970; Meillassoux, 1968).
Of course this new outlook diffused at different rates in different areas.
The pattern depended in part on the policies of the westerners and the
westernizers and in part on the characteristics of the societies in question. As
in the West, a desire for modern education usually developed first and most
rapidly where schools were readily accessible and where the economic
benefits to schooling were most conspicuous: tyIpically in coastal areas, near
the roads and railway lines that gradually penetrated the interior, in
administrative towns, and in the areas where missionaries decided, often
arbitrarily, to concentrate their efforts (Goldblatt, 1968; Gould, 1971; C.
Hirschman, 1979; Kahl, 1968; Riddell, 1970; Rudolph & Rudolph, 1972;
Soja, 1968). But the structure of the indigenous social order and the
distribution of other types of formal education were also important. Thus
modern education generally gained a foothold sooner where there was no
resistance from Quranic or temple schools or from feudal landlords, and,
often, within tribes or ethnic groups facing ecological crises or occupying
positions of low status in the traditional social hierarchy (Azarya, 1978;
Foster, 1977; Hazen, 1978; LeVine with Stangman & Unterberger, 1966;
Samonte, 1961; Santerre, 1971; Weeks, 1977). As a result, there emerged
pronounced regional and urban-rural disparities in enrollment in modern
schooling and, hence, in access to positions in the modern sector of the
economy. Despite the recent efforts of governments to redress the balance,
these disparities persist (Bugnicourt, 1971; Court & Kinyanjui, 1980;
Gould, 1972; Lampton, 1979; Plank, 1980; Sudaprasert, Tunsiri, & Chaiu,
1980).
Levels of enrollment may have varied widely, but almost everywhere the
demand for modern education and for its perceived rewards grew steadily.
Indeed in many cases this thirst for schooling, particularly for postprimary
education, exceeded the desires of the responsible authorities. By the end of
the 19th century British officials in India were complaining about an
overproduction of the highly educated, and between the wars similar
concerns were expressed about the situation in much of Southeast Asia, in
certain African colonies, and in Japan (Abernethy, 1969; Cummings, 1980;
Dore, 1976; Furnivall, 1943). But following World War II there was a switch
in official circles to a more expansive outlook. A general commitment to
social and economic development and numerous theories linking develop-
ment to schooling caused colonial authorities and the emerging states of the
Third World to promote educational expansion at all levels. Or, perhaps
more accurately, this commitment and these theories encouraged govern-
ments to take steps to satisfy the widespread and growing desire for
education that already existed among primary actors. This brings us to
themes relating to the world system hypothesis, a subject to which we now
return.
One variant of the world system hypothesis relates educational expansion

to an emerging consensus among national elites on the need for political
mobilization and economic growth and on the means of attaining these ends.
That there was a movement toward such a consensus after World War II is
beyond dispute. It may be assumed, too, that this movement was responsible
for much of the educational expansion that occurred. Through increasing
the availability and lowering the direct costs of schooling, and through
promoting and honoring an ideology favoring achievement over ascription,

many governments fostered and attempted to meet a popular desire for
modern education which had not existed before. But in many cases, as
suggested above, a widespread desire for schooling was already present.
And in many cases the desire initially stimulated by the policies of regimes
committed to national development, like that earlier stimulated by
missionaries and colonial authorities, soon reached levels that regimes were
unable or unwilling to satisfy (Blaug, Layard, & Woodhall, 1969;
Brownstein, 1972; Dore, 1976; Geertz, 1963). To understand why this
seemingly insatiable desire for modern education has developed, it is
necessary to shift our attention from the policies of corporate actors, the
subject of one variant of the world system hypothesis, to the motives of
primary actors, the subject of the other.
The second variant relates the growing popular desire for education
evident since World War II to the diffusion throughout the world of an
ideology of progress and of a belief in education as the agent of progress.
Like the first variant, it emphasizes the consequences for education of the
ideological currents that have come to characterize the modern world.
Within limits the argument is persuasive. Although members of traditional
societies may not have to be taught that progress is desirable (Bates, 1978;
Rutz, 1973), there obviously has been a rapid growth in the number
believing that progress in the form of upward social mobility is possible and
that investment in modern education is the most appropriate strategy. And
this trend can be traced, in part, to the diffusion of information concerning
the educational and occupational opportunities available, a process fostered
both by government policies and by the increasing numbers and visibility of
those who have profited from education (Bacchus, 1969; Bowman &
Anderson, 1980; Foner, 1973; Takei, Bock, & Warland, 1973; Tignor, 1976;
Weeks, 1977).
But in attempting to account for the world educational revolution it is also
necessary to consider the impact of another characteristic of the evolving
world system: economic integration (Chirot, 1977). For all developing
countries involvement in the world economy has led to expansion of the
modern or wage sector of the local economy and to growing specialization in
the production of raw materials for the market. One effect, like one effect of
industrialization in the West, has been to undermine the traditional
economy and the associated mode of status attainment, the intergenera-
tional transmission of occupations and roles (Hildermeier, 1979; Migdal,
1974; R61ing, 1970). But what options remain? For the children of peasants
and artisans some of the options once popular with their counterparts in the
West-migration to the new world, for instance, or upward mobility
through entrepreneurial activity-are usually either unavailable or unprom-
ising. Indeed, increasingly there is only one realistic option for those anxious
to escape the declining traditional sector: investment in schooling. Yet

schooling alone will rarely suffice. In most developing countries enrollments
have grown more rapidly than the economy and public employment, and as a
result the modern sector can absorb only a portion of the schooled. Faced
with this situation, a common response for primary actors is to enhance their
chances, and to raise the ante for others, by investing in more schooling. The
result is a credentialling race of the sort now evident in many countries at all
levels of development: students must go further and further for acceptable
rewards, pushing up enrollment levels as they go (Dore, 1976; Fields, 1972,
1974; Lewis, 1968). Seen from this perspective the expanding popular desire
for education evident everywhere since World War II should be attributed in
large measure to the progressive decline in the viability and status of the
traditional sector of local economies and to the inability of the modern sector
to meet the resulting demand for positions. The diffusion of information
concerning modern education and its benefits has certainly been an
important factor, but so has the decline in the costs of education and
particularly in one component of the costs, the value attached to foregone
opportunities.
Such an argument suggests that enrollment levels are strongly affected by
economic and social trends within countries and regions, but that the
relationship may be negative rather than positive. Accordingly, the
argument cannot be disproven by cross-national studies that find weak or
insignificant associations between educational expansion and indices of
economic and social change.
Where will it all end? Can educational expansion continue indefinitely?

Presumably there are upper limits, ceilings beyond which education cannot
expand in the absence of revolutionary changes in the environment. And
some western countries, including the United States, may be approaching
such limits. Recent declines in the rate of growth at the tertiary level suggest
as much, as do declining intergenerational differentials in average
educational attainment (Hauser & Featherman, 1976; UNESCO, Statistical
Yearbook, 1964-1980). But what about the developing countries? If their
governments had their way, the pace of educational expansion would
probably decline. Since the 1960s public officials have become less sanguine
about the social returns to education, particularly postprimary education,
and more concerned with conserving resources for other investments and
with reducing or forestalling an overproduction of the highly educated
(Dore, 1976; Psacharopoulos, 1980; World Bank, 1980). States that were
largely responsible for launching the world educational revolution now seem
intent on keeping the revolution within bounds. And occasionally they
succeed. Thus one-party regimes with a monopoly over education and over
public opinion, particularly the socialist regimes, are generally able to
regulate the rate of expansion. In most developing countries, however,
efforts to limit growth tend to be frustrated by the expansion of private
education or by political realities. When it comes to education, the
governments of all but the most closed societies are severely constrained by
the law of anticipated reactions: They find it difficult to reduce educational
expenditures or to curtail private schooling or to shift resources from costly
universities to the primary level when such policies are unacceptable to their
followers or seem likely to provoke disaffection among the apolitical (Jones,
1980; Kaztman, 1972; Orban, Blancpain, Marthy, & Meyrat, 1972; Rudolph
& Rudolph, 1972). Hence, future trends will depend largely on the desires of
primary actors. Beyond this prediction is difficult. About all that can be said
with confidence is that while the benefits of education for individuals may
now be declining, as the credentialing theorists contend, this need not result
in a declining popular demand for education. As always, one must consider
the alternatives.
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The Relationship Between Societal Changes and the Expansion of Education

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The Expansion of Education

Author(s): John E. Craig

The Expansion of Education

Why do children go to school? Why do they now spend more years in

I am grateful to C. Arnold Anderson, Robert Dreeben, Marie Thourson Jones, Carl F.

more informed than it is now by interdisciplinary collaboration and by

formal education or the demand for unskilled labor increase proportionate-

as the agent of progress. The result is a rapidly developing popular demand

framework that transcends and attempts to reconcile them. What follows

Education is a consumption good to the degree that those concerned

Seen from this perspective, what distinguishes most of the specific

societies those of relatively high status and educational attainment appear to

highly-social groups tend to be aggregations of families-and to have peers

particular interests. It must be recognized, however, that corporate actors

activities such as studying on one's own or apprenticeship or traveling

develop an approach to the analysis of educational expansion that can

education, the institutionalization of credentials, and the dissemination of

I. Educational Expansion in the West, 1500-1800

years of sporadic attendance were generally enough to acquire the

religion has received particular attention. The striking progress exhibited by

Although historians have usually stressed the role of corporate actors,

family-and on personal connections and patronage. This trend lowered the

offering instruction in mathematics, foreign languages, political economy,

II. Educational Expansion in the West, 1800 to the Present

Many contemporaries-employers, schoolmasters, bureaucrats, reform-

supplies, and appropriate clothing-could be prohibitive. Second, the

persuade religious organizations or philanthropists or the state to take steps

employment, and greater opportunities for intragenerational mobility,

emphasize the impact of industrialization and of the attendant economic and

The second argument emphasizes the impact of industrialization on

In most western countries the direct impact of compulsion appears, in the

particularly emerging professions, systematically raise their educational

In this regard a common approach, particularly in the 19th century, has

This approach has implications for the claim that there is an

Ill. Educational Expansion in the Developing Countries

Why? The most systematic attempt to answer this question, a study by

See note to Table I.

considered, educational expansion was not significantly related to the

Developments were similar in the few countries that maintained their

One variant of the world system hypothesis relates educational expansion

promoting and honoring an ideology favoring achievement over ascription,

to escape the declining traditional sector: investment in schooling. Yet

Where will it all end? Can educational expansion continue indefinitely?

Abernethy, D. The political dilemma of popular education: An African case.

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Briggs, J. W. An Italian passage: Immigrants to three American cities, 1890-1930.

Collins, R. Functional and conflict theories of educational stratification. American

D. N. Baker & P. J. Harrigan (Eds.), The making of Frenchmen: Current

civilization: Iran. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago,

Unterrichtsverwaltung von 1771-1800. Gdttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,

Kaestle, C. F., & Vinovskis, M. A. Education and social change in nineteenth-

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Maynes, M. J. The virtues of archaism: The political economy of schooling in

ROling, N. Adaptations in development: A conceptual guide for the study of

Welch, F. Education in production. Journal of Political Economy, 1970, 78, 35-59.

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