Sociology Essay

As you have seen from the readings and discussions, and most likely, your personal experiences, schooling has a profound effect on life chances and economic outcomes. In turn, educational experiences are often shaped by such factors as race, social class, ethnicity and gender in any national context and vary dramatically across the globe. In addition, family and socioeconomic backgrounds both affect academic achievement.

Sociologists examine both school and non-school factors to explain educational inequality and educational achievement gaps. School factors include curriculum and pedagogy, teacher quality, school funding, tracking and ability grouping, and other school and country-level factors. Non-school factors include poverty, community, family involvement, peer-group interactions, and health and environmental factors. Although some scholars stress school-factors and others emphasize the relative role of non-school factors, it appears that that the interaction of both sets of factors captures the conditions of inequality in education and explains differences in educational achievement among groups.   

For this final project, you will write an essay on education and inequality, focusing explicitly on the school and non-school factors and their interplay. The goal of this essay is to bring the theoretical and conceptual strands of a sociological investigation of education together in examining a particular instance in which the interdependencies of these factors are apparent to you, meaningful, and can be understood in terms of larger historical and social processes. As you write, keep your singular goal in mind – to showcase your new mastery of the material we covered in this class and to offer your thoughts on any particular aspect of inequality in education where these links and connections are evident to you. Your essay does not need to cover all aspects of inequality in education, of course, but rather should focus on a more narrow, specific instance or example of inequality in education.

Your final write-up should be at least 3 pages long (but there is no need to have more than 5 pages) and include a bibliography of at least 3 scholarly sources (from our reading list or beyond). I will expect this reflection paper to be well written, spellchecked and checked for grammar.

Make sure you include a bibliography for the sources you reviewed and cite. Please be very particular about attributing your sources – if you are using somebody else’s words in your essay, you have to give credit. All rules for plagiarism apply.

(I will upload some class information in case you want to review and have a point of view of the class)

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32
soCiology of eduCation

lawrenCe J. saha

Australian National University

T
he sociology of education is a core field within the
discipline of sociology; however, it is also consid-
ered a part of the discipline of education. This dual

existence is one of the unusual characteristics of the sociol-
ogy of education, and some say that one source of tension
is the difference between those who see the sociology of
education as a pure science and those who see it as an
applied field of study.

Within sociology, the sociology of education overlaps
with many other subfields, such as social stratification,
race and ethnicity, and religion. Because of the broad range
of topics within the sociology of education, there is hardly
a subfield in sociology in which it does not have something
to contribute.

This pervasiveness of the sociology of education is
reflected in the popularity and general state of the discipline.
In the International Sociological Association, the Research
Committee on the Sociology of Education is one of the larg-
est in terms of membership. Similarly, in the American
Sociological Association, the section on the sociology of
education is one of the largest. This pattern is reflected in
other national sociological associations such as Australia’s.
The sociology of education is also represented in various
professional education associations, including the American
Educational Research Association, where it is visible as a
special interest group. It is common for the subject to be
taught in one or both academic departments in universities.

The sociology of education is a rapidly growing disci-
pline in many countries. Reviews of the subdiscipline in

the English-speaking world have been reported for the
United States, Britain, South Africa, and Australia, and in
other countries such as Germany, Spain, the Netherlands,
and India. The sociology of education is a growing and
relevant subdiscipline in sociology in many countries, even
where it was once out of political favor.

Despite this popularity, the sociology of education has
sometimes struggled for recognition and prestige com-
pared to some other sociological subdisciplines, and some
suggest that this is because of its dual representation in
both sociology and education. For example, in the United
Kingdom, Young (2002) reports that during the 1980s and
1990s the sociology of education began to disappear from
university curricula, especially in departments of educa-
tion and teacher training. As Young observed:

It was in part a product of the specific location of the sociol-
ogy of education in the United Kingdom in university
education departments and was reflected in the tension
between the theoretical demands of the subdiscipline and the
practical demands of relating theories and findings to the
problems facing teachers in schools and classrooms. (Young,
2002, p. 564)

What then is the sociology of education, and why is it
so distinctive and important within sociology, and why is
it sometimes contested? In this chapter I examine the
sociology of education, its origins, its defining character-
istics, its dominant theories and methods, some of its

mkoraly
Text Box
saha, Lawrence J. “Sociology of Education.” 21st Century Education: A Reference Handbook. 2008. SAGE Publications. 19 Mar. 2011.

300 • sOCIAl COntExt

internal divisions, and some of the issues that are impor-
tant today.

What Is the Sociology of Education?

The sociology of education is the study of educational
structures, processes, and practices from a sociological
perspective. This means that the theories, methods, and the
appropriate sociological questions are used to better under-
stand the relationship between educational institutions and
society, both at the micro and macro levels.

The sociology of education is dominated by tension
between those who regard it as a science and those who see
it as an applied and policy-related discipline, and the ten-
sion is between the empirical and the normative, which is
between the study of education scientifically as it is and
the study of it in terms of what it ought to be. In the early
history of the sociology of education, this distinction was
sometimes reflected in the name used to describe the dis-
cipline. Those who saw the discipline as an objective
science used the label “sociology of education,” and those
who saw it in policy and reform terms used the label “edu-
cational sociology.”

This distinction is more than academic: it is reflected
in differences in how the sociology of education devel-
oped in universities in various countries, particularly the
United States and the United Kingdom. Apart from being
taught as another subfield in sociology departments, soci-
ology of education was taught in departments of education
for teacher training in the United States. Often it was
called “Social Foundations of Education” or some similar
title. In the United Kingdom, the sociology of education
early became identified with political arithmetic and
thrived in the use of surveys and statistical analyses to
learn how education was related to occupational attain-
ment and career mobility (Floud, Halsey, & Martin,
1957). Some have argued that the first use of the sociol-
ogy of education more closely reflected a Durkheimian
approach in which education was seen in functional terms
in the maintenance of social order, whereas the second
was more closely linked with the notion of social transfor-
mation as espoused by Karl Mannheim. To understand
this distinction, one needs to start at the beginning and
examine how education became intertwined in the early
beginnings of sociology itself.

The Early History of the
Sociology of Education

Modern sociology was born out of the Industrial Revo-
lution and the increasing awareness of radical shifts in
the social structure of society, in particular in Europe
and England. But it was during this period that education
as we know it was also expanding, so that in a way, in-
dustrialization and educational expansion went hand in

hand. Education did enter into the writings of the early
classical sociologists, although not always in well
thought-out forms.

Classical Origins

Karl Marx (1818–1883) never fully developed or inte-
grated education into his theory of capitalism and social
class. But he and Fredrick Engels did refer to education
frequently in their writings about the class struggle. They
advocated education for all, but they were primarily con-
cerned with the type of education that was given to the
children of the working classes and how this education
served the interests of the ruling class, the bourgeoisie, in
maintaining their social dominance. Although Marx did
not focus directly on education in his theory of society, his
ideas have formed the base of what later would become
known as neo-Marxist sociology of education. This per-
spective is very much related to forms of reproduction
theory, in which education is thought to serve as a mecha-
nism for reproducing the class structure of society, thereby
reproducing the privileges of the dominant class.

Max Weber (1864–1920) is not normally regarded for
his focus on education in his early sociological writings.
Nevertheless, his theory of social structure and the inter-
play between social class, social status, and power did
acknowledge the importance of the mechanisms through
which one social group could maintain its position in soci-
ety. Credentials that reflected the possession of knowledge
were one way in which individuals could make a legiti-
mate claim for membership in particular class, status, or
power groups. It follows implicitly that education, as a
mechanism for the development and transmission of
knowledge, is an important social institution in this strati-
fication process.

The notion of education as a source of knowledge and
its manifestation in educational credentials was also
important in Weber’s notion of bureaucracy and the
increasing rationality of society. Weber believed that Euro-
pean society was developing a new kind of organization as
forms of societal authority changed from traditional struc-
tures (for example, a monarchy) to rational structures (an
elected Parliament). He thought this shift permeated the
economic facets of society and particularly society’s pro-
ductive sectors. Industry and manufacturing gradually
shifted from domestic and cottage production to factory
production, and this required a new form of organizational
structure called “the bureaucracy,” or a type of hierarchical
authority structure based on rational and legal rules. For
Weber, the bureaucracy represented “the purest type of
legal authority,” and the concept has since become the
foundation for sociological studies of organizations in
modern society.

Weber’s ideas have had a major effect on studies of the
social organization of schools, and within them, the roles
of principal and teachers and the hierarchical relationships
between them. The study of teachers as professionals and

Sociology of Education • 301

of workers owes much to Weberian sociology. The study
of teacher burnout and teacher accountability in the present
trend toward high-stakes standardized testing is ultimately
rooted in Weberian principles of organizational sociology
and the sociology of bureaucracy.

The third, and perhaps the most important, of the clas-
sical sociologists who influenced the development of the
sociology of education was Emile Durkheim (1858–1917).
Durkheim held the chair of sociology at the Sorbonne in
Paris, where he taught future teachers. Over and above his
sociological writings, Durkheim wrote three works directly
related to education in which we find the foundation of
modern sociology of education: Education and Society
(1922), Moral Education (1925), and finally The Evolution
of Educational Thought: Lectures on the Formation and
Development of Secondary Education in France (1938).
These works are primarily the lectures for three of the
courses that Durkheim gave to students, but they were pre-
served and published and today form the basis of any
Durkheimian study of education.

Durkheim was a functionalist, which means that he was
interested in the role that various social institutions played
in society and in particular how they contribute to the
maintenance of social order. This idea was important to his
interest in and understanding of education. Durkheim
believed schools were the primary socialization agent for
the production of future adults. This is reflected in his
work on moral education, which places the development of
consensus and solidarity in society in the hands of the
school. Durkheim did not believe these functions of educa-
tion came about without conflict. Indeed, in his work The
Evolution of Educational Thought, Durkheim traces the
constant conflict between the church and state in France
over the control of education. He did not see this as a con-
flict between a particular religious or theological dogma
and the state, but rather as a conflict between the sacred
and the secular, which he regarded as “the germ of that
great struggle” (Durkheim, 1938/1977, p. 26).

Durkheim described education as a contested social
institution in society. On the one hand, education estab-
lished and maintained social consensus and solidarity
through its socializing function, but on the other hand, the
self-interest of individuals and groups requires the state
regulation of education. Durkheim insisted education was
responsible for the production of the ideal adult, yet he
also recognized that education was a profession for those
who participated in it. Many issues and areas of research in
contemporary sociology of education are embedded in a
Durkheimian understanding of education: the role of merit
in educational selection and attainments, the role of teach-
ers in schools, and the study of government and private
schools, to name but a few.

Other Classical sociologists

Other early social scientists recognized the importance
of education. Three worth noting are Herbert Spencer

(1820–1903), Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), and Karl
Mannheim (1893–1947). Although these social scientists
did not have the same effect on the development of the
sociology of education as did Marx, Weber, and Durkheim,
they nevertheless merit mention because of the specific
insights that each had about education.

Herbert Spencer was a contemporary of Marx, Weber,
and Durkheim, but is not normally considered one of soci-
ology’s founding fathers. As a British evolutionary
sociologist, Spencer is best known for his work First Prin-
ciples (1862), in which he put forward a social Darwinist
view of society. Like Durkheim, he was one of the few
early sociologists who wrote a separate work on education,
Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical (1861). He
believed that education should act like other social institu-
tions for the beneficial evolution of society. His work and
ideas, particularly those relating to laissez-faire govern-
ment policies, are relevant to issues such as school choice,
the drift in enrollments from government to private
schools, and the relationship between the vocational and
academic curricula (Peel, 1971).

Thorstein Veblen was an economist interested in the
behavior of social classes in industrial society. He argued
that education was a site where social class issues were
resolved and that working class children received an edu-
cation which prepared them for their place in society while
the leisure class children were prepared for a life of leisure.
In this respect, Veblen’s ideas resembled those of later neo-
Marxist thinkers concerning the function of education in a
class society. Veblen was also interested in large business
corporations, and he studied how American universities
were increasingly coming under the influence of big busi-
ness and were declining as institutions of liberal education
and intellectual curiosity.

Karl Mannheim, an immigrant to England from Ger-
many after the Nazis rose to power, is primarily known for
his work in the sociology of knowledge. His ambition was
to develop a sociological epistemology whereby the truth
of a statement could be explained in terms of the social
location of its author. Mannheim was also concerned with
the use of sociology for changing and transforming soci-
ety—to avoid the pitfalls of Nazism—and to create a
society based on rationalism and planned thinking. For
Mannheim, education was an essential part of this process:
“ . . . to educate the individual out of his dependence on
mass emotion . . .” (Coser, 1977, p. 440). Mannheim
believed that education could bring about an integrated
society with a common morality—almost the same type of
integrated society which Durkheim believed education
could produce. Mannheim’s lecture notes were posthu-
mously published and became one of the first systematic
books in the sociology of education (Mannheim & Stew-
art, 1969). His contribution to the sociology of education
was more applied than theoretical. Because he related edu-
cation to social planning and social reconstruction,
Mannheim frequently referenced Dewey in the United
States, whom he admired (Coser, 1977).

302 • sOCIAl COntExt

These three sociologists followed closely in the foot-
steps of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim and helped lay the
groundwork of modern sociology of education during the
classical period. Their legacy can be found in the wide
diversity of theoretical approaches and empirical work
undertaken by sociologists of education today.

Contemporary Theoretical Approaches

By the 1970s, the sociology of education was a main-
stream subfield within sociology but also was a contested
field, sometimes scorned by outsiders and also disputed
from within. Many disagreements within the sociology of
education were manifestations of disagreements within
sociology itself—the struggle between those who saw
sociology as a science and those who saw it more in inter-
pretive terms. In 1963 in the United States, the journal
Educational Sociology was taken over by the American
Sociological Association, and to emphasize the scientific
rather than normative character of the journal, its name
was changed to Sociology of Education.

Turner and Mitchell (1997) note that there are contem-
porary theoretical paradigms in the sociology of education
that are exact derivatives of the three classical theorists.
The functionalist theoretical perspective (derived from
Durkheim) was particularly popular during the 1960s and
1970s. It made macrolevel attempts to explain the function
of education in the maintenance of social order. Talcott
Parsons was a key functionalist who saw the school and its
classrooms as reflections of the social system; he also
described the university’s role in the maintenance of social
order. He and his colleague felt that universities carried
out four functions, namely (1) undergraduate training,
(2) research and graduate training, (3) professional schools,
and (4) relations between universities and the broader soci-
ety (Parsons & Platt, 1973).

The Marxist legacy in sociology of education today is
reflected in a number of theories that focus on education as
a site for class conflict. Although Marx said little about edu-
cation, neo-Marxists such as Louis Althusser and Antonio
Gramsci established the importance of education in their
interpretation of the dynamics of modern capitalism and the
class struggle. Althusser (1971) argued that the schools in
capitalist societies help preserve the position of the domi-
nant class by teaching the dominant ideology whereby
children learn to know and accept their place in society so
that there is no challenge to the class structure. In this
respect, schools are part of the ideological state apparatus
whereby the dominant class maintains its dominant position.
Where the dominant class has other state apparatuses at its
disposal, such as the police, the school represents a form of
symbolic violence through which the dominant ideology is
maintained and the relevant knowledge, skills, and material
relations to production are learned.

Antonio Gramsci focused his attention on the difference
in knowledge available to the dominant and subordinate

classes, and argued that the subordinate classes should
ensure that they obtain the same knowledge as the domi-
nant class. Only then, he thought, will the working classes
be in a position to improve their place in the class struc-
ture. In other words, the working class has to compete on
the same footing as the capitalist class if the class structure
is to be changed. The problem, as Gramsci saw it, is that
schools are controlled by those who control the dominant
ideology, and therefore the ideas of the ruling class become
the ideas taught in school.

Neo-Marxist ideas about education have played an
important part in the development of the sociology of edu-
cation since the 1960s. Many writers with this perspective
have proposed their own versions of how education is con-
trolled by the elite and how it helps to maintain elite status.
Some examples of these writers and their works are Car-
noy’s Education as Cultural Imperialism (1974), Apple’s
Ideology and Curriculum (1979), Giroux’s Ideology, Cul-
ture, and the Process of Schooling (1981), and Bourdieu
and Passeron’s Reproduction in Education, Society, and
Culture (1977). But the overdeterministic versions of
reproduction theories were challenged by some who
argued that through culture, some disadvantaged students
actively resist the kind of knowledge that could provide
them with opportunities of social mobility. Such was the
finding of Willis (1977) in his study of working class stu-
dents in an industrial British town.

Closely related to the neo-Marxist approaches are a
range of approaches that can be termed critical theory.
Beginning in Germany with the Frankfurt School, various
writers developed a perspective that regarded technology
and the bureaucracy of late capitalism as the dominating
force in society in ways difficult to recognize. They typi-
fied social life under capitalism with concepts such as the
totally administered society, one-dimensional man, and
communicative competence. This perspective applies to
education and other social institutions. Critical theorists
strive to both study and emancipate society from capitalist
oppression. They seek to unmask the intrusion of this form
of capitalism over social life, and therefore emancipate
individuals from their false beliefs. In education, critical
theory is relevant to the critical study of the curriculum
(and the hidden curriculum), educational administration,
and teacher education.

Not all conflict-oriented theories are derived from
Marxist origins. As noted earlier, Weber also saw educa-
tion as a source of credentials or legitimacy for claims to
status positions. Therefore, ownership or control over the
credentializing process constitutes a struggle or conflict
between different societal status groups. Weberian
approaches to the study of education are less likely to
focus on social class, the economy, and the class struggle.
Weberians tend to focus on the culture and lifestyles of
different status groups and on the competition over creden-
tials. Several classic examples of a Weberian approach are
Collins’ The Credential Society (1979) and Archer’s Social
Origins of Educational Systems (1979).

Sociology of Education • 303

Other Weberian-related approaches in the sociology of
education concern research on the bureaucratic structure of
education. This field of study is less easily classified as a
type of conflict theory, but it represents a link with Weber’s
writing. Recent work on aspects of education leadership,
teacher professionalism, teacher satisfaction, teacher burn-
out, teacher accountability, and teacher unions, insofar as
the studies take into consideration the bureaucratic struc-
ture of schooling, has Weberian origins.

The legacy of Durkheim in modern sociology of educa-
tion is best reflected in studies of how schools contribute
to the socialization of the young and how education con-
tributes to a range of life outcomes, especially occupational
attainment and social mobility. Durkheimian sociology of
education tends to be functionalist. Therefore, studies that
tend to take a positivistic approach to the study of educa-
tional processes, in particular those based on empirical
data and explicit or implicit causal assumptions, are linked
with forms of Durkheimian functionalism. Although soci-
ologists now recognize that Durkheim did not ignore the
presence of conflict in educational processes (Saha, 2001),
there are few studies that have analyzed educational pro-
cesses from his conflict perspective.

Contemporary sociology of education owes much to
the founding fathers of sociology. Even the contemporary
theoretical approaches are embedded in the foundation
theories of sociology. The influence of these early
“classical” sociologists remains influential in the disci-
pline today.

the Interactionist Perspective

The legacy of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim in the soci-
ology of education focuses on macrolevel processes, even
though the unit of analysis might be the individual. In
other words, both the functionalist and conflict paradigms
direct attention to the relationship between aspects of
social structures and the individual or groups. But there
has long been a strong microlevel tradition in the sociology
of education that focuses on the patterns of interaction in
educational processes. The most well-known of these per-
spectives is symbolic interaction theory, which focuses on
how the actions and interactions between people are the
result of the meanings that people attribute to objects and
to other people’s actions. In short, symbolic interactionists
take the view that in symbolic interaction theory, every-
thing from the self to the patterns of interaction between
individuals is the result of social processes.

The roots of symbolic interactionism are complex.
They embrace phenomenologist philosophers such as
Schutz and Husserl, but also some elements of the late
Durkheim and Mead (Turner & Mitchell, 1997). The term
symbolic interactionism was first used by Blumer (1969).
Symbolic interactionism has evolved into a number of
related perspectives, in particular the dramaturgical per-
spective Goffman described in The Presentation of Self in
Everyday Life (1959) and the ethnomethodological per-

spective, which Garfinkle developed in Studies in
Ethnomethodology (1967). The first of these focused on
how the individual managed the social self in the process
of interaction with others. The latter focused on the meth-
ods and social competence individuals use to construct
social reality. These theoretical perspectives have influ-
enced the understanding of interaction patterns between
individuals in schools, especially the interactions between
teacher and student, and student and student.

Interactionist theory also was important in the develop-
ment of role theory, a perspective which focuses on the
definition and perceptions of relevant roles that individuals
follow in their daily lives. In some cases, the roles are in
society, the result of social consensus. In other cases, roles
are constructed. Role theory continues to be an important
theoretical perspective that informs much of the way that
administrators, teachers, and students go about their every-
day duties (Biddle, 1997). In spite of some problems in
role theory, Biddle comments that “ . . . it is clear that the
role orientation continues to offer insights for educators
and a challenge for those who seek to understand what it
means to be a teacher in today’s world” (p. 515).

Emerging Perspectives for the 21st Century

The sociology of education is a dynamic field. Theory
and research methods are continually evolving, and new
perspectives have emerged that have little connection to
traditional approaches. Toward the end of the 20th century,
many attempts were made to evaluate the state of the soci-
ology of education. These attempts called for a break with
the past paradigms primarily because of the perceived
breaks in the nature of society itself.

Torres and Mitchell (1995) identified three departures
from the past that future research in the sociology of edu-
cation must take: (1) there must be a new epistemology
that differs from positivism and empiricism; (2) the sociol-
ogy of education must confront the dilemmas caused by
the break between modernism and postmodernism, and
structuralists and poststructuralists, and (3) the sociology
of education must resolve the challenges posed by these
new theoretical approaches for educational research. Torres
and Mitchell argue that today’s increasing unpredictabili-
ties render the previous notions of a scientific sociology of
education difficult to sustain. Their critique of the sociol-
ogy of education is actually a critique of sociology and
social science generally.

Torres and Mitchell argue that the scientific model of
linear and causal explanations cannot be sustained cur-
rently where behavioral events are more discontinuous and
discrete. Thus, traditional notions of objectivity can be
expected to give way to subjective approaches, which take
into account both the knower and the known in attempts to
understand a social world that is more complex and global
than previous paradigms have recognized. Torres and
Mitchell advocate a new sociology of education that incor-
porates topics hitherto neglected or unrecognized and that

304 • sOCIAl COntExt

focuses on creating an educational system that produces a
more democratic society free of prejudices and injustices.

Dale (2001) agrees that theoretical perspectives in the
sociology of education are not linear. He argues, however,
that the emergence of new theoretical perspectives is due
to what he calls “the selection principle,” namely through
the political and social contexts within which sociologists
of education operate. The evolution of theories in the sub-
discipline is not due to any kind of inner dynamic. The
sociology of education, unlike other subdisciplines in soci-
ology, is closely tied to the training of professionals (that
is, teachers). So, for Dale, political orientations toward the
education profession affect what sociologists of education
think and do. Therefore, every time there is an education
reform, there will be a comparable effect on the theoretical
orientations of sociologists of education, at least those
affiliated with teacher training faculties.

Similarly, Hallinan (2000) has argued that the sociology
of education lacks adequate education-related sociological
theory: “The heavy reliance of sociologists of education on
general social theory and on ideas and models from other
sociological subdisciplines to study schooling demon-
strates the greatest weakness in the area” (p. 3). Hallinan
contends that education-specific theories need to be devel-
oped if sociology of education is to progress beyond its
present state of knowledge. Her own volume reflects the
types of theoretical developments she has in mind, for
example a social-psychological theory of the social context
and social construction of schooling, a theory of the orga-
nizational context of schools, and a sociological theory of
race and ethnicity that would be relevant to research on
these issues in schools.

As the sociology of education enters the 21st century,
there is no single paradigm or theory that dominates the
subdiscipline. Some sociologists argue that a unique theory
still needs to be developed, and others appear content with
a plurality of general sociological theories. Various reasons
for this lack of consensus have been put forward. Two
explanations have merit. First, the subdiscipline includes
both a normative (applied) dimension and an objective
(scientific) dimension. Researchers within each group
have their own perceived appropriate theoretical perspec-
tives. Second, the social and cultural contexts within which
sociologists of education work have an effect on both the
relevant substantive issues and the appropriate methodolo-
gies. According to some, however, this diversity in the
sociology of education is precisely what gives the field its
vitality and promise.

Empirical Methods in the
Sociology of Education

Sociologists of education tend to use the full array of meth-
odological techniques, both quantitative and qualitative, in
their studies of education. Sociologists of education also
have contributed to the development of both research

methodologies, which have made important general contri-
butions to sociology.

LeCompte (1997) observed that the use of qualitative
research methodologies within the functionalist tradition
were very popular in the early to mid-20th century. These
studies used participant observation to provide a holistic
view of schools and their location in community systems,
like Hollingshead’s Elmstown’s Youth (1947) or an inter-
pretive perspective, such as Making the Grade (1968) by
Becker, Geer, and Hughes. These types of qualitative stud-
ies have continued and have adopted newer theoretical and
methodological approaches such as the postmodernist the-
ories and interpretive and narrative methodologies (Denzin,
1997). But LeCompte claims that the rapid development of
large-scale quantitative studies from the 1950s onward
dominated research in the sociology of education virtually
until the end of the century (LeCompte, 1997). She argues
that in the 21st century a newer qualitative tradition influ-
enced by critical theory has returned. There are many
labels for these new qualitative methodologies, from criti-
cal ethnography, where the researcher critically connects
data with both its source and subjects under study, to bio-
graphical and narrative approaches, where the focus is on
the subjects’ lived experience.

While advances were made in qualitative methods,
equal—if not more dramatic—developments in quan-
titative approaches were also made. Rapid improvements
in computer technology and sophisticated advancements
in statistical techniques facilitated these developments.
Hallinan (2000) claims that since the 1960s sociologists
of education have borrowed from econometrics and other
fields to develop linear models for studying educational
processes, and she points to the Coleman Report (Coleman
et al., 1966) as an important example of this development.
From this approach, many different strands of statistical
analysis emerged. Perhaps the most important of these is
the Wisconsin Model by Sewell and his colleagues
(Sewell & Hauser, 1980), which focused on the rela-
tionships between educational aspirations, grades, and
occupational attainments. This model has been replicated
around the world, in places such as Canada, Latin Amer-
ica, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, with surprisingly
similar results.

Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), another recent
development in statistical analysis, has revolutionized
research in the sociology of education and in sociology
generally. The study of students in schools has always
presented challenges for researchers because students are
members of classrooms, and classrooms are part of
schools. One could go further and note that schools exist
in neighborhoods which in turn are parts of cities.
Clearly, at each of these levels there could be some influ-
ence on schools, classrooms, and individual students.
Traditionally, researchers nested the variables at one
level, then used aggregate level values for the other levels
for each student. But the development of hierarchical lin-
ear models makes possible the analysis of each level

Sociology of Education • 305

separately and linked (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002). Thus,
the study of the multiple levels of analysis that affect
individual student academic achievement becomes more
powerful and precise.

Because of the unique nature of educational research,
various statistical techniques have been developed that
eventually were incorporated into the research repertoire
in the general sociological community. Researchers in
sociology of education have led the way in the advance-
ment of analytic techniques that continue to uncover new
levels of understanding of what goes on in schools (Saha
& Keeves, 2003).

The increasing availability of large longitudinal data
sets and large comparative data sets across countries has
also advanced quantitative research methods in the sociol-
ogy of education. Longitudinal data are of particular
importance to the study of educational processes “within
the black box of the school” (Schiller, 2002, p. 403). Lon-
gitudinal studies can be either trend studies, where the
same population is followed over time, or panel studies,
where individuals are followed over time. The latter is
more commonly used in sociology of education research
(Schiller, 2002). Longitudinal studies play an important
role in understanding the multiple factors that contribute to
educational outcomes. These studies of education have
been conducted in many countries by individual research-
ers and increasingly under government sponsorship. For
example, the advances made by the development of the
Wisconsin Model were based on longitudinal data. Between
1972 and 1996, the United States National Center for
Education Statistics (NCES) conducted five major
government-funded longitudinal studies, spanning stu-
dents from primary to tertiary education.

International organizations have increasingly supported
standardized questionnaire studies of school-aged youth
across countries. These large international data sets have
become popular among researchers who are interested in
one or several countries. Examples of these studies are
those of the International Association for the Evaluation of
Educational Achievement (IEA) and the Program for Inter-
national Student Assessment (PISA). These data sets have
not only made it possible to advance our knowledge in a
comparative context, but also have been responsible for the
development of methodological strategies for dealing with
cross-national analyses.

Some Research Themes in
the Sociology of Education

The sociology of education is characterized by a number
of dominant research themes. Often these themes are
driven by research interests and sometimes by practical
necessities. There are many areas in which sociologists of
education work, but only a select few will be discussed
here: gender, race and ethnicity, and teacher accountability
and burnout.

gender

Gender has not always been on the research agenda for
sociologists of education. Before 1970, studies of educa-
tional achievement and attainment were often based on
male-only samples, both in the United States and the
United Kingdom. Since then, because of the feminist
movement and educational expansion, more attention has
been given to the education of girls. The gender gap is a
persistent research theme. Early studies focused on male
dominance in academic achievement and in education
attainment, a pattern found across virtually all countries
for which data were available. But in many countries the
gender gap has been closing. In some countries, for exam-
ple Australia, girls have overtaken boys in retention and
attainment, and also in achievement in some subjects. The
reversal has been so dramatic that discussions now focus
on the “boy problem.” Researchers have put forth bio-
logical, structural, and socialization or child rearing
explanations for these gender differences.

race, Ethnicity, and minority group status

Sociologists have traditionally placed strong focus on
the effects of race and ethnicity on a wide range of social
and economic outcomes. In the United States, sociologists
are particularly interested in the educational attainments
of African American and the Hispanic populations. But in
general, similar attention has been given to all minority
groups, especially since movements of populations across
national boundaries have increased, both voluntarily and
nonvoluntarily. The study of racial and ethnic minorities
has included indigenous, migrant, and refugee popula-
tions. Sociologists of education in the United States,
Britain, Canada, and Australia have been particularly
active in this research. They have identified many factors
that work to the disadvantage of minority groups. Ogbu
(1992) argued that a strong core curriculum was one fac-
tor that affected the learning process of these minority
groups. Cultures of various racial and ethnic groups hold
differing expectations about education that may affect the
ways these students encounter a school system. Research
has also found that the attitudes and values of various
minorities affect educational attainment and achievement,
particularly where multiple attitudes conflict with each
other or attitudes conflict with the goals of the school
(Mikelson, 1990). This conflict can exist between the atti-
tudes and values of the home and the school.

teacher Accountability and Burnout

Sociological studies regarding the teacher fall into two
categories: the teacher as a professional and the teacher as
a worker. Studies of the teacher as professional have exam-
ined teacher recruitment, the decision to become a teacher,
and the professional careers and life cycles of teachers.
Willard Waller (1932) conducted perhaps the first classical

306 • sOCIAl COntExt

sociological study of teachers and teaching. A more recent
study, itself a classic, is Lortie’s Schoolteacher (1975),
which looked at teaching as an occupation.

Some researchers argue there is a division between
teaching as a profession and as an occupation, and that the
increasing structural constraints of accountability, salary
issues, and prestige have eroded its professional nature.
These pressures have produced stress and alienation,
resulting in increased teacher burnout. Often considered a
psychological phenomenon, burnout also has a sociologi-
cal dimension that seriously impedes teacher performance
and effectiveness (Dworkin, 1987).

How effective are teachers? To answer this question
researchers have conducted research in classrooms and
investigated topics like teaching styles, teacher interac-
tion with students, and teacher expectations, all of which
have an effect on student outcomes (Good & Brophy,
1997). How the expanding practice of high-stakes testing
is changing the roles of teachers is another recent
research topic. Valli and Buese (2007) found that the
passing of the Education Act of 2001 (No Child Left
Behind) has increased teacher workloads and account-
ability, deteriorated classroom pedagogy, lowered the
quality of teacher-student interaction, and increased
teacher stress.

Conclusion

The sociology of education, as a subdiscipline of both
education and sociology, has contributed much to the
understanding of educational processes. As a source of
information and training for future teachers, and as a
source of information for policy makers, it continues to
draw attention to the social context of what goes on in
schools. The tensions within the sociology of education
will no doubt continue, but the subdiscipline as a whole is
so eclectic and robust that this can only be a sign of its
strength. In either case, the sociology of education uniquely
focuses attention on the social context of educational
structures and processes, and its contribution will continue
to be invaluable for understanding and reforming educa-
tional systems, particularly as they change to accommodate
new social needs and new technologies.

References and Further Readings

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In L. Althusser (Ed.), Lenin and philosophy and other
essays. London: New Left Books.

Apple, M. (1979). Ideology and curriculum. Boston: Routledge
& Kegan Paul.

Archer, M. (1979). Social origins of educational systems.
London: Sage.

Becker, H. S., Geer, B., & Hughes, E. C. (1968). Making the
grade: The academic side of college life. Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press.

Biddle, B. J. (1997). Recent research on the role of the teacher. In
B. J. Biddle, T. L. Good, & I. F. Goodson (Eds.), International
Handbook of Teachers and Teaching (Vol. 1, pp. 499–520).
Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism—Perspective or
method. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. (1977). Reproduction in education,
society and culture. London: Sage.

Carnoy, M. (1974). Education as cultural imperialism. New
York: McKay.

Coleman, J. S., Campbell, E. Q., Hobson, C. J., McPartland, J.,
Wood, A. M., Weinfield, F. D., et al. (1966). Equality of
educational opportunity. Washington, DC: United States
Government Printing Office.

Collins, R. (1979). The credential society: An historical sociol-
ogy of education and stratification. New York: Academic
Press.

Coser, L. A. (1977). Masters of sociological thought: Ideas in
historical and social context. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, Inc.

Dale, R. (2001). Shaping the sociology of education over half-a-
century. In J. Demaine (Ed.), Sociology of education today.
London: Palgrave.

Denzin, N. K. (1997). Biographical research methods. In L. J.
Saha (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the sociology of
education (pp. 282–288). Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press.

Durkheim, E. (1922). Education and society (S. D. Fox, Trans.).
Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.

Durkheim, E. (1925). Moral education. A study in the theory and
application of the sociology of education (E. K. Wilson &
H. Schnurer, Trans.). New York: The Free Press.

Durkheim, E. (1977). The evolution of educational thought: Lec-
tures on the formation and development of secondary
education in France. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
(Original work published 1938)

Dworkin, A. G. (1987). Teacher burnout in the public schools:
Structural cause and consequences for children. Albany:
State University of New York Press.

Floud, J., Halsey, A. H., & Martin, F. (1957). Social class and
educational opportunity. London: Heinemann.

Garfinkle, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Giroux, H. A. (1981). Ideology, culture and the process of school-
ing. London: Falmer Press.

Goffman, I. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New
York: Doubleday.

Good, T. L., & Brophy, J. (1997). Looking in classrooms (7th
ed.). New York: Harper & Row.

Hallinan, M. T. (2000). Introduction: Sociology of education at
the threshold of the twentieth-first century. In M. T. Hallinan
(Ed.), Handbook of the sociology of education (pp. 1–12).
New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.

Hollingshead, A. B. (1947). Elmstown’s youth. New York:
Wiley.

LeCompte, M. D. (1997). Trends in qualitative research methods.
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Lortie, D. (1975). Schoolteacher. Chicago: University of Chicago
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Mikelson, R. A. (1990). The attitude-achievement paradox
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Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Schiller, K. (2002). Longitudinal studies: An introduction: Open-
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A. R. Sadovnik (Eds.), Education and sociology: An ency-
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longitudinal study of social and psychological factors in
aspirations and achievements (Vol. 1). Greenwich, CT: JAI
Press.

Spencer, H. (1862). First principles. London: John Childs and
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Spencer, H. (1949). Education: Intellectual, moral and physical.
New York: Hurst. (Original work published 1861)

Torres, C. A., & Mitchell, T. R. (1995). Introduction. In C. A.
Torres & T. R. Mitchell (Eds.), Sociology of education:
Emerging perspectives (pp. 1–18). Albany, NY: State Uni-
versity of New York Press.

Turner, J. H., & Mitchell, D. E. (1997). Contemporary sociologi-
cal theories of education. In L. J. Saha (Ed.), International
encyclopedia of the sociology of education (pp. 21–42).
Oxford, UK: Pergamon.

Valli, L., & Buese, D. (2007). The changing roles of teachers in
an era of high-stakes accountability. American Educational
Research Journal, 44(3), 519–558.

Waller, W. W. (1932). The sociology of teaching. New York:
Russell & Russell.

Willis, P. (1977). Learning to labour: How working class kids get
working class jobs. Aldershot, UK: Gower.

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D. L. Levinson, P. W. Cookson, & A. R. Sadovnik (Eds.),
Education and sociology (pp. 559–569). New York: Rout-
ledge Falmer.

Gender Inequality in Schooling:
The Case of Turkey

Bruce H. Rankin
Koç University

Işık A. Aytaç
Boǧaziçi University

Drawing on recent research on education in developing countries, this article examines gen-

der inequality in schooling in Turkey. Using a nationally representative sample of Turkish

youths, it assesses the effects of macrostructure, family resources, and cultural attitudes and

practices on primary and postprimary school attainment. The results show that while locality,

family resources, and family structure and culture influence the education of both genders,

girls’ chances of postprimary schooling are greater if they live in metropolitan areas and in less

patriarchal families. Birth-order comparisons indicate that older daughters are less likely to

complete postprimary schooling than are their younger sisters. Girls’ primary school attain-

ment is facilitated by having other family members who help with child care. The findings are

discussed in light of trends in Turkish society and their implications for future research.

Sociology of Education 2006, Vol. 79 (January): 25–43 25

I
t is generally accepted that the spread of
education is one of the most important fac-
tors in the social and economic develop-

ment of countries. Furthermore, there is
growing awareness that the education of
girls, in particular, has significant benefits for
developing countries. Educating girls boosts
family income and social status and leads to
women’s higher earnings and occupational
mobility. Health-related benefits include
greater fertility control and life expectancy
and lower levels of infant mortality. At the
societal level, the education of women
advances a number of important develop-
mental goals, including higher living stan-
dards, control of population growth, and
improvements in public health (for a review
of this literature, see Hill and King 1993).
Research has shown that the expansion of
education for girls in developing countries
has a stronger effect on long-term economic

prosperity than does the education of boys
(Benavot 1989).

Despite rising educational levels across
much of the developing world, gender
inequities in education persist (Benavot 1989;
Benavot and Riddle 1988; Filmer and
Pritchett 1999; Ghorayshi 1993; Meyer,
Ramirez, and Soysal 1992; UNESCO 2004;
Wils and Goujon 1998). In many developing
countries, girls are less likely to be literate or
to attend school than are boys. When they do
attend, they attain less than do boys at both
the primary and secondary levels. For exam-
ple, ratios of female–male primary school
enrollment are the lowest in Sub-Saharan
Africa and southern and western Asia (.86,
.84, and .89, respectively), and the gender
gap is higher at the secondary level (.79, .77,
and .79) (UNESCO 2004). International
development agencies now agree that gen-
der inequality in educational attainment is a

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26 Rankin and Aytaç

major obstacle to social progress in develop-
ing countries (UNICEF 1994; United Nations
Development Program, UNDP, 1995). In
short, understanding gender inequality in
education has significant implications not
only for girls and their families, but for society
as a whole.

The expansion of a secular, Western-ori-
ented mass educational system has been cen-
tral to the modernization efforts of the Turkish
state. Mandatory primary schooling was
established by the mid-1920s, and education-
al reform included a commitment to the edu-
cation of women, a progressive goal that
places Turkey well ahead of other developing
countries.1 Despite long-term governmental
support for mass education, many children in
Turkey do not attend any school, and others
drop out without finishing primary school
(Gök 1999; Özbay 1981; Tunalı 1996; Ünal
and Özsoy 1998) and large gender differ-
ences in educational outcomes are observed
(Aytaç and Rankin 2004; Gök 1999;
Kağıt çıbaşı 1999; Özbay 1981).

Researchers have proposed various expla-
nations for the gender gap in education in
Turkey. However, for the most part, studies
have used small-scale and nonrepresentative
samples or aggregate census data, which pre-
clude individual-level multivariate analysis
(see, e.g., Hortaçsu 1995; Özbay 1981). To
our knowledge, only three quantitative studies
using nationally representative data have been
conducted (Aytaç and Rankin 2004; Tansel
2002; Tunalı 1996). Furthermore, with one
exception (see Aytaç and Rankin 2004), no
quantitative studies have included cultural
attitudes and practices that are often linked to
gender differences in educational attainment,
particularly in Muslim societies. Thus, past
research is of limited value in assessing the rel-
ative importance of alternative explanations.

In this article, we examine the reasons
behind the differential school attainment of
boys and girls in Turkey using a nationally
representative sample of 15 to 19 year olds.
In light of the history of educational expan-
sion in Turkey, we expect that school attain-
ment processes will differ by level of school-
ing. Using the completion of five years of
mandatory primary schooling as our compar-
ison category, we assess the factors that pre-

dict when sons and daughters do not com-
plete primary school and when they go
beyond it.2 Our theoretical framework draws
on the literature on education in developing
countries, highlighting the effects of
macrostructure, family resources, and cultural
beliefs and attitudes on children’s education.
The findings have important implications for
addressing the problem of gender education-
al inequality in a country where, despite sub-
stantial progress, a considerable gender gap
remains.

EDUCATION IN DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES

Much of the work on educational attainment
has built on Blau and Duncan’s (1967) pio-
neering study of social mobility showing the
impact of fathers’ occupation and education
on their sons’ attainment. Some studies have
sought to extend this research to include the
social-psychological factors that mediate
parental characteristics (Sewell and Hauser
1975), while others have highlighted struc-
tural forces, especially economic forces, that
shape the attainment process (Baron and
Bielby 1980; Horan 1978; Jencks et al. 1979).
The lack of structural factors in earlier
research on status attainment has been cited
as one reason for the relative inability of con-
ventional status attainment models to explain
female attainment (England 1992).

As the comparative basis of stratification
research has broadened, there is a growing
recognition that cultural and institutional
variables are needed to account for divergent
cross-national outcomes (Blossfeld and Shavit
1993). The need to incorporate these factors
is most evident in the diversity of social con-
texts that are found in the developing world,
where educational attainment is shaped by
the interrelated effects of national and global
macrostructures, local communities, schools,
and families (for a recent review of this litera-
ture, see Buchmann and Hannum 2001).
With the exception of school-level factors, for
which we have no data, we adopt a similar
conceptual approach, highlighting potential
sources of gender educational inequality.

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Gender Inequality in Schooling in Turkey 27

Macrostructural Factors

In most societies, the state plays a central role
in the education of citizens. Not only does the
state determine the amount and distribution
of educational resources, but through a range
of policies, it controls who gets educated and
how much education they get (Fuller and
Rubinson 1992). The state shapes the educa-
tional attainment of children most directly
through laws that govern compulsory school-
ing. However, structural weaknesses in many
less developed countries often result in an
inadequate supply of education, poor-quality
schools, and regional disparities (Fuller 1991).
For example, the lack of secondary schools in
many developing countries (including
Turkey) contributes to high drop-out rates at
the end of primary school (Filmer and
Pritchett 1999). The state can promote gen-
der educational equality by mandating uni-
versal schooling, reducing the cost of educa-
tion, and promoting new norms regarding
female education (Fuller and Liang 1999).
However, even in countries with long histories
of mandatory schooling for all children, the
education of women lags if other policies that
are designed to improve gender equity are
not implemented (El-Sanabary 1993; Hill and
King 1993).

Economic structure also influences educa-
tional attainment. Education expands with
industrialization and urbanization as changes
in the occupational structure increase the skill
content of jobs and the returns to education.
While the growth of urban, nonmanual work
typically increases the demand for education
(Blossfeld and Shavit 1993; Treiman 1970),
how such macrostructural changes affect the
status of women is the subject of some
debate. According to modernization theo-
rists, institutional and cultural changes that
are associated with development lead to
greater gender equality (Inkeles and Smith
1974; Wilensky 1968). Others have pointed
to a new global division of labor that limits
job opportunities for women, often relegat-
ing them to unskilled and low-paying jobs in
the informal sector. Restricted employment
opportunities for women in developing coun-
tries discourage parents from investing in
their daughters’ education (Buchmann 2000;

Clark 1992; El-Sanabary 1993; Hill and King
1993; Hyde 1993; Michelson, Nkomo, and
Smith 2001).

The spread of modern political culture also
helps explain the expansion of education in
the Third World. World institutional theorists
have highlighted the global convergence
around Western educational systems that are
thought to be functional to the needs of the
modern state (Meyer and Hannan 1979;
Meyer et al. 1992). Such global cultural
imperatives force developing countries to
adopt Western educational systems to signify
membership in the modern world (Fuller
1991). As far as gender is concerned, the ide-
ology of formal schooling helps construct
new female identities by legitimating new pri-
vate and public roles for women (Ramirez and
Weiss 1979). The diffusion of new gender
identities is aided by international institutions
and organizations that support the rights of
women (Boli and Thomas 1997; Schafer
1999).

Family Factors

One of the most consistent findings related to
educational attainment in the developing
world is the effect of family factors. Family
decisions about the education of children—
and the gendered nature of these decisions—
are strongly influenced by family structure,
economic circumstances, and cultural prefer-
ences regarding education. Most studies have
shown that family socioeconomic status, as
measured by financial assets and parental
education, promotes the education of chil-
dren (Buchmann 2000; Fuller and Liang
1999; Lloyd and Blanc 1996; Wolfe and
Behrman 1984).

Whether family resources are sufficient to
provide for the education of children depends
on family size and composition. The number,
age, gender, and birth order of children influ-
ence educational outcomes (for a review, see
Steelman et al. 2002). Large families must
stretch resources—both material and nonmate-
rial—across more children, thus reducing the
overall amount of schooling that children
receive (Powell and Steelman 1990).
Commonly referred to as the problem of
resource dilution, the negative effect of sibsize

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28 Rankin and Aytaç

has been replicated in several studies of devel-
oping countries, and outcomes have often var-
ied by the age and gender of children. Sibsize
effects are sometimes stronger for older chil-
dren (Parrish and Willis 1993), and, in the case
of Sub-Saharan Africa and Muslim countries of
North Africa and the Middle East, the education
of girls is affected more than is the education of
boys (El-Sanabary 1993; Lloyd and Blanc
1996). Growing up in a large family can be
especially disadvantageous for older sisters
(Greenhalgh 1985; Lloyd and Gage-Brandon
1994).

A common family practice in developing
countries is the selective education of chil-
dren—some go to school, while others stay
home to help with household duties or go
out to earn money. Thus, it is important to
understand how family circumstances and
work obligations that compete with school-
ing affect the educational attainment of boys
and girls. Although the demand on children’s
time is especially heavy in rural agricultural
households because of the extensive use of
child labor in that sector (Wood, Swan, and
Wood 1986), the urban informal sector of
many developing economies includes a sub-
stantial number of children (UNICEF 1997).
Children are often required to perform a vari-
ety of time-consuming tasks in the home
(e.g., taking care of younger siblings, helping
to prepare food, and performing other house-
hold duties) that interfere with schooling (Hill
and King 1993).

Whether children are allocated to market
or household work also depends on a family’s
social resources. Extended family arrange-
ments are still common in developing coun-
tries, particularly among rural households.
Research on the Middle East and North Africa
has shown that the education of children,
especially daughters, is higher when elderly
family members are available to help with
domestic responsibilities (El-Sanabary 1993).
Similarly, two other African studies found that
the effects of sibsize on schooling are lower
when extended families are the norm
(Buchmann 2000; Lloyd and Blanc 1996).

Where boys and girls face different social
expectations related to household or market
responsibilities, families’ educational decision
making takes on a strong gender bias.

Cultural attitudes and beliefs that privilege
males over females are associated with wide
gender disparities in educational attainment.
This is especially the case in South Asia, the
Middle East, and North Africa, where tradi-
tional gender attitudes toward work and fam-
ily discourage investment in the education of
daughters (Csapo 1981; El-Sanabary 1993;
Knodel and Jones 1996; Wils and Goujon
1998). The educational and occupational
aspirations of girls are stifled by socialization
that enshrines duty to marriage and family as
the most important female virtue. In addition,
the undereducation of girls is most evident
where patriarchal attitudes are reinforced by
religious beliefs. To many religious families in
Islamic societies, schools pose a threat to the
safety and modesty of their daughters and
thus to family honor. Furthermore, exposure
to modern secular curricula is thought to
undermine traditional values. A common
response is to withhold daughters from
school. The link between Islam and low
female education has been supported by sev-
eral studies (Csapo 1981; Finn, Dulberg, and
Reis 1979; Ghorayshi 1993; Marshall 1985).

BACKGROUND ON TURKEY

Both the role of the state in the moderniza-
tion of Turkish society and the influence of
global (i.e., Western) political culture are cen-
tral to understanding the development of
education and the rights of women in Turkish
society. Prior to the establishment of the
Turkish Republic in 1923, the Ottoman
Empire was ruled by Islamic law that institu-
tionalized sex segregation and the unequal
legal treatment of men and women. The
majority of the population received only reli-
gious education, if any (Çağ ı r ıcı 1992). In
the 1920s, the new republic adopted the
Swiss Civil Code and became the first secular
Muslim country. A series of reforms were insti-
tuted to modernize Turkey using the more
developed Western societies as their model
(Bozdoğan and Kasaba 1997; Türkdoğan
1992).

Some of the most important reforms were
those related to education. Free mass public
education was viewed by the political elites as

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Gender Inequality in Schooling in Turkey 29

a means of transforming a largely agrarian
society that was ruled by Ottoman tradition-
alism into a modern and secular industrial
nation-state. Access to education until that
time had been restricted to the urban elite,
and the Turkish state sought to expand edu-
cation to the lower social classes and to the
small towns and villages of the Turkish hinter-
land. Significantly, the reforms required all
children, including girls, to attend primary
school.

Gender equality in education was an
explicit objective in the state’s social agenda,
and Mustafa Kemal, the charismatic founder
of the Turkish Republic and its first president,
frequently spoke in support of women’s
rights, including women’s right to education
(Arat 1989). Other reforms included equal
rights for women and men in divorce and
inheritance and, in 1934, the right of women
to vote in national elections. While the
reforms are generally viewed as having a pos-
itive effect on women’s lives, educated
women from urban backgrounds were the
primary beneficiaries (Erman 1998;
Kağıt çıbaşı 1995).

The state has made great strides in achiev-
ing its educational goals. In 1935, only 14
percent of villages had schools, whereas by
the 1980s, all villages had primary schools
(Özbay 1985). The literacy rates for both
sexes increased significantly from 1935 to
1990— from 30 percent to 90 percent for
men and from 10 percent to 71 percent for
women (State Institute of Statistics, SIS,
1993a). In 1990, 95 percent of school-aged
boys attended primary school, compared to
89 percent of school-aged girls, illustrating
that despite compulsory schooling laws, a
nontrivial number of children, mostly girls,
were not enrolled in primary school.
Moreover, the gender gap was larger in post-
primary education, where fewer than two
females were enrolled for every three males.
At the junior high school level, 35 percent of
school-aged females and 56 percent of males
were enrolled. At the high school level, 29
percent of females and 45 percent of males
and, at the higher education level, 6 percent
of females and 9 percent of males were
enrolled in 1990 (SIS 2005).

Educational expansion was less successful

in those areas where governmental resources
were scarce or reforms were resisted (Özbay
1981; Şahin and Gülmez 2000b; Topses
1999). The slow pace of construction of vil-
lage schools hampered education in rural
areas (Winter 1984), and as late as the 1980s,
many villages had no middle or high school
(Özbay 1985). Educational levels are also
lower in the less developed eastern and
southeastern regions of Turkey, particularly
for girls (Şahin and Gülmez 2000a; Tansel
2002; Tunalı 1996). In these regions, under-
development overlaps with ethnicity. This is
where the largest concentration of Kurdish
Turks resides, a group that is ethnically and
linguistically distinct from the rest of the
Turkish population. The long-term state poli-
cy of suppressing Kurdish cultural identity
and the imposition of martial law in the
1980s disrupted the education of Kurdish
children and continues to fuel the Kurds’ sus-
picion of the Turkish educational system
(Şahin and Gülmez 2000b). Research has
shown that the Kurds are disadvantaged in
comparison to the rest of the population on
virtually all socioeconomic variables, includ-
ing education (İçduygu, Romano, and Sirkeci
1999).

Several of the family-level factors cited ear-
lier have been linked to Turkish educational
attainment and gender inequality.
Conventional status attainment variables,
such as parental socioeconomic status, as
measured by household income and parental
education, are important determinants of
children’s education (Tansel 2002; Tunalı
1996). Children from large families get less
education and are more likely to be engaged
in market work (Tunalı 1996). Compositional
effects have also been reported. Having
younger siblings at home reduces school
attendance, especially for girls who may be
needed to care for younger siblings
(Eyüboğ lu, Özar, and Tanrıöver 2000).

The use of child labor in the household is a
common feature among Turkish families.
Children of peasant farming families are often
expected to work in the fields, which inter-
feres with their schooling and lowers their
attainment. The organization of work in the
rural economy also contributes to gender
inequality in schooling because many rural

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30 Rankin and Aytaç

women work as agricultural laborers, often as
unpaid family workers.3 Thus, the daughters
of farming families have lower attendance,
are more frequently absent, and ultimately
attain less education than do boys. On the
other hand, boys often follow in the occupa-
tional footsteps of their fathers. When fathers
are self-employed, there is a ready job oppor-
tunity for sons, who can begin supplement-
ing their families’ incomes and are often
taken out of school early to begin to work
(Tansel 2002).

Most children, however, contribute to the
household economy by freeing up the time of
adult family members, rather than through
direct participation in market work, and the
responsibility for household activities falls
more heavily on daughters than on sons
(Tunalı 1996). Although the employment of
mothers may bring in additional household
resources for children’s schooling, it can also
hinder the schooling of older children, espe-
cially of daughters, when help with child care
is needed (Eyüboğ lu et al. 2000). The obliga-
tion to help with housework and child care is
especially burdensome for girls in rural fami-
lies (Özbay 1995). However, when there is
child care assistance or help with other
household tasks from other relatives (typically
grandmothers), as is common in Turkey and
other parts of the Muslim world, the educa-
tional attainment of children is higher (El-
Sanabary 1993; Özbay 1995). Strong inter-
generational norms of reciprocity in Turkish
culture, the persistence of extended families
in rural areas, and familial residential proxim-
ity facilitate these child care arrangements. In
urban areas, where the extended family is less
common, 70 percent of adults either coreside
with or live near elderly family members
(Aytaç 1998).

Cultural beliefs and practices, especially
those related to gender, also play a role in
educational outcomes in Turkey. Turkish soci-
ety is often described as patriarchal with a
rigid gender-based division of labor (Arat
1989; Bolak 1997; Erman 2001; Kandiyoti
1988). Signs of traditional patriarchal beliefs
are evident in a variety of cultural practices—
the head covering worn by women, arranged
marriages, bride-price, physical segregation
of the sexes within the household, and the

preference for sons (Atalay et al. 1993;
Kağıt çıbaşı 1995; Kandiyoti 1977; Timur
1972). Commonly held beliefs reinforce the
centrality of the roles of wife and mother for
females, which are assumed to require little
education beyond basic literacy, while males
assume the role of breadwinner and, as the
head of the household, the protector of fam-
ily honor (Erman 2002). This division of labor
is enshrined in the popular proverb “Kız evde,
oğ lan işte” (“Girl at home, boy at work”). The
ideology of patriarchy is an obstacle to the
construction of female identities other than
wife a nd mother (Özyeğin 2001) and is cited
as one reason for the limited impact of legal
reforms that are designed to improve the sta-
tus of women (Kağıt çıbaşı 1995).

Research has also suggested that the cul-
ture of patriarchy is buttressed by conserva-
tive interpretations of Islam. According to
Toprak (1995), the subjugation of women
under Islam prevented the full implementa-
tion of women’s rights enshrined in the legal
code, including equal access to education.
Similarly, women are marginalized in Turkish
labor markets partly because of the Islamic
disapproval of women’s paid work (Ecevit
1995), which discourages investment in the
education of girls. For some parents, secular
education is an anathema to deeply held reli-
gious beliefs which corrupts the virtue of chil-
dren, especially daughters. While some stud-
ies have highlighted the growing diversity of
discourse on gender in the Turkish Islamic
community (Göle 1998), these claims are
consistent with research that has linked con-
servative Islamic ideology with low female
education in other Muslim countries (Csapo
1981; Finn et al. 1979; Ghorayshi 1993;
Marshall 1985).

Considering the dearth of quantitative
studies on educational attainment in Turkey,
the present study provides an opportunity to
assess the relative importance of macrostruc-
tural and family-level factors and structural
versus cultural explanations. A key unan-
swered question is whether family cultural
factors help account for gender differences in
education once structural characteristics
(e.g., region, urbanization, and socioeco-
nomic status) are controlled. Buchmann
(2000) discounted the role of culture, arguing

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Gender Inequality in Schooling in Turkey 31

that educational inequalities in less developed
countries are rooted in perceptions of educa-
tional returns and household resources, rather
than patriarchal norms. Given state support
for universal primary schooling, we expect
that family structural and cultural characteris-
tics will be more important for explaining
which children go beyond the compulsory
primary level. Although the data we analyzed
were collected in 1988, they are the only data
we are aware of that are both nationally rep-
resentative and contain rich information on
family cultural beliefs, attitudes, and prac-
tices. Our findings provide a benchmark for
future research.

RESEARCH METHODS

Data and Sample

The data we use include a household survey
and government provincial-level censuses.
The household data are from the Turkish
Family Structure Survey (TFSS), conducted by
the Turkish Government Planning Office and
the SIS in 1988. The sample is nationally rep-
resentative of all households and contains
18,210 households—12,065 from urban
areas and 6,145 from rural areas, which are
defined as areas with a population of fewer
than 20,000. The TFSS is well suited for this
research because it includes extensive mea-
sures of the characteristics of the household,
the household head, and spouse, as well as
background information on all resident
household members who were aged 12 and
older.

At the time of the survey, the mandatory
level of primary schooling in Turkey was five
years. Students usually attended primary
school from ages 7 to 11 and junior high
school from ages 12 to 14. Occasionally, chil-
dren repeated a grade or started school a year
late. Therefore, we restricted our sample to
children aged 15–19, an age group that
should have finished junior high school. Since
the representativeness of the 7 percent of the
households that are female headed is
unknown and the number of nonschooled
children in these households is too small for
multivariate analysis, our research was limited

to households with male heads. The resulting
sample size was 8,032 and is composed of
children aged 15–19 who resided with both
parents.

Data on the provincial labor force and the
availability of schools for 1985 were taken
from a variety of state statistical sources (dis-
cussed later). These data were matched to the
household file on the basis of the respon-
dent’s province of residence at the time of the
survey.

Dependent Variable

School attainment is a categorical variable
consisting of three groups: less than primary
school (illiterate or had not attended school),
completion of primary school, and comple-
tion of junior high school or higher. Primary
school is the comparison category.

Independent Variables

Macrostructural Factors For region, we
used indicator variables to identify the five
regions of Turkey, ranging from the most
developed to the least developed: west,
south, central, north, and east. The eastern
region was the comparison category; it is the
least developed region of Turkey and home to
the largest concentration of Turks of Kurdish
ethnicity.4

With regard to urbanization, we used two
dummy variables to contrast residence in
rural areas with residence in metropolitan and
other urban areas. The first indicates resi-
dence in one of the three large metropolitan
areas in Turkey (Istanbul, Ankara, and İ zmir).
The second indicates residence in nonmetro-
politan urban areas, defined as areas with an
urban population of more than 20,000. Rural
location was the comparison group.

For labor market conditions, we used two
provincial-level measures to assess the struc-
ture of local labor markets and the demand
for female workers in 1985 (SIS 1993b). The
first is the percentage of employed persons in
agriculture. The second assesses gender dif-
ferences in employment rates and was mea-
sured as the ratio of males to females for all
employed persons; higher scores represent a
greater male bias in employment. For school

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32 Rankin and Aytaç

availability, we used the number of junior
high schools in each province per 1,000
junior high school-aged population in 1985
(SIS 1987a, 1987b).

Family Resources and Structure For moth-
er’s and father’s education, we measured each
parent’s education with an indicator that
identifies those who had junior high school or
higher education. We measured household
income using the natural logarithm of net
monthly household income in Turkish lira.
Farming household is a dummy variable that
was coded 1 if the father’s occupation
involved some form of agricultural produc-
tion.

Father’s employment status is a set of
dummy variables that assess four work status-
es—not working, worker (wage or salaried),
self-employed, and employer. The compari-
son group is worker. The education of chil-
dren, particularly sons, may be reduced when
fathers are self-employed or employers
because of early entry into work.

Mother’s employment status was coded 1 if
the mother was employed (worked for pay or
in exchange for something else). The small
number of employed mothers (19 percent)
prevented the use of the more detailed mea-
sures that were used for father’s employment
status.

Home production indicates whether the
family earned income from home production,
a situation that may involve help from chil-
dren and may compete with schooling.

With regard to child care help, if child care
help was performed by persons other than
the mother or father, the variable was coded
1. Other categories included grandparents,
close relatives, and nannies or day care cen-
ters. The survey did not allow us to identify
whether siblings helped with child care.

For household composition, we used four
measures to capture the effects of household
age and gender composition. Since the sur-
vey did not identify the age of siblings
younger than 12, we constructed two mea-
sures of the total number of children younger
than age 12 for each sex in the household.
We also included measures of the number of
males and females over age 12.

With regard to the eldest resident son or

daughter, in view of research suggesting that
older daughters are particularly disadvan-
taged in Turkish families (Eyüboğlu et al.
2000), we included a variable indicating
whether the respondent was the eldest of his
or her gender residing in the household.

Family Cultural Beliefs and Practices All
the family cultural variables were reported by
the fathers, since these questions were asked
only of the household heads.

Household sex segregation limits interaction
between nonfamily members of the opposite
sex. Households in which males and females
sit in different rooms when there are guests
were coded 1.

With regard to gender attitudes and beliefs
of the father, we measured traditional gender
ideology using the father’s attitudes toward
women’s work, coded 1 if the father believed
that women should only work in the home,
shop for the family needs, or work in the gar-
den or field. The variable preference for sons
indicates the father’s gender preferences if
the parents were to have only one child,
coded 1 for a preference for a son and 0 if the
father had no preference or if he preferred a
girl. The third measure, bride-price, was
coded 1 if the father believed that families
should receive a bride-price as a condition for
a daughter’s marriage.

Educational decision-making power taps into
male authority in the family and was coded 1
if the father was solely responsible for decid-
ing how much education the children should
receive beyond primary school and 0 other-
wise (decision made only by the mother or
jointly with the mother, the child, or another
family member).

Attitudes may also be influenced by expo-
sure to nonlocal culture through the mass
media. We used an indicator for whether the
respondents read newspapers regularly
(coded 1 if yes).

The models were estimated controlling for
father’s age and child’s age (measured in
years). In the analyses that follow, we used
sampling weights to adjust for disproportion-
ate sampling between urban and rural areas.
Because of the presence of multiple children
in the same household, we used robust vari-
ance estimation to calculate standard errors.

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Gender Inequality in Schooling in Turkey 33

The multivariate analysis is based on multin-
omial logit models that were estimated sepa-
rately for males and females. A pooled model
that includes all gender interaction terms
was used to test for significant gender differ-
ences in the effects of the independent vari-
ables.

FINDINGS

Table 1 presents the means and standard
deviations for the variables that were in the
analysis. The figures for the dependent vari-
able show that at the time of the survey, few
15 to 19 year olds (5 percent) had received
less than the mandatory primary schooling.
The largest proportion (51 percent) termi-
nated their education at the primary level,
while the remainder continued on through
junior high school or above (44 percent). In
comparison, only 7.3 percent of the mothers
and 17.3 percent of the fathers had junior
high school or more education. The inter-
generational comparisons highlight the suc-
cess of the state efforts to expand education
but also show the relatively low level of edu-
cation in the society at the time of the sur-
vey.

The figures also show the prevalence of
traditional cultural practices and gender-role
attitudes. Thirty-five percent of the fathers
reported that physical sex segregation was
practiced at home, 54 percent believed that
women are best suited for household domes-
tic duties and should not work for pay outside
the home, and 38 percent expressed a pref-
erence for sons. The payment of a bride-price
was expected by 9 percent of the fathers.
Male authority in the family is evident in that
over a third of the fathers (37 percent) report-
ed that they were solely responsible for deci-
sions regarding their children’s education.

Table 2 shows the breakdown of schooling
and educational attainment by gender. While
2.8 percent of the boys aged 15 to 19 did not
attend or finish primary school, the figure for
girls is 2.6 times that for the boys (7.3%).
About 55 percent of the girls were primary
school graduates, and 38 percent were grad-
uates of junior high school or higher, com-
pared to 48 percent of the boys who were

graduates of primary school and 49 percent
who were graduates of junior high school or
higher. In short, the girls were less likely to
attend primary school, and when they did,
they were less likely to go beyond primary
schooling.

An analysis of the pooled sample of boys
and girls shows that net of all independent
variables, girls were 3.2 times more likely than
boys to have no schooling and about half as
likely to finish junior high school (tables avail-
able on request). To help explain the large
gender differences obtained in the pooled
model, we compared the results of multino-
mial logit analyses that were performed on
separate male and female subsamples.

Several macrostructural factors influence
the educational attainment process. Where
children live matters for their education. First,
the eastern region (the comparison group) is
clearly different from the rest of the country.
The relative risk ratio (rrr) figures indicate that
the risk of nonschooling is between one-quar-
ter and one-half for girls who live in any
region other than the east in comparison to
those who reside in the east (rrr range =
.227–.508) (see Table 3). This finding is not
surprising, given the problems of underdevel-
opment, ethnic suppression, and political
conflict that have plagued the region.

As for higher levels of attainment, some of
the regional effects contradict our hypothe-
ses. Residing in the east increases the chances
of postprimary schooling, with the exception
of males who reside in the north. Others have
found similar results and have speculated that
the more developed regions have more job
opportunities for young people, perhaps in
the informal sector, that cause them to leave
school earlier. This may be particularly true for
the children of poor migrant families who live
in the shanty towns of Turkey’s cities
(Eyüboğ lu et al. 2000; Tansel 2002; Tunalı
1996). Thus, at the aggregate level, girls liv-
ing in the east are disadvantaged, but gender
differences in the effects of region on school-
ing are not significant when associated struc-
tural and family-level factors are controlled.

Turning to the level of urbanization, rural
youths are as likely as are urban or metropol-
itan youths to attain a primary school educa-
tion. However, when it comes to going

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34 Rankin and Aytaç

Table 1. Characteristics of the Sample: Weighted Means and Standard Deviations

Characteristic Mean SD

Children’s Schoolinga
Less than primary school .050
Primary school (reference category) .514
Junior high school and higher .436

Macrostructural Characteristics
West .308
Central .246
North .115
South .141
East (reference category) .190
Metro .181
Urban .317
Rural (reference category) .502
% Agriculture 53.277 22.476
Employed male/female ratio 2.195 1.121
Junior high school/1000 junior high school-aged population 1.316 .496

Family Resources and Structure
Father’s age (in years) 48.512 8.070
Father junior high school graduate (1 = yes) .173
Mother junior high school graduate (1 = yes) .073
Household income (in Turkish lira)b 298,623.000 381,421.000
Farming household (1 = yes) .284
Father not working .173
Father employer .032
Father self-employed .459
Father worker (reference category) .336
Mother employed (1 = yes) .191
Home production (1 = yes) .036
Child care help (1 = yes) .059
Number of males < 12 years old .668 1.024 Number of females < 12 years old .639 1.038 Number of males aged 12 and older 2.542 1.125 Number of females aged 12 and older 2.394 1.078 Child’s age (in years)a 16.879 1.357 Oldest son/daughter in household (1= yes)a .599

Cultural Beliefs and Practices
Sex segregation (1= yes) .345
Traditional gender ideology (1= yes) .538
Preference for sons (1= yes) .378
Bride-price (1= yes) .094
Read newspaper (1= yes) .229
Child’s education decided by the father (1 = yes) .370

a Children’s characteristics are based on the full sample (N = 8,032); other figures are based
on a nonduplicate household sample (N = 5,495).

b At the time of the survey, the exchange rate for $1 was approximately 850 Turkish lira.

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Gender Inequality in Schooling in Turkey 35

beyond primary school, metropolitan resi-
dence is highly beneficial for girls. Living in a
metropolitan area increases girls’ chances of
secondary education by nearly 2.3 (rrr =
2.258) times over that of living in a rural area.
Rural residence has no effect on the postpri-
mary education of boys, and the gender dif-
ferences are statistically significant.

Neither of our two measures of the
demand for female workers had any effect on
educational attainment. In contrast, the role
of the state in educational attainment is evi-
dent in that provinces with more junior high
schools per school-aged population also had
more primary and postprimary school gradu-
ates.

The expected effects of family socioeco-
nomic status, reported in many status attain-
ment studies, are confirmed in our results.
Parental education is associated with higher
attainment for both genders. Mothers’ edu-
cation matters more than does fathers’ edu-
cation when it comes to the chance of attain-
ing primary schooling. Both girls and boys
have virtually no chance of going unschooled
when their mothers have a junior high school
or higher education. Children of parents with
a postprimary education are 3 to 4.6 times
more likely to complete junior high school or
high school.5 Boys from higher-income fami-
lies appear to be less likely to go unschooled.
Gender differences in the effects of parental
education and income, however, are not sig-
nificant.

Two occupational variables are related to
educational attainment. First, both boys’ and
girls’ junior high school and higher educa-
tional attainment are lower in farming fami-

lies (rrr = .491 and .386, respectively). This
finding fits a pattern that is common to
Turkey, where children are expected to help
with agricultural production. However, resid-
ing in a farming household does not interfere
with primary schooling. Second, we expected
that when fathers are self-employed, mothers
work, or the household is involved in home
production, such family income-producing
activities would compete with children’s
schooling. These hypotheses are generally
not supported. As Eyüboğlu et al. (2000)
noted, the likelihood of advancing beyond
primary school is significantly lower for girls
whose mothers are employed (rrr = .738), but
neither the effect on boys nor the tests for
gender differences are significant. One family
resource measure that is related to gender dif-
ferences is help with child care. When child
care is done by someone other than the par-
ents, the risk that daughters will not finish pri-
mary school is less than half (rrr = .415), an
effect that is statistically different from that for
sons.6

The results for the effects of family size and
structure are consistent with the resource
dilution thesis. The chances of postprimary
education for both genders are lower with
more siblings under age 12 and for girls when
older males are present in the household.
Having more females over age 12 in the
household increases the risk of nonschooling
for boys, but has no effect on girls’ education.
Tests for gender differences in the effects of
these variables are not significant.

Gender inequality in schooling is, however,
seen in the gendered effects of birth order.
The hypothesis that the household’s eldest

Table 2. Percentage of School Attainment, by Gendera

School Attainment % Boys % Girls

Less than primary school 2.78 7.34

Primary school 48.18 54.71

Junior high school and higher 49.05 37.96

N (unweighted) 4,158 3,874

a Figures are weighted.

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36 Rankin and Aytaç

Table 3. Weighted Multinomial Logistic Models of Male and Female School Attainmenta

Full Model

Males Females

< Primary > Junior High < Primary > Junior High
(versus (versus (versus (versus

Variable Primary) Primary) Primary) Primary)

Macrostructure
West .570 .409*** .376* .359***
Central .350 .639* .349* .464***
North .663 .710 .227** .443***
South .577 .501*** .508* .630*
Urban 1.202 .994 1.013 1.321*
Metro .352 1.150 .361 2.258***
% Agriculture 1.008 1.003 1.011 .983
Employed male/female ratio 1.418 1.108 1.282 .783
Junior high school/1,000 population .510 1.449*** .414** 1.819***

Family Resources and Structure
Father’s age .997 1.004 1.026* 1.006
Father junior high school graduate .857 4.591*** .682 3.829***
Mother junior high school graduate .000*** 3.878*** .000*** 2.926***
Log household income .732* 1.046 .797 1.095
Farming household .680 .491*** 1.189 .386***
Father not working 1.296 .798 1.109 1.032
Father employer 2.124 1.585 .855 1.111
Father self-employed 1.096 1.018 1.308 1.219
Mother employed 1.372 .841 1.234 .738*
Home production 1.111 .964 .416 .856
Child care help 1.547 1.219 .415* .968
Number of males < 12 years old 1.053 .891** 1.232** .840* Number of females < 12 years old .988 .796*** 1.124 .768*** Number of males aged 12 and older 1.163 .949 1.027 .857** Number of females aged 12 and older 1.198* 1.031 .999 .891 Child’s age 1.022 1.070* 1.080 1.145*** Oldest son/daughter in household 1.041 1.037 1.124 .748*

Cultural Beliefs and Practices
Household sex segregation 1.210 .987 1.127 .612***
Traditional gender ideology 1.128 .768** 1.110 .495***
Preference for sons .888 .985 .818 .812
Bride-price 1.563 .673* 2.092*** .772
Read newspaper .815 1.761*** .709 1.790***
Education decided by the father 1.329 .823* 1.350 .663***

F (64, 5436) 573.60*** 227.43***

N (unweighted) 4,158 3,874

Note: The comparison category is primary school attainment. Figures are relative risk ratios,
adjusted for household clustering.

* p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001 (two-tailed tests). a Coefficients in bold face indicate statistically significant gender differences (p < .05).

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Gender Inequality in Schooling in Turkey 37

daughter will be educationally disadvantaged
is supported. Although being the eldest has
no effect on sons, the likelihood of the eldest
daughter being a junior high or high school
graduate is about three-quarters of the likeli-
hood of her younger siblings (rrr = .748).

Finally, cultural attitudes and practices
have a strong influence on the education of
children, independent of macrostructural and
other family-level factors. The practice of sex
segregation and the father’s beliefs in confin-
ing women to the domestic sphere strongly
depress the chances of girls completing junior
high school (rrr = .612 and .495, respective-
ly). To a lesser degree, traditional gender ide-
ology also reduces the educational attain-
ment of boys, but gender differences are sta-
tistically significant. Similarly, the likelihood of
attaining a postprimary education is lower for
both sexes when fathers are the sole decision
makers regarding children’s education and
higher when fathers regularly read a newspa-
per. Although the gender differences are not
significant, postprimary school attainment for
boys is also lower when fathers say that fami-
lies should receive a bride-price when daugh-
ters marry.

In general, the results show that cultural
effects on attainment and gender inequality
are seen mainly at the postprimary level.
Traditional cultural attitudes and practices do
not influence state-mandated primary school-
ing, with one exception: Daughters are twice
as likely to have no schooling when fathers
expect a bride-price to be paid for their
daughters. Gender differences, however, are
not statistically significant.

DISCUSSION

This article has shed new light on the educa-
tional attainment process and the reasons
behind the gender gap in schooling in Turkey.
On the basis of our reading of the history of
Turkish mass education and the findings of
earlier educational research, we anticipated
that the factors that are associated with
attaining compulsory primary schooling
would be different than those that are associ-
ated with attaining postprimary schooling.
Our results confirm that attainment processes

and the factors that contribute to gender
inequality differ by level of schooling. Overall,
the macrostructural and cultural factors do
not help predict gender differences in non-
schooling. This finding is consistent with the
effective enforcement of the state’s policy of
universal primary education for both boys
and girls, such that even rural residence and
traditional gender ideology and practices,
both associated with gender inequality in
postprimary schooling, do not prevent girls
from finishing primary school. As such, the
1997 law that increased mandatory schooling
from five to eight years bodes well for raising
educational attainment and reducing gender
inequality over the long run. Once enough
children have reached an age when they
should have completed the eight years of
mandatory schooling, it will be important to
replicate the present study with this new
cohort.

One of the most important factors in
explaining gender differences at the
macrostructural level is the level of urbaniza-
tion. For girls, residence in an urban area
increases the likelihood of postprimary educa-
tion. In that regard, as the country becomes
increasingly urbanized, the educational gen-
der gap should shrink. This finding has sever-
al plausible explanations: better labor market
opportunities for educated women in urban
areas, the greater availability of schools in
urban areas, and urban social norms that
encourage the education of daughters. More
research is needed to determine which factors
are important, particularly in light of the fact
that the urban advantage accrues mainly to
metropolitan residents. Future research
should incorporate measures of local commu-
nity characteristics. One limitation of our
provincial-level labor market measures is that
they do not take into account structural vari-
ation within provinces that influences educa-
tional supply and demand.

Family resources, especially parental edu-
cation, are important determinants of educa-
tion for both boys and girls. Similar to Tunalı’s
(1996) finding, maternal education in Turkey
seems to be more important in determining
who gets a primary school education, while
the educational levels of both parents con-
tribute to postprimary schooling. Although

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38 Rankin and Aytaç

we found no gender differences in the effects
of parental education, help with child care
promotes the schooling of girls, probably by
freeing them from child care and other
household responsibilities. Research on the
Middle East and North Africa produced simi-
lar findings (El-Sanabary 1993).

Regarding family structure, large sibsize,
which can deplete family resources and put
more pressure on children to contribute to
the household, reduces postprimary school-
ing for both sons and daughters. Since the
effects are due mainly to the presence of
younger siblings, the finding suggests that
being at the top of the birth order is disad-
vantageous. Indeed, our results show that the
eldest daughters, but not the eldest sons, are
less likely to go on to secondary school than
are younger siblings of the same gender. This
finding confirms the research on Turkey, as
well as on other societies, showing that eldest
daughters are often saddled with household
and child care responsibilities (Eyüboğlu et al.
2000; Greenhalgh 1985; Lloyd and Gage-
Brandon 1994).

As one of the only empirical studies to
assess the effects of culture on schooling in
Turkey, our results show that a major barrier
to gender equality in Turkish education is
how patriarchal family beliefs and practices
discourage the education of girls. Daughters
who live in households that practice sex seg-
regation or whose fathers espouse traditional
gender views are much less likely to go
beyond primary school. The fact that the cul-
tural effects are independent of our family
background and macrostructural variables
highlights the importance of including cultur-
al factors in studies of educational attain-
ment. The claim that educational inequalities
in the less developed world are driven more
by parents’ evaluation of educational returns
and constraints on household resources,
rather than on patriarchal norms (see
Buchmann 2000), did not prove true in
Turkey, where the role of patriarchal culture
may be more typical of that of the broader
region of North Africa and the Middle East
(El-Sanabary 1993).

One interesting finding of our study was
that traditional gender attitudes that are
assumed to benefit sons also inhibit the post-

primary schooling of boys. One possible
explanation is that patriarchal gender atti-
tudes and practices may signal a more gener-
al ambivalence toward public education. The
state’s modern and secular curriculum may be
seen as a threat to traditional culture, eroding
traditional family values and patriarchal con-
trol over children. The education of sons can
undermine family well-being if it increases the
chances that sons will migrate away from the
family in search of economic opportunity.
Why patriarchy should lower the educational
attainment of sons is a matter for further
study.

New research is needed to determine
whether the constellation of factors that were
reported in this study continue to affect gen-
der inequality in schooling. Regarding the
role of cultural factors, trends in Turkish soci-
ety and their effects on educational outcomes
need to be reassessed. Our results highlight
the need for greater efforts by the state and
civil society organizations to change percep-
tions of women’s roles and to remove the
remaining barriers to women’s advancement
in society. This process is being helped by the
European Union’s application process, since
membership in the European Union is condi-
tioned on improving the status of Turkish
women, and by international nongovern-
mental organizations that support new cul-
tural and social norms that benefit women
(Schafer 1999). In addition, as in other parts
of the Muslim world, Islam is resurgent in
Turkey, and its implications for the status of
women are not well understood. Earlier
research that linked Islam to female subordi-
nation (Toprak 1995) is contrasted with
recent research that has highlighted the
diversity of Islamic discourse on gender,
including the articulation of a feminist per-
spective (Göle 1998) and claims that a com-
mitment to Islam can empower women
(Erman 2001). As such, the relationship
between Islam and female education may be
highly contingent. However, to the extent
that this cultural trend promotes a religiously
based ideology that reinforces traditional
gender roles, gender equity in education will
be more difficult to achieve.

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Gender Inequality in Schooling in Turkey 39

NOTES

1. The term developing country typically
refers to low-income countries with limited
industrialization. In 1990, two years after data
for the present study were collected, Turkey’s
per capita income was only $1,350, an
amount that put it at 98 among the 175
countries that were ranked (Central
Intelligence Agency 1990). UNDP (1995) cat-
egorizes Turkey as a developing country, as
do cross-national studies published in acade-
mic journals (see, e.g., Marshall 1985).

2. In 1997, the Turkish government
increased the number of years of mandatory
schooling to eight years, adding three years
of junior high school.

3. The vast majority of employed women
work in agriculture. In 1985, only 12 percent
of all employed women worked in nonagri-
cultural jobs (Ecevit 1995).

4. At the time the data were collected,
governmental surveys did not ask questions
about language or ethnic background, nor
were accurate provincial estimates of the
Kurdish population available. Although we
controlled for some of the characteristics that
are associated with Kurdish ethnicity (e.g.,
region and socioeconomic status), the lack of
this information means that we are unable to
assess how being Kurdish or living in a pre-
dominately Kurdish area affects children’s
educational outcomes.

5. A postanalysis test of statistical differ-
ences in parental educational effects was sig-
nificant for both boys’ and girls’ primary
schooling, but not for their postprimary
schooling. The results are available on
request.

6. We replicated the multivariate models
using unweighted data. The results are simi-
lar with two exceptions. In the unweighted
model, child care assistance had no effect on
the female risk of not finishing primary
school. In addition, girls with more females
older than 12 years old in the household were
less likely to go beyond primary school, and
gender differences were statistically signifi-
cant. Tables are available on request.

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—-. 1997. The State of the World’s Children 1997.
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Wilensky, Harold L. 1968. “Women’s Work:
Economic Growth, Ideology, and Structure.”
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Wils, Annababette, and Anne Goujon. 1998.
“Diffusion in Education in Six World Regions,
1960–90.” Population and Development Review
24:357–68.

Winter, Michael. 1984. “The Modernization of
Education in Kemalist Turkey.” Pp. 183–94 in
Atatürk and the Modernization of Turkey, edited
by Jacob M. Landau. Boulder, CO: Westview
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Wolfe, Barbara L., and Jere R. Behrman. 1984.
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Gender Inequality in Schooling in Turkey 43

Bruce H. Rankin, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Koç University, Istanbul,
Turkey. His main fields of interest are educational sociology, sociology of youth, urban poverty, and
stratification. His current work is on educational gender inequality, the social impacts of economic
crises, and welfare reform and family well-being.

Işık A. Aytaç, Ph.D., is Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul,
Turkey. Her main fields of interest are stratification, work and family, and aging. She is currently
studying the impact of the Turkish economic crisis on work and family life.

We thank the Turkish Government Planning Office and the State Institute of Statistics for providing
the data on which this article was based. An earlier version of this article was presented at the
annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, August 16, 2004. Address
all correspondence to Bruce Rankin, Department of Sociology, Koç University, Rumeli Feneri Yolu,
Sar›yer, Istanbul, 34450 Turkey; e-mail: brankin@ku.edu.tr.

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ANRV388-AN38-03 ARI 21 April 2009 17:25

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Social Reproduction in
Classrooms and Schools
James Collins
Department of Anthropology, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany,
New York 12222; email: Collins@albany.edu

Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2009. 38:33–48

The Annual Review of Anthropology is online at
anthro.annualreviews.org

This article’s doi:
10.1146/annurev.anthro.37.081407.085242

Copyright c© 2009 by Annual Reviews.
All rights reserved

0084-6570/09/1021-0033$20.00

Key Words

language, social class, social inequality, education, ethnographies,
multilevel analysis

Abstract
Social reproduction theory argues that schools are not institutions of
equal opportunity but mechanisms for perpetuating social inequalities.
This review discusses the emergence and development of social repro-
duction analyses of education and examines three main perspectives on
reproduction: economic, cultural, and linguistic. Reproduction analy-
ses emerged in the 1960s and were largely abandoned by the 1990s;
some of the conceptual and political reasons for this turning away are
addressed. New approaches stress concepts such as agency, identity,
person, and voice over the structural constraints of political economy
or code, but results have been mixed. Despite theoretical and method-
ological advances—including new approaches to multilevel analysis and
alertness to temporal processes—the difficult problem remains to un-
derstand how social inequality results from the interplay of classrooms,
schools, and the wider society.

33

Review in Advance first posted online
on June 12, 2009. (Minor changes may
still occur before final publication
online and in print.)

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INTRODUCTION

Concern with the processes whereby societies
and cultures perpetuate themselves has an an-
cient pedigree, traceable back to Aristotle’s
(1959) analysis of the domestic economy in
political orders. Researchers have suggested
that scholastic institutions were important sites
of cultural reproduction in classical Greece
(Lloyd 1990), imperial Rome (Guillory 1993),
medieval Europe (Bloch 1961), and modern
France (Durkheim 1977). Overt concern with
social reproduction is, however, a product of
post–World War II social dynamics, especially
the political and intellectual ferment of the
1960s. It is a product of concern with inequal-
ity. As a framework of inquiry, it draws from
diverse disciplines but is typically rooted in dia-
logue with Marxist traditions of social analysis.

Early studies of social reproduction in edu-
cation emerged in the 1960s and 1970s in the
United States, Britain, and France. Founda-
tional works include Bowles & Gintis’s (1976)
Schooling in Capitalist America (United States),
Willis’s (1977) Learning to Labor (Britain), and
Bourdieu & Passeron’s (1977) Reproduction in
Education, Culture, and Society (France). Al-
though these works differed in regard to the-
orization, scope of analysis, and methodology,
each attempted to trace links between economic
structures, schooling experience, and modes of
consciousness and cultural activity. Their anal-
yses responded to debates concerning central
contradictions of these postwar societies. In
each country, public education was officially un-
derstood and presented as a meritocratic insti-
tution in which talent and effort alone predicted
outcomes, but by the post–World War II period
considerable evidence indicated otherwise (e.g.,
Coleman 1966, Jencks 1972).

The basic reproductionist argument was
that schools were not exceptional institutions
promoting equality of opportunity; instead they
reinforced the inequalities of social structure
and cultural order found in a given country.
How they were understood to do so depended
on the theoretical perspective of analysts, the
sites they prioritized for study, and a varying

emphasis on top-down structural determina-
tion versus bottom-up agency by individuals
or small groups. Early research on educational
reproduction provided structuralist accounts,
identifying systematic features of language, cul-
ture, and political economy, which were re-
flected in the conduct and organization of class-
rooms and curricula and assigned a causal role
in perpetuating linguistic, cultural, and eco-
nomic inequalities (Bernstein 1975, Bourdieu
& Passeron 1977, Bowles & Gintis 1976). The
economic perspective on reproduction (Bowles
& Gintis 1976) attracted criticism for its treat-
ment of culture as secondary to economics
and politics. “Cultural reproduction” analyses,
when they emerged, often attempted to in-
tegrate class analyses with analysis of race or
gender formation and to investigate the social
practices of small groups. An early, influential
and highly controversial argument about class
and education focused on the role of language
(Bernstein 1960, 1964). It was quickly taken up
for criticism and exploration by sociolinguistic
and anthropological researchers in the United
States but with an emphasis on ethnicity and
culture and a focus on situated communication,
especially in classrooms (Cazden et al. 1972).

Although the reproductive thesis is simple
to state in academic terms, it has been and
continues to be quite unpalatable to many of
those who work in schools or educational sys-
tems more generally (Rothstein 2004). This
is probably because it presents a direct chal-
lenge to meritocratic assumptions and seems
to dash egalitarian aspirations. Early arguments
and analyses of reproduction were also of their
era, the 1960s and early 1970s, when economic
and social stability seemed more secure than it
has in recent decades. They were also formu-
lated with a structuralist intellectual confidence
that has not survived the intervening decades
of reflexive, postmodern uncertainty (Bauman
1997). By the early 1990s, there was a turning
away from arguments about social reproduction
and education, whether focused on economic,
cultural, or linguistic dimensions. This is puz-
zling in some respects because the problem of

34 Collins

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inequality remains a central feature of the con-
temporary world, within nations and on a global
scale (Henwood 2003; Stiglitz 2002), and the
centrality of straightforward economic factors
in school performance appears little changed
over more than 40 years (Coleman 1966, U.S.
Dep Educ. 2001).

This review surveys studies developing eco-
nomic, cultural, and linguistic perspectives on
social reproduction in classrooms and schools.
After examining work using each lens, it then
discusses why the reproduction framework was
largely abandoned, exploring the conceptual
and political dilemmas that seem to have moti-
vated the turn to new approaches and assessing
the achievements and limitations of subsequent
efforts. Last, it takes up the question of “What
now?,” arguing that the issue of social repro-
duction in education and society remains highly
relevant but that its study requires new concep-
tual tools as well as a reworking of old find-
ings and insights. Two central theses inform the
overall argument. The first is that to understand
social reproduction we have to consider multi-
ple levels of social and institutional structure as
well as microanalytic communicative processes
and cultural practices. The second is that social
class matters profoundly but that analysts strug-
gle to understand its protean nature, including
its intricate interplay with other principles of
inequality, such as race and gender.

ECONOMIC REPRODUCTION

Althusser’s (1971) essay on “Ideological State
Apparatuses” was an early and influential argu-
ment about education and social reproduction.
It conceptualized the school as an agency of
class domination, achieving its effects through
ideological practices that inculcated knowledge
and dispositions in class-differentiated social
subjects, preparing them for their dominant
or dominated places in the economy and
society. The foundational work on economic
reproduction, however, was Schooling in
Capitalist America (Bowles & Gintis 1976).
In this account, classroom experience, and
school knowledge more generally, emphasized

discrete bits of knowledge and discipline
for those bound for blue-collar occupations,
alongside more synthetic, analytic knowledge
and self-directedness for those destined for
middle-class professions. It provided a straight-
forward argument in which school curricula
and classroom procedure reflected the organi-
zation of class-differentiated adult dispositions,
skills, and work experiences and transmitted
similar dispositions and skills to subsequent
generations. The argument quickly attracted
criticism, in part because it maintained consid-
erable distance conceptually and empirically
from actual schools and classrooms (Giroux
1983). However, the basic thesis that schooling
as a system rations kinds of knowledge to class-
and ethnically-stratified student populations
has been empirically confirmed by a number
of studies (Anyon 1981, 1997; Carnoy & Levin
1985; Oakes 1985). Published in translation at
about the same time, Reproduction in Education,
Culture and Society (Bourdieu & Passeron 1977)
dealt with France. It provided a more nuanced
analysis, both in its framework, which related
forms of symbolic value (economic, cultural,
and social “forms of capital”) to economic and
political arenas, and in its attention to forms
of pedagogic discourse, which hypothesized
systemic miscommunication in classrooms
(1977, Chapter 2). It also attracted many critics
of its “determinism” (Giroux 1983, Levinson
& Holland 1996) because it argued that
class-based differences in material resources
were ultimate causes in the reproduction of
cultural and educational inequality.

According to critics, a primary deficiency
in all the early formulations was their neglect
of the problem of agency and change (Giroux
1983, MacLeod 1987). Instructive criticism
in this regard is provided by Apple (1982). As
does Schooling in Capitalist America, this work
takes as its starting point that certain shared
principles govern the organization of schooling
and work. It argues that in essence schooling
is organized to provide individuated, technical
knowledge to select strata of consumer-workers
(largely white, middle class, and compliant).
The abstract and schematic treatment of

www.annualreviews.org • Social Reproduction and Schools 35

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social dynamics and the education process is
enriched, however, by Apple’s argument that
“cultures and ideologies” are “filled with con-
tradiction” and “produced . . . in contestation
and struggle.” (pp. 24, 26). In support of this
argument, Apple turns to sociological case
studies and educational ethnographies. The
first of these address adults in work situations
and show, for example, male factory workers
and female salespeople as they slow down,
disrupt, and otherwise exert informal control
over work processes. Such studies document
how class-situated practices of resistance
subvert the formal procedures and control
mechanisms of the workplace bureaucracy (see
also Scott 1998, pp. 310–11).

The ethnographic studies Apple discusses
focus on class conflicts in society and in re-
lation to school. One of these, Willis’s Learn-
ing to Labor (1977), is a classic because of
its detailed observation of peer group behav-
ior and its provocative theorization of cultural
agency and reproduction. The study examines
how working-class English lads penetrate the
school’s meritocratic ideology. Through peer
group solidarities analogous to their fathers’
shop-floor tactics for controlling the flow of
factory work, they disrupt classroom procedure
with humor and aggression, ubiquitously call-
ing into question the classroom social contract
whereby compliance is exchanged for knowl-
edge and grades. They celebrate masculine sol-
idarity and power through partying, fighting,
and “having a laff”; they also oppress girls, de-
ride ethnoracial minorities, and fail in school.
Another study is McRobbie’s (1978) “Working
Class Girls and the Culture of Femininity.” It is
an ethnographic analysis of both class and sexu-
ality, theorized as structures of domination that
are lived as partially autonomous cultural for-
mations, zones of practice and meaning wherein
working-class girls assert femininity and sexual-
ity against the prudish compliance expected of
good girls in school. Like their working-class
mothers, these girls form bonds of self and soli-
darity through gender expression, but they also
disengage from schooling and its prospects of

social mobility and enact self-limiting rituals of
sexual subordination.

In these two studies, rather than reproduc-
tive processes that involve congruence across
multiple levels of organizations and actors (e.g.,
by parents, teachers, and education bureaucra-
cies), we instead find oppositional practices that
nonetheless reproduce social relations. We have
sophisticated accounts of how the winner loses.
Adolescent class- and gender-based solidarities
draw from parental legacies of class and gender
struggles, and the students building these sol-
idarities develop considerable insight into the
selective, class-biased nature of school curricu-
lum and normative classroom conduct. They
disrupt the logic of schooling, but their group-
and practice-based insights are limited “pene-
trations” (Willis 1977, chapters 5 and 6) because
their class expressions also reinforce ethnora-
cial antagonism, gender oppression, and edu-
cational failure.

Carnoy & Levin (1985) share Apple’s em-
phasis on education as a site of class conflict
and social contradiction, and they emphasize
the role of the state. They argue that school-
ing serves primarily as an instrument of class
domination but that it is also a site of struggles
for equality. As does Apple, they also turn to
ethnographies to understand reproductive pro-
cesses, focusing on comparative ethnographic
studies of schools serving upper- and lower-
middle-class communities in California. Ana-
lyzing teacher beliefs and classroom practices
regarding work-relevant knowledge and dispo-
sitions, parental views of schooling, their chil-
dren, and their occupational futures, and state
education criteria for adequate and nonade-
quate performance on core subjects, they find a
lockstep pattern of teacher and parental beliefs,
classroom practices, and state performance cri-
teria that “reinforce the differential class struc-
ture in preparing the young for future occupa-
tional roles” (p. 141).

Lareau’s Home Advantage (1989) provides
a further perspective on class conditions and
school experiences, focusing especially on fam-
ilies. It comparatively analyzes how working

36 Collins

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and middle class adults with elementary-age
children view education and interact with
school, thus influencing their children’s school
experiences. Lareau finds that what might be
called work process shapes families’ tacit theo-
ries of the home/school relation. Does parents’
office work come home with them? If so, expect
(middle-class) parents and children to perceive
and enact many home/school connections.
Does parental work end at the factory gate or
retail shop door? If so, expect (working-class)
parents and children to perceive and enact a
clear separation of home and school, viewing
school as the place for schooling and home
as a needed respite. The study reports a
salient home advantage: Middle-class parents,
especially mothers, are avid and effective
school minders. When well-resourced, school-
confident women set the standard for normal
parenting, their blue-collar counterparts
inevitably lag behind. School personnel often
view working-class parents as insufficiently
involved in their children’s education (Freeman
2004, Luttrell 1997, Thompson 1995).

CULTURAL REPRODUCTION

Lareau uses the concept of cultural capital to an-
alyze cultural knowledge as class advantage in
educational areas. This concept, from Bourdieu
(Bourdieu 1984, Bourdieu & Passeron 1977),
has been applied in numerous studies of so-
cial advantage and classroom processes (e.g.,
Collins 1999a, Heller 1994, Nespor 1987). Key
extended works on cultural reproduction fo-
cused on the relative autonomy of cultural
forms and practices vis-à-vis political economy,
investigating the interplay of class with other
significant social relations, especially those of
gender and race. They often analyze how so-
cial relations are produced and reproduced
in encounters between adolescents and their
peers in a variety of school settings, including
classrooms.

Foley’s (1990) Learning Capitalist Culture
proposes to show “how schools are sites
for popular cultural practices that stage or
reproduce social inequality” (p. xv). It reports

on a south Texas town and high school in the
ferment of 1970s civil rights reforms. Inves-
tigating the dynamics of class in relation to
other axes of inequality, it analyzes the staging
and reproducing of class and racial hierarchies
at multiple sites: football games, the dating
scene, beer parties, and classrooms. Foley
argues that class relations take priority over
ethnic affiliations but that class is expressive
rather than structural in the usual sense. More
particularly, he argues that middle-class Anglo
and Latino cohorts, of athletes and other
popular cliques, share greater commonalities
in their presentation of self (Goffman 1959,
1967), whether in classrooms or elsewhere,
than they share with ostensible working-class
counterparts, whether Anglo “shitkickers” or
Chicano “vatos.” In this account, capitalist cul-
ture is fundamentally “communicative action”
(Habermas 1987), and class culture is a “situatal
speech performance” (pp. 178–81, 192–94) en-
acted and learned in many places, including the
classroom; it crosscuts and informs the staging
and reproduction of ethnic identities. Essen-
tially, middle-class expressive culture is highly
instrumental: Middle-class kids, whether
Anglo or Chicano, play the classroom “game,”
appearing interested while discreetly mocking
teacher authority and school knowledge.
Working-class expressive culture is less strate-
gic for various reasons: Working-class kids do
not play the classroom game as well; they are
either passive and exclude themselves from
classroom interaction or openly defiant and
likely to provoke confrontations with teachers.

What adds additional substance to Foley’s
ethnography of social reproduction is its com-
panion analysis From Peones to Politicos (Foley
1988), a historical treatment of the chang-
ing political economy of the town and region
in which the more detailed school/community
study is situated. This study analyzes the broad
movement of adult Chicanos from field laborers
to civil rights advocates, as the region’s economy
transforms over an 80-year period from feudal-
ized ranching to modern capitalist agriculture.
It shows the space made for an expanded Latino
middle class, investigates the role of public

www.annualreviews.org • Social Reproduction and Schools 37

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institutions such as schools in class-stratified
ethnic social mobility, and provides the broader
compass for the social scenes, institutional pro-
cesses, and face-to-face conduct explored in
Learning Capitalist Culture.

Despite its strengths, Foley’s analysis of cap-
italist culture gave short shrift to questions
of gender (Collins 1992). Other studies have
addressed this lack; a pair by Weis is partic-
ularly valuable. Working Class Without Work
(Weis 1990) takes up issues of gender, race,
and aspiration in the context of identity, so-
cial movements, feminism, and class restruc-
turing. It examines how white high-school stu-
dents in “Freeway,” a working-class suburb of
Buffalo, New York, in the throes of late 1980s
deindustrialization and job loss, phrase their as-
pirations, behave in classrooms, and relate to
each other on the basis of their gender and race.
The study calls for attention to the production
of class identities, rather than the reproduction
of class conditions. It argues that social move-
ments of feminism and New Right populism
inform female and male responses to the loss
of traditional working-class livelihoods, deeply
influencing the meaning of school and pro-
viding alternative, conflicting paths of identity
formation. In particular, girls are analyzed as
proto-feminists, aspiring to education and so-
cially mobile work independent of the patriar-
chal domination endured by their mothers and
grandmothers; they do not have the resentment
of institutional authority that boys have. Boys,
for their part, seem more attuned to a social
conservative agenda; they aspire to a restora-
tion of their fathers’ world of good wages and
good jobs with the women at home, and they
avoid and resist schoolwork and teacher author-
ity. Working Class Without Work portrays class
formation in a time of uncertain transition (the
late 1980s), arguing that class legacies of un-
derachievement in schooling can be reshaped
by social movements that speak to gender and
racial as well as class identities.

Class Reunion (Weis 2004) is a follow-up
investigation conducted with many of the
women and men originally studied as students
at Freeway High. The heart of Class Reunion is

an analysis of class in relation to both gender
and race dynamics in an era of global economic
reconstruction. Talking with earlier research
participants about their adult lives, Weis finds
predictable outcomes as well as instructive
surprises. Few of the men have successfully
pursued tertiary education; with the ongoing
loss of industrial work, most make livings in
lower-wage service-sector jobs. Many of the
women have completed college and hold white-
collar jobs, challenging assumptions that family
background simply predicts educational attain-
ment. Weis finds—unexpectedly—that many
men have given up their aspirations to the patri-
archal authority and privilege embedded in an
earlier white, working-class masculinity. They
have opted of necessity for domestic partner-
ships in which economic resources are shared
along with domestic work, including child care.
But this kinder, gentler domestic realm shows
a harsher face to the outside world: These men
and women forge new domestic alliances as
whites, protecting “their communities” from
African Americans and “Arabs” (Weis 2004).

Those “Arabs,” who Weis’s research partic-
ipants see as racial others, are predominantly
of Yemeni origin. Yemeni immigrants are also
the subjects of Sarroub’s (2005) All American
Yemeni Girls, a study of high-school girls who
are members of a working-class immigrant
community in Dearborn, Michigan. The con-
trasts of site and study are instructive. Sarroub
finds very different gender dynamics in this
working-class community. In the 1990s, there
appears to have been plenty of factory work
in Dearborn, supporting a multigenerational
Yemeni community that is devoutly Islamic
and starkly patriarchal. In Sarroub’s analysis,
school-focused, society-wide cultural repro-
duction of the sort proposed by Bourdieu &
Passeron (1977) is rejected. Schools are not the
site of social reproduction; instead classrooms
are “an oasis” where talk flows relatively freely
between girl and boy, Yemeni and native-born
American, and where educational achieve-
ment is sought and aspirations flower. Home
and community are where diasporic Yemeni
identities are reinforced through transnational

38 Collins

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marital strategies; a locally construed Muslim
faith entails a very close monitoring of female
dress, speech, and conduct; and achievement in
school is appreciated but firmly subordinated
to marriage and family. Documenting “the
religious and cultural traditions that are in
fact reproduced and reconstructed within the
Yemeni family, and by the girls,” Sarroub
convincingly shows that “cultural tools and
traditions may have little bearing on learning
and achievement [in school] but may serve the
purpose of easing cultural or religious tensions
as home and school worlds collide” (p. 12).
Some outcomes of that collision—desperation
as high-school graduation approaches, flight
from family, and ostracism from community
for girls who do choose education and jobs
over submission to patriarchal authority—are
sober reminders that identity can be anguished
as well as reassuring and that the meanings of
class, gender, and race vary widely.

This variation and its challenges for so-
cial analysis are central issues in Bettie’s
(2003) Women Without Class. Studying Latina
and Anglo adolescents, Bettie documents that
working-class style and demeanor were both
sexualized and racialized. School personnel
judged working-class Anglos and Latinas as
overly sexualized; both girls and school person-
nel saw upwardly mobile Latina girls as “acting
white” (pp. 83–86). Theoretically focused on
the interplay of class, gender, and race, Bettie
argues that class should be understood as both
performance and performative. It is perfor-
mance because there is an indirect fit between
background and style: Some working-class and
middle-class “performers” depart from family
origins. It is performative because family and
community origins constrain the class expres-
sions with which people are comfortable: Class
expressivity is “an effect of social structure”
(pp. 49–56). Examining working-class Latinas’
expressivity, she explores how class is deflected
into sexuality, negatively judged by school per-
sonnel, feeding into curriculum tracking pro-
cesses that lead these “class performers” to
working-class futures (chapter 3).

LINGUISTIC REPRODUCTION

Language pervades formal education as the pri-
mary means of teaching and learning (Cazden
2001). As shown by the fields of sociolinguis-
tics and linguistic anthropology, as well as some
of the work on cultural reproduction just re-
viewed, language is also a primary means of
expressing social identities, affiliating with cul-
tural traditions, and building relations with
others (Gee 2001, Harris & Rampton 2003,
Schieffelin & Ochs 1986). A third major ap-
proach to social reproduction has focused on
language and communication conduct in and
out of schools, and with such studies we see
the emergence of research into public debates
about schools and society, often with unin-
tended consequences.

Bernstein provided the major early theoret-
ical and empirical work arguing for the role
of class and language in social reproduction
(Bernstein 1960, 1964, 1975). Briefly, he argued
that the experience of work process reinforces
kinds of family role relations, themselves real-
ized as discursive identities that are carried by
“elaborated” and “restricted” codes (1964). The
codes are seen as the “genes of social class,” the
semiotic-communicative sources of identities
that are congruent with or disjunctive from the
expressive styles required in school (Bernstein
1986, p. 472). Because of its schematic formula-
tion of relations between classes and codes and
its uptake in American debates about “cultures
of poverty” and “linguistic deficit,” Bernstein’s
account attracted much criticism (see Atkinson
1985, Collins 1988, Edwards 1976 for reviews).

Bernstein’s early work on language and class
had been picked up in the 1960s by American
researchers who argued that poor people, es-
pecially poor African Americans concentrated
in cities, performed inadequately in school be-
cause they were linguistically or culturally de-
prived (Bereiter & Englemann 1966, Deutsch
1967). This began the first iteration of con-
troversies over linguistic deprivation explana-
tions for educational failure. Anthropologists
and other critics of the deficit model argued
that minorities did poorly in school not because

www.annualreviews.org • Social Reproduction and Schools 39

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of their language per se but because they were
treated differently in schools (Leacock 1969,
1971; Rist 1970).

Functions of Language in the Classroom
(Cazden et al. 1972) is an influential response
to the deficit arguments in which linguis-
tic anthropologists, socially minded psychol-
ogists, sociologists, and educators investigate
the relationships between group-based com-
municative styles and classroom interactional
dynamics that might lead to poor educational
outcomes. Among the contributors, Bernstein
(1972) criticizes facile notions of compensatory
education, and Hymes (1972) argues for the
need to investigate community-specific “com-
municative competencies” underlying language
use that might be perceived as deficient in
classroom settings. Some contributions ana-
lyze ethnically grounded preferences for col-
laborative approaches to socializing and learn-
ing, including Hawaiian-American traditions of
“talk story” (Boggs 1972) and Native American
preferences for peer-based “participation struc-
tures” (Philips 1972); others explore stigmatiz-
ing assumptions about Standard English ver-
sus other languages (Spanish) or varieties (Black
English), which result in differential treatment
in classrooms (Gumperz & Hernandez-Chavez
1972, Mitchell-Kernan 1972). The volume es-
tablished a standard for arguments about com-
municative differences, which departed from
middle-class white and school-based practice
but had an underlying logic or rationale. Many
findings led to additional research and analy-
sis, either confirming and elaborating the orig-
inal phenomena (Au 1980, Erickson & Mohatt
1992, Philips 1983) or applying concepts to new
domains, such as literacy learning (Michaels
1981) and mathematics instruction (O’Connor
& Michaels 1996).

The major contribution in this tradition,
however, is Heath’s (1983) Ways With Words.
It melds Bernstein’s concerns with work,
socialization, language, and schooling and
the linguistic anthropological concerns with
community-based differences in communica-
tive style that appeared to influence classroom
processes and learning outcomes. The book

painstakingly analyzes three different commu-
nities in the Carolina Piedmont: a mixed-race
middle-class cohort of “Townspeople”; a black
working-class neighborhood of “Trackton”;
and a white working-class neighborhood of
“Roadville.” It documents striking differences
in language and literacy socialization among the
three groups, relates these differences to expec-
tations about language held by classroom teach-
ers and embedded in school curriculum, and
compellingly argues that ethnographic inquiry
by research participants (children and teach-
ers) can lessen the mismatch between home and
school. Despite its strengths, the book is cir-
cumspect about the perpetuation of race and
class inequalities clearly implied by its find-
ings, perhaps in part owing to methodologi-
cal modesty, but also in part because it ignores
power relations, in particular, the larger state-
level political forces that roll back the classroom
reforms, which are only mentioned in a final
Postscript (Collins & Blot 2003, chapters 3 and
5; de Castell & Walker 1991).

Drawing on the now-established
school/home mismatch framework, a series of
studies in the 1980s and early 1990s closely
examined teacher-student and student-student
interaction to demonstrate disadvantages faced
by working-class African American students
in standard classroom literacy lessons (Collins
1986; Gee 1996; Michaels 1981, 1986) and the
advantages of classroom innovation (Foster
1987, Lee 1993). Others drew similar con-
clusions from analyses of community-based
“funds of knowledge” possessed by working-
class Latino students but larger ignored by
public schools (Gonzalez et al. 2005, Moll et al.
1992). Few studies in this period explicitly
thematized the reproductive aspects of class-
or race-inflected classroom encounters with
literacy (Bigler 1996; Collins 1988, 1989).

In early 1997, however, a second iteration
of the linguistic deprivation debate occurred
after the Oakland Unified School District
proposed to treat Ebonics (African American
Vernacular English) as a classroom language
resource. In making sense of the firestorm
of protest this proposal unleashed, analysts

40 Collins

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drew on the Functions of Language tradition of
trying to understand community-based ways
of speaking as resources for learning (Delpit &
Perry 1998). They also pointed to the larger
cultural-political processes that systematically
devalued African American Vernacular (i.e.,
working-class) ways with words (Baugh 2000).
Some explicitly treated it as an ideological
conflict that revealed the reproductive nature
of standard school language hierarchies and
procedures in the United States (Collins
1999b) and internationally (Long 2003).

In recent years, the ways in which linguistic
differences correlate with class differences have
been getting renewed attention because of de-
bates about school reform and the failure of the
Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind man-
dates and programs (No Child Left Behind Act
2001). This is an ambitious national interven-
tion in public education that was supposed to
change long-standing patterns of educational
inequality but has not done so (Rothstein 2007,
Tough 2006). In the search for explanations and
alternative, research making linguistic differ-
ence or deficit arguments is being considered
in policy discussions and schools reforms. This
development has largely escaped published dis-
cussion in anthropology (but see Bomer et al.
2008).

Two studies are relevant for our discussion
because of the substance of their claims and the
way they have been picked up in policy debates.
Both studies provide accounts of class-based
differences in language and interactional dispo-
sitions and argue why they matter for school-
ing. Hart & Risley’s (1995) Meaningful Differ-
ences is a study of child socialization, based on a
substantive, longitudinal sampling of language
use in family settings. It makes strong claims
about social class and language use, and it has
had influential uptake in discussions of com-
pensatory literacy programs for poor children.
The book is explicitly cast as a dialogue with
Bernstein’s claims about class and code, and the
analysis concentrates on the amount of vocabu-
lary, specific sentence types, and specific inter-
actional features of talk directed to children in
“professional,” “working-class” and “welfare”

homes during their infant, preschool, and early
primary years. Hart & Risely argue that the
cumulative vocabulary differences they found
have direct effects on early literacy. Although
no commentators seem to have noticed, the spe-
cific literacy measures they study do not support
their claim, nor do their findings show a regu-
lar class distribution. Compounding the prob-
lem of the flawed analysis of class and language,
Hart & Risley subsequently simplified their re-
sults and promoted them in policy discussions
as a “catastrophic” linguistic disadvantage for
the poor (Hart & Risley 2003), and this version
of findings has been used to justify strict ped-
agogical regimes aimed at the inner-city poor
(Brook-Gunn et al. 2003, Tough 2006).

Lareau’s (2003) Unequal Childhoods is a more
measured work investigating child-rearing
practices among poor, working-class, and afflu-
ent, professional white and black families living
in Philadelphia and its suburbs. It supports and
elaborates Bernstein’s and Heath’s arguments
about class and language socialization, showing
a disjuncture between poor and working-class
language practices and those expected in public
arenas such as school or the (white-collar)
workplace. It also explores how the differences
in child-rearing are rooted in class-based
cultural models that unite ideas about parents,
children, and learning. Middle-class families
believe in “concerted cultivation,” whereas
their working-class counterparts view child de-
velopment as akin to “natural growth” (Lareau
2003, chapter 1; see Heath 1983, chapters 3
and 7 for evidence of similar beliefs). The
professional patterns go together with school
achievement, the working-class patterns do
not, and these class differences supersede oth-
erwise notable white/black differences. Lareau
is frank about the “power of class” (Chapter
12) in shaping child language socialization,
schooling experiences, and life chances, and
although her findings are not part of a deficit
argument, they have been picked up in the
same commentary as those of Hart & Risley.

There is reason to take Meaningful Differ-
ences (Hart & Risley 1995) seriously. Stripped
of its alarmist rhetoric and read closely, the

www.annualreviews.org • Social Reproduction and Schools 41

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study reports findings commensurable with
those of Lareau (2003) and Heath (1983)
and the body of work in England supporting
Bernstein’s early arguments (Cook-Gumperz
1973, Hawkins 1977). The recurrent depriva-
tion debates, which have not ended, are an in-
dication of the difficulties of understanding the
dynamic interactions among racial formations,
class conditions, and language. The fact that the
most recent iteration of the debate has attracted
little attention from sociolinguists or linguistic
anthropologists calls to mind Hymes’s (1972)
observation regarding Bernstein in the 1970s:

Bernstein is in the complex, difficult position
of defending a kind of communication he calls
a “restricted code” and of insisting on its lim-
itations. His position will please few. Those
who defend children by placing all blame on
the schools, and those who explain the failures
of schools by the language of the children, will
both be offended. (p. xlvi)

THE TURN FROM
REPRODUCTION AND
THE CURRENT SCENE

The “difficult position” to which Hymes refers
has largely been abdicated. Although there are
exceptions, by the late 1980s efforts to un-
derstand social reproduction in classrooms and
schools had largely been abandoned. This was
not because social inequality had lessened in
the latter part of the twentieth century; in-
deed, as numerous analysts have demonstrated,
it has increased in the United States and in-
ternationally since the early 1970s (Henwood
2003, Kuttner 2007), but concern with repro-
duction as a conceptual focus was set aside
in favor of other approaches. Instead analysts
have given priorities that emphasize individ-
ual or group initiative—”agency,” “identity,”
“person,” and “voice”—over the structural con-
straints of political economy or linguistic code.
Economic reproduction models, the first for-
mulated, were also the first criticized, most
pointedly for neglecting the role of ethnora-
cial formations and gender relations in capitalist

political economies and class relations (Bettie
2003, Foley 1990, Weis 1990).

The difficulties of formulating multifaceted
accounts of race, class, and gender in relation
to schooling have been formidable, however,
and the new directions are informative both for
their achievements and their limitations. Weis
(1990) argued for a shift away from analyzing
class reproduction to analyzing identity forma-
tion, and her subsequent study (2004) supports
the earlier argument that schools are not sim-
ply about reproducing class relations to edu-
cation. However, it does not show that social
movements posited in 1990 as sources of iden-
tity formation do in fact serve such a role; the
discussion of ideology and consciousness is the
weakest part of the latter work. The collection
in Levinson et al. (1996) represents an anthro-
pological option, arguing against cultural re-
production models as too deterministic and for
the priority of the “cultural production of per-
son” in schools, with a wider diversity of kinds
of person than is allowed by the broad social cat-
egories of class, race, and gender. It is not clear,
however, whether their project of studying the
schooled production of persons has continued.
Bettie (2003) explicitly analyzes class in rela-
tion to gender and race, and her conceptualiz-
ing class as “performance” and “performativity”
moves forward the study of class-as-expression
(see also Rampton 2006). However, although
she argues against reproductionist accounts,
she reports outcomes of class-expressive be-
havior very similar to Willis’s and McRobbie’s
findings—that is, while dismissing reproduc-
tion models, she presents straightforward re-
productive outcomes (Bettie 2003, chapter 3).

On the language front, there has been a dra-
matic turning away from models of structure
and code (Rampton et al. 2008), and this has
left a troubling situation. On the one hand,
there are currently very sophisticated accounts
of practice, semiosis, and indeterminacy in the
relation between language and social order; on
the other hand, the new approaches would ap-
pear to have little to say about the substan-
tive projects, just discussed, that report strong
links between class background and language

42 Collins

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use. This aversion to social reproduction anal-
ysis can be seen in a recent Annual Review es-
say. Wortham (2008) presents a cogent account
of the “Linguistic Anthropology of Education.”
What is notable in his treatment of this field
is the emphasis on the contextual indetermi-
nacy of language use, on the constructed, con-
tested nature of language ideologies, and in
general on the creative, flexible aspect of social
life in educational settings. This is not so much
wrong as it is one sided. He presents a “com-
positionist” view of social orders (Kontopoulos
1993), acutely aware of language use by per-
sons and creativity in small group processes,
but inattentive to the nature of institutions and
vague about hierarchy or power. Thus stud-
ies addressing ethnic inequalities are lauded
for avoiding “simple reproductionist accounts”
(Erickson & Schultz 1982) and for not arguing
“simply that minority languages are devalued”
(Rampton 1995) (Wortham, 2008, p. 42). Re-
search that deals with language ideologies that
organize nation-state hierarchies of language,
class, and ethnorace (Blommaert 1999, Heller
1999), is euphemistically described as showing
that “language policies. . .differentially position
diverse populations” (Wortham 2008, p. 44).
Discussing an analysis of narrative and iden-
tity among Latino dropouts in an alternative
school in Southern California (Rymes 2001),
Wortham stresses the speakers’ narrative cre-
ativity but omits any mention of the author’s
sobering discovery that despite rich hybrid nar-
ratives, alternative schools can be quickly shut
down by higher administrative powers (Rymes
2001, chapter 9). In brief, this linguistic anthro-
pology of education is attuned to the perfor-
mative dimensions of language use, but not to
structural constraint or social conflict.

CONCLUSION

A federally commissioned study in the 1960s
sought to determine the influence of schools in
educational attainment and occupational out-
comes. It found that differences among schools
mattered much less than assumed and that
family socioeconomic status was the strongest

influence on a child’s educational achievement
and life chances (Coleman 1966). More than
four decades later, that generalization still holds
(Jencks & Phillips 1998, Kingston 2000, U.S.
Dep. Educ. 2001); furthermore, this pattern is
found in most nations (Lemke 2002). This is a
sobering feature of our world, and efforts to un-
derstand such enduring social and educational
inequality have occupied a wide range of schol-
ars. The Marxian paradigm of social reproduc-
tion provided one angle on the question but
arguably proved both too narrow (excluding
gender and race) and too rigid (failing to ac-
count for agency or identity). But efforts to go
beyond this framework—studying class iden-
tity as a result of social movements, drawing on
performance theory, or stressing the contextual
creativity of language in educational settings—
have not provided comprehensive accounts that
enable us better to understand the gross dis-
tribution of class-linked statuses and resources.
Although this is a stalemate, there are lessons to
be learned. Here are two worth thinking about.

First, it is necessary to conceptualize and
study multiple social levels to understand mech-
anisms that might produce such large-scale
structural inequality. The need to move beyond
a micromacro dichotomy of individual and soci-
ety has been long-established (Bourdieu 1977,
Ortner 1993); there are now sophisticated, the-
oretically and empirically robust accounts of
“heterarchical structures” (Kontopoulos 1993)
that presume neither bottom-up construction
of the social world by aggregate individual ac-
tion nor top-down determination by large-scale
entities but allow instead for emergence over
time and complex feedback among structures
and processes. Such approaches are needed
to understand the internal ecologies of edu-
cational systems or the external relations be-
tween schools and other social institutions,
such as families. Regarding the internal ecolo-
gies, heterarchical models can help formulate
the place of classrooms and schools in larger
educational systems, as a structured but not
predetermined process, shedding light on stud-
ies of schools as sites of innovation and resis-
tance that can quickly be reversed by higher

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bureaucratic levels, as both Heath (1983) and
Rymes (2001) discover. Such models can also
provide insight into organizational and interac-
tive processes that produce class-differentiated
curricula, which have such inegalitarian out-
comes (Anyon 1981, 1997; Carnoy & Levin
1985, Leacock 1969, Oakes 1985). Regarding
the external relationships between schools and
other social institutions, such as families, het-
erarchical models are needed to analyze the in-
terplay between schools and social-class-based
dispositions to intervene in schools (Lareau
1989, 2003); between such class-based disposi-
tions and the disabling stigma of working-class
parents, especially mothers (Freeman 2004,
Luttrell 1997, Thompson 1995); or between
the class-specific, family-inculcated gender ex-
pressivity and school tracking decisions (Bettie
2003, Luttrell 1996).

Second, understanding reproductive pro-
cesses requires alertness to patterns that be-
come evident only over longer periods of time.
Some patterns follow the school year. For exam-
ple, classroom processes such as formal lessons
show a structured interplay among immediate
face-to-face exchanges, event-level topical co-
herences, and such things as patterns of differ-
ential response to vernacular speech or second
languages that unfold over the course of a year
(Bartlett 2007, Collins 1996); the acquisition of
problematic identities in schools (as, say, “trou-
blemaker” or “learning disabled”) is a process
that occurs in face-to-face exchanges as they oc-
cur over time and across multiple institutional
domains (as Wortham 2008 insightfully dis-

cusses; see also Rogers 2003, Wortham 2006).
Other patterns reveal themselves in what might
be called the time of the life course. Weis’s
(2004) discovery of the significance of gender
both for working-class educational attainment
and the reworking of family organization de-
pended on a longitudinal research strategy that
followed high-school students into their adult
lives. It would be valuable to have such a per-
spective on the life trajectories of Sarroub’s
(2005) research participants, allowing us to see
whether their plight is transitional or enduring.
This question brings us to the issue of the tem-
porality of more abstract political and economic
processes as they bear on more tangible cul-
tural dynamics. Heightened diasporization—
as described by Sarroub—seems to be a char-
acteristic of the contemporary globalization,
now some three to four decades into its course
(Friedman 2003). Foley’s (1990) study of repro-
ductive class cultures derives its insight into in-
terplay of class and ethnicity in school settings
and other social arenas in part because of the
companion study (Foley 1988) analyzing the
community’s transitions over an 80-year period.

Attention to multilevel processes and alert-
ness to differing time frames would show that
reproductive processes need not be simple to
be systematic, nor to be consequential over the
long term. Despite theoretical and method-
ological advances of work in the postreproduc-
tion period, there is much to be done to un-
derstand how social inequality results from the
interplay of classrooms, schools, and the wider
society.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The author is not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings that might
be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to many people who contributed to this review: Greg Urban, who responded to
an early prospectus, raising useful questions about scope; Laura Hallgren Flynn, who provided a
number of stimulating references and insights into the changing nature of “linguistic reproduc-
tion” in classroom contexts and wider educational arenas; Fiona Thompson, who listened to many

44 Collins

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ideas-in-progress and carefully read a presubmission draft; and Rosa Collins, who provided valu-
able (paid) clerical assistance compiling the large bibliography.

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Sociological Perspectives on Education

Learning Objectives

1. List the major functions of education.

2. Explain the problems that conflict theory sees in education.

3. Describe how symbolic interactionism understands education.

The major sociological perspectives on education fall nicely into the
functional, conflict, and symbolic interactionist approaches (Ballantine &
Hammack, 2009).

Table 16.1 Theory Snapshot

Theoretical
perspective Major assumptions

Functionalism

Education serves several functions for society. These include (a)
socialization, (b) social integration, (c) social placement, and (d) social and
cultural innovation. Latent functions include child care, the establishment of
peer relationships, and lowering unemployment by keeping high school
students out of the full-time labor force.

Conflict theory

Education promotes social inequality through the use of tracking and
standardized testing and the impact of its “hidden curriculum.” Schools
differ widely in their funding and learning conditions, and this type of
inequality leads to learning disparities that reinforce social inequality.

Symbolic
interactionism

This perspective focuses on social interaction in the classroom, on the
playground, and in other school venues. Specific research finds that social
interaction in schools affects the development of gender roles and that
teachers’ expectations of pupils’ intellectual abilities affect how much pupils
learn.

The Functions of Education

Functional theory stresses the functions that education serves in fulfilling a
society’s various needs. Perhaps the most important function of education
is socialization. If children need to learn the norms, values, and skills they
need to function in society, then education is a primary vehicle for such
learning. Schools teach the three Rs, as we all know, but they also teach
many of the society’s norms and values. In the United States, these norms
and values include respect for authority, patriotism (remember the Pledge
of Allegiance?), punctuality, individualism, and competition. Regarding
these last two values, American students from an early age compete as
individuals over grades and other rewards. The situation is quite the
opposite in Japan, where children learn the traditional Japanese values of
harmony and group belonging from their schooling (Schneider &
Silverman, 2010). They learn to value their membership in their
homeroom, or kumi, and are evaluated more on their kumi’s performance
than on their own individual performance. How well a Japanese
child’s kumi does is more important than how well the child does as an
individual.
A second function of education is social integration. For a society to work,
functionalists say, people must subscribe to a common set of beliefs and
values. As we saw, the development of such common views was a goal of the
system of free, compulsory education that developed in the 19th century.
Thousands of immigrant children in the United States today are learning
English, U.S. history, and other subjects that help prepare them for the
workforce and integrate them into American life. Such integration is a
major goal of the English-only movement, whose advocates say that only
English should be used to teach children whose native tongue is Spanish,
Vietnamese, or whatever other language their parents speak at home.
Critics of this movement say it slows down these children’s education and
weakens their ethnic identity (Schildkraut, 2005).
A third function of education is social placement. Beginning in grade
school, students are identified by teachers and other school officials either
as bright and motivated or as less bright and even educationally challenged.
Depending on how they are identified, children are taught at the level that
is thought to suit them best. In this way they are prepared in the most
appropriate way possible for their later station in life. Whether this process
works as well as it should is an important issue, and we explore it further
when we discuss school tracking shortly.

Social and cultural innovation is a fourth function of education. Our
scientists cannot make important scientific discoveries and our artists and
thinkers cannot come up with great works of art, poetry, and prose unless
they have first been educated in the many subjects they need to know for
their chosen path.

Education also involves several latent functions, functions that are by-
products of going to school and receiving an education rather than a direct
effect of the education itself. One of these is child care. Once a child starts
kindergarten and then first grade, for several hours a day the child is taken
care of for free. The establishment of peer relationships is another latent
function of schooling. Most of us met many of our friends while we were in
school at whatever grade level, and some of those friendships endure the
rest of our lives. A final latent function of education is that it keeps millions
of high school students out of the full-time labor force. This fact keeps the
unemployment rate lower than it would be if they were in the labor force.

Education and Inequality

Conflict theory does not dispute most of the functions just described.
However, it does give some of them a different slant and talks about various
ways in which education perpetuates social inequality (Hill, Macrine, &
Gabbard, 2010; Liston, 1990). One example involves the function of social
placement. As most schools track their students starting in grade school,
the students thought by their teachers to be bright are placed in the faster
tracks (especially in reading and arithmetic), while the slower students are
placed in the slower tracks; in high school, three common tracks are the
college track, vocational track, and general track.

Such tracking does have its advantages; it helps ensure that bright students
learn as much as their abilities allow them, and it helps ensure that slower
students are not taught over their heads. But, conflict theorists say, tracking
also helps perpetuate social inequality by locking students into faster and
lower tracks. Worse yet, several studies show that students’ social class and
race and ethnicity affect the track into which they are placed, even though
their intellectual abilities and potential should be the only things that
matter: white, middle-class students are more likely to be tracked “up,”
while poorer students and students of color are more likely to be tracked
“down.” Once they are tracked, students learn more if they are tracked up
and less if they are tracked down. The latter tend to lose self-esteem and

begin to think they have little academic ability and thus do worse in school
because they were tracked down. In this way, tracking is thought to be good
for those tracked up and bad for those tracked down. Conflict theorists thus
say that tracking perpetuates social inequality based on social class and
race and ethnicity (Ansalone, 2006; Oakes, 2005).
Social inequality is also perpetuated through the widespread use of
standardized tests. Critics say these tests continue to be culturally biased, as
they include questions whose answers are most likely to be known by white,
middle-class students, whose backgrounds have afforded them various
experiences that help them answer the questions. They also say that scores
on standardized tests reflect students’ socioeconomic status and
experiences in addition to their academic abilities. To the extent this
critique is true, standardized tests perpetuate social inequality (Grodsky,
Warren, & Felts, 2008).

As we will see, schools in the United States also differ mightily in their
resources, learning conditions, and other aspects, all of which affect how
much students can learn in them. Simply put, schools are unequal, and
their very inequality helps perpetuate inequality in the larger society.
Children going to the worst schools in urban areas face many more
obstacles to their learning than those going to well-funded schools in
suburban areas. Their lack of learning helps ensure they remain trapped in
poverty and its related problems.

Conflict theorists also say that schooling teaches a hidden curriculum, by
which they mean a set of values and beliefs that support the status quo,
including the existing social hierarchy (Booher-Jennings, 2008). Although
no one plots this behind closed doors, our schoolchildren learn patriotic
values and respect for authority from the books they read and from various
classroom activities.

Symbolic Interactionism and School Behavior

Symbolic interactionist studies of education examine social interaction in
the classroom, on the playground, and in other school venues. These
studies help us understand what happens in the schools themselves, but
they also help us understand how what occurs in school is relevant for the
larger society. Some studies, for example, show how children’s playground
activities reinforce gender-role socialization. Girls tend to play more
cooperative games, while boys play more competitive sports (Thorne,
1993).

Another body of research shows that teachers’ views about students can
affect how much the students learn. When teachers think students are
smart, they tend to spend more time with them, to call on them, and to
praise them when they give the right answer. Not surprisingly these
students learn more because of their teachers’ behavior. But when teachers
think students are less bright, they tend to spend less time with them and
act in a way that leads the students to learn less. One of the first studies to
find this example of a self-fulfilling prophecy was conducted by Robert
Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson (1968). They tested a group of students at
the beginning of the school year and told their teachers which students
were bright and which were not. They tested the students again at the end
of the school year; not surprisingly the bright students had learned more
during the year than the less bright ones. But it turned out that the
researchers had randomly decided which students would be designated
bright and less bright. Because the “bright” students learned more during
the school year without actually being brighter at the beginning, their
teachers’ behavior must have been the reason. In fact, their teachers did
spend more time with them and praised them more often than was true for
the “less bright” students. To the extent this type of self-fulfilling prophecy
occurs, it helps us understand why tracking is bad for the students tracked
down.

http://open.lib.umn.edu/sociology/wp-content/uploads/sites/173/2016/03/16.2.0

Other research focuses on how teachers treat girls and boys. Several studies
from the 1970s through the 1990s found that teachers call on boys more
often and praise them more often (American Association of University
Women Educational Foundation, 1998; Jones & Dindia, 2004). Teachers
did not do this consciously, but their behavior nonetheless sent an implicit
message to girls that math and science are not for girls and that they are not
suited to do well in these subjects. This body of research stimulated efforts
to educate teachers about the ways in which they may unwittingly send
these messages and about strategies they could use to promote greater
interest and achievement by girls in math and science (Battey, Kafai, Nixon,
& Kao, 2007).

Key Takeaways

 According to the functional perspective, education helps socialize
children and prepare them for their eventual entrance into the larger
society as adults.

 The conflict perspective emphasizes that education reinforces inequality
in the larger society.

 The symbolic interactionist perspective focuses on social interaction in
the classroom, on school playgrounds, and at other school-related
venues. Social interaction contributes to gender-role socialization, and
teachers’ expectations may affect their students’ performance.

References

American Association of University Women Educational Foundation.
(1998). Gender gaps: Where schools still fail our children. Washington,
DC: American Association of University Women Educational Foundation.
Ansalone, G. (2006). Tracking: A return to Jim Crow. Race, Gender &
Class, 13, 1–2.
Ballantine, J. H., & Hammack, F. M. (2009). The sociology of education: A
systematic analysis(6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Battey, D., Kafai, Y., Nixon, A. S., & Kao, L. L. (2007). Professional
development for teachers on gender equity in the sciences: Initiating the
conversation. Teachers College Record, 109(1), 221–243.
Booher-Jennings, J. (2008). Learning to label: Socialisation, gender, and
the hidden curriculum of high-stakes testing. British Journal of Sociology
of Education, 29, 149–160.

Grodsky, E., Warren, J. R., & Felts, E. (2008). Testing and social
stratification in American education. Annual Review of Sociology, 34(1),
385–404.
Hill, D., Macrine, S., & Gabbard, D. (Eds.). (2010). Capitalist education:
Globalisation and the politics of inequality. New York, NY: Routledge;
Liston, D. P. (1990). Capitalist schools: Explanation and ethics in radical
studies of schooling. New York, NY: Routledge.
Jones, S. M., & Dindia, K. (2004). A meta-analystic perspective on sex
equity in the classroom. Review of Educational Research, 74, 443–471.
Oakes, J. (2005). Keeping track: How schools structure inequality (2nd
ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom. New
York, NY: Holt.
Schildkraut, D. J. (2005). Press “one” for English: Language policy, public
opinion, and American identity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Schneider, L., & Silverman, A. (2010). Global sociology: Introducing five
contemporary societies (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Thorne, B. (1993). Gender play: Girls and boys in school. New Brunswick,
NJ: Rutgers University Press.

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Sociology of Education

http://soe.sagepub.com/content/79/2/153
The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/003804070607900204

2006 79: 153Sociology of Education
Maurice Garnier and Mark Schafer

Educational Model and Expansion of Enrollments in

Sub-Saharan Africa

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Educational Model and Expansion of
Enrollments in

Sub-Saharan Africa

Maurice Garnier
Indiana University

Mark Schafer
Louisiana State University

This article relies on the concept of educational model to explain why African countries that were

colonized by Britain and France experienced significantly different forms of educational expansion

after independence. The authors argue that both models represented legitimate variants of world

institutional processes that drove the expansion of mass education in the sub-Saharan region. Each

model defined the nature of the relationship between the educational system and other institu-

tions differently, in particular what should happen in school, who may teach, and who is respon-

sible for the provision of education. Using panel data for 28 sub-Saharan nations between 1970

and 2000, the authors found strong model effects that persisted after they controlled for

resources, pupil-teacher ratio (an imperfect measure of quality), and percentage Muslim.

Specifically, the Francophone model contributed to lower mean enrollment levels, a slower expan-

sion of enrollments from 1970 to 1985, and (3) a more rapid expansion of enrollments from 1985

to 2000. Gender differences are also discussed. Institutional theorists have minimized the impor-

tance of resources, but the findings presented here indicate that resources and the characteristics

of the educational model matter for educational expansion.

Sociology of Education 2006, Vol. 79 (April): 153–176 153

S
ub-Saharan African nations expanded
educational opportunity substantially in
the decades following independence. In

1960, only one in three children in the region
was enrolled in school, whereas by 2000, this
fraction had risen to such a point that two out
three children were enrolled. This expansion
is particularly impressive in light of the
region’s rapid population growth (the total
number of children who were enrolled more
than tripled between 1960 and 2000) and
minimal economic development.

In this article, we compare the expansion
of enrollment among two groups of sub-

Saharan nations: those with French versus
those with British colonial histories. We argue
that differences between French-based and
English-based educational systems were char-
acterized by fundamentally distinct models—
institutional arrangements—that differentially
shaped the expansion of enrollments both
directly, through policies and the structures of
the models, and indirectly, through interac-
tions with religious traditions and gender
norms. The institutional arrangements includ-
ed both (1) the structural arrangements and
mandates of educational institutions within
the state and (2) the salient practices, proce-

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154 Garnier and Schafer

dures, and precedents that these institutions
adopted.

World institutional theory suggests that
all modern states design and implement
national educational systems, establish cur-
ricula, train teachers, and stimulate the
demand for schooling among their citizens
in a more-or-less similar manner, regardless
of the financial resources that are available
(Benavot and Riddle 1988; Boli and Thomas
1997; Meyer, Ramirez, and Soysal 1992;
Meyer et al. 1979). This body of thought fur-
ther suggests that African nations, as do all
developing nations, adopt similar strategies
to expand enrollments primarily because (1)
they seek to “signal” their desire to be con-
sidered part of the modern world (Fuller
1991) and (2) intergovernmental and inter-
national nongovernmental organizations
(INGOs) design and promote standardized
models that all developing nations are oblig-
ed to replicate (Schafer 1999). Both factors
contribute to isomorphism and convergence
in educational systems and in the interna-
tional system of nation-states, more general-
ly.

This article’s objective is not to challenge
or test the world institutional perspective
specifically, but, rather, to explore the effects
of two dominant institutional variants in sub-
Saharan Africa, one Francophone and the
other Anglophone. We describe the charac-
teristics of each institutional arrangement
that we believe has had broad implications
for the development of national educational
systems. We distinguish the effects of institu-
tional arrangements from differences in
resources because resources can be expected
to influence the pace of expansion of enroll-
ments (Carroll 1981; Fuller 1991; Nielsen and
Hannan 1977). While critical, resources
should not be so influential as to explain fully
differences in the ways in which national edu-
cational systems expanded in the sub-
Saharan region. The basic premise of institu-
tional theory is that educational expansion
proceeded much more rapidly than available
resources would have justified. All nations
sought to expand schooling and deepen its
effects on children to maintain legitimacy in
the eyes of their citizens and the community
of nations (Fuller 1991). The motivation to

expand an educational system may indeed
stem from the increasing commitment to uni-
versal values, but that expansion takes place
within a specific institutional context that
may shape the nature of that expansion.

African nations had two institutional vari-
ants.1 Educational models with French or
British roots were introduced to (imposed
upon) nations that were typically composed
of a multiplicity of societal groups, with sub-
stantial intranational diversity. The vast litera-
ture on African societal groupings suggests
many potential cross-national comparisons of
intranational diversity, but two societal factors
seem particularly critical with regard to the
expansion of mass education: religion and
gender. Within the great diversity of religious
traditions in sub-Saharan Africa, we focus on
the role of Islam, primarily because modern
schooling was introduced by Christian mis-
sionaries. Consequently, Muslims tended to
be wary of enrolling children in schools
whose overt mission was religious conversion
to Christianity. Norms regarding the proper
role of girls and women also varied widely
across African societies. Gender norms can be
linked to religious institutions and to other
social institutions, such as patrilineal and
matrilineal rules of descent. Our exploration
essentially attempts to tease out the effects of
the models in consideration of these critical
societal factors, but we also recognize and
discuss the interaction between model and
society.

Finally, we explore whether the effects of
the models on the expansion of enrollments
changed over time. More specifically, we
examine zonal differences separately for the
periods 1970–1985 and 1985–2000. The
early stage of educational expansion, the late
1960s and 1970s, was a time of great enthu-
siasm and optimism for the newly indepen-
dent nations of sub-Saharan Africa. By the
mid-1980s, however, that optimism had
faded as states’ capacity to fund education
declined considerably in the wake of eco-
nomic stagnation, crushing external debt,
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Expansion of Enrollments in Sub-Saharan Africa 155

EDUCATIONAL MODEL AND
EDUCATIONAL EXPANSION

The colonial powers left a strong imprint on
educational systems, not only because the
colonial language became, and remains, the
lingua franca in a particular country, but
because when the time came to expand, the
colonial power’s models were used as models
and shaped the initial institutional arrange-
ments. Thus, French-like schools are found in
Francophone Africa, and English-like schools
have prevailed in Anglophone Africa. Within
each group of nations, differences have
emerged in pedagogical practices, criteria for
recruiting teachers, employment policies, and
so forth. However, essential within-model
similarities have remained. The Francophone
model assigns greater decision-making power
to the central state educational institution,
the Ministry of Education. In Francophone
nations, teachers were historically national-
level civil servants who could be appointed to
any school in the country;2 they were recruit-
ed on the basis of an anonymous written
examination, were similarly remunerated,
and were responsible for teaching a national-
ly determined curriculum at a prescribed
pace. The local community was expected to
contribute to the funding of some expenses,
but it had little voice in how the money was
spent. Schools were emanations of the central
state, and its administrative leaders, including
principals, had, in theory at least, little auton-
omy. Principals moved from school to school
as a result of administrative decisions with vir-
tually no input from the community.

By contrast, local communities and indi-
vidual schools in Anglophone countries
enjoyed far more autonomy in recruitment,
pedagogical practices, and general policies.
In many cases, representatives of the commu-
nity had a voice in the selection of principals,
who were expected to exert significant
autonomy in the administration of their
schools. Historically, the differences between
French and British educational systems were
linked to different conceptions of the proper
relationship between the central state and
regional administrative units (Archer 1984).
The strong, centralized French state con-
trolled the pace of educational expansion

(Garnier, Hage, and Fuller 1989), while the
more decentralized British state gave more
power to local state actors to enable or con-
strain the expansion of mass education
(Archer 1984; Hage and Garnier 1990).

Newly independent African states assumed
organizational structures that closely resem-
bled their respective colonial rulers, and these
structures influenced the pace of educational
expansion. The Francophone educational
model relied upon a centralized bureaucratic
structure, and ministry officials ensured that
national educational policy was carried out:
One national curriculum was followed, teach-
ers’ assignments were national, one language
of instruction (French) was accepted, and lit-
tle effort was made to include national lan-
guages. The high degree of centralization
that was characteristic of Francophone
nations may have impeded the emergence of
local practices and the possibilities of state-
society partnerships.3

In contrast, the Anglophone model
allowed more room for local practices to
emerge, and these practices facilitated expan-
sion.4 Self-help harambee schools in Kenya
(Bradshaw 1993, Schafer 2004), distance
education centers in Malawi, and Ujamaa
schooling in Tanzania represented but a few
examples of greater local control over educa-
tion. Furthermore, the recruitment of teach-
ers, the control of parents over teachers’
behavior, and the tradition of teachers’
autonomy were factors that encouraged par-
ents in Anglophone nations to enroll their
children in the decades following indepen-
dence.

The two groups of nations differed with
respect not only to their internal approach to
education, but to their external relationships
with their former colonizer and brethren
nations. Francophone nations have main-
tained supranational institutions that serve as
agents of centralization and constraint,
including two central banks (Collier 1991).
The Francophone educational model is so
strong that interstate agreements make it vir-
tually automatic for students who have taken
examinations in one Francophone country to
enter another country’s educational system.5
These practices had financial consequences:
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156 Garnier and Schafer

Francophone nations were nearly eight times
the per capita gross national product (GNP),
while teachers in nine Anglophone nations
earned only 3 1/2 times the per capita GNP, a
statistically significant difference (p < .05) (Mingat and Suchaut 2000). Francophone nations also adhered to tighter achievement norms; examinations determined who could proceed to a higher grade, for example. The failure to receive a passing grade in a major subject led to grade repetition, a practice that could involve 30 percent of the children in the first grade (Association for the Development of Education in Africa, 1999). Such grade repetition, far less prevalent in English-speaking countries, increased oppor- tunity costs and made it difficult for the poor- er children to remain in school. Because of the higher professional standards, unit costs of primary and secondary education were substantially higher for a selected group of Francophone nations in 1980 (Mingat and Tan 1985).6

But African teachers in both zones did
share common difficulties: They had to teach
children whose native language was not usu-
ally the language of instruction. Knowing the
local language afforded a distinct advantage,7
but such knowledge was not as prevalent in
French-speaking Africa as in Anglophone
Africa owing to more centralized teachers’
assignments. Parents are more likely to com-
municate easily with teachers and principals
who speak the local language and hence are
more likely to enroll their children. Such a sit-
uation was more likely to occur in
Anglophone than in Francophone Africa. In
Anglophone Africa, parents mustered their
resources and paid for supplies, while such an
expense was often viewed as an undesirable
“tax” in Francophone Africa, where it was
assumed that the state should provide such
resources. By contrast, the greater local
autonomy that prevailed in Anglophone
Africa led parents to accept the idea that they
were responsible, to a significant extent, for
providing some of the resources that were
needed for their children’s schooling. Our
assumption is that these powerful differences
in the models hindered the initial expansion
of enrollments in Francophone Africa because
educational practices were heavily influenced

by past colonial and present international
practices that require highly centralized and
standardized administrative arrangements.

SAMPLE AND ENROLLMENT
TRENDS: 1970–2000

To investigate whether differences in educa-
tional models influenced the expansion of
enrollment in sub-Saharan Africa, we con-
structed panel data for 28 sub-Saharan
African nations for which adequate data were
available on enrollments and key indepen-
dent variables of interest. For each nation, we
compiled data on enrollments and key inde-
pendent variables for seven five-year periods
from 1970 to 2000 and used these quin-
quennial data to explore how the education-
al models influenced the expansion of enroll-
ments over time. We begin with a descriptive
discussion of trends in enrollment.

Dependent Variable

We chose to use net enrollment ratio, the per-
centage of the official primary school age
group that is enrolled in school, as our prima-
ry measure of enrollment trends. The United
Nations has more extensive data on gross
enrollment ratios, that is, all enrolled children
divided by age group. Gross enrollment ratios
can be difficult to interpret, however, because
they often exceed 100 percent in countries
that are undergoing a rapid expansion in
enrollment, since a large number of children
outside the official age group enroll in school.
Fortunately, many African nations reported
both net and gross enrollments for several of
the seven periods in the study. The availabili-
ty of both statistics provides a simple method
by which to impute missing data on net
enrollment ratios. To complete our data set,
we used officially published net enrollment
ratios when they were available. When net
enrollment data were not reported for a spe-
cific country and period, we imputed net
enrollment data if, and only if, two conditions
were satisfied: Gross enrollment data were
available for the specified period (panel), and
both gross and net enrollments were avail-
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Expansion of Enrollments in Sub-Saharan Africa 157

These conditions enabled us to use average
gross enrollment ratio/net enrollment ratio to
interpolate missing “net” from available
“gross” enrollment data for each nation.
Approximately one third of the net enroll-
ment observations (64 of 192 total observa-
tions) were imputed in this way, while the
remaining data were originally reported to
the United Nations by each nation in the
sample.

Table 1 lists the Francophone and
Anglophone nations that were included in
this study, along with decennial net primary
school enrollment ratios from 1970 to 2000.
In 1970, 45 percent of school-age children
were enrolled in Anglophone Africa, com-
pared to only 35 percent who were enrolled
in Francophone Africa. Enrollments increased
by 20 percentage points or more from 1970
to 2000 in both groups of nations, with con-
siderable variation within the educational
models.

The nations in Table 1 represent all nations
for which we were able to construct data on
net enrollment ratios (described in detail
later). For a smaller sample of 24 nations, we
were able to gather data on male and female
enrollment ratios, separately, and to graph
enrollment trends by educational model, reli-
gion, and gender (see Figures 1–5).

Figure 1 demonstrates two distinct pat-
terns of enrollment expansion from 1970 to
1985. In addition to having higher enroll-
ments to begin the period, the Anglophone
group realized a more rapid expansion of
enrollments from 1970 to 1985 than did the
Francophone group. After 1985, however,
enrollment ratios stagnated and even
declined slightly in Anglophone nations, from
the peak of 72 percent enrolled in 1985 to 70
percent enrolled in 2000.8 By contrast,
Francophone nations were better able to
maintain their slower pace of expansion of
enrollments throughout the 30-year period,
regaining the ground lost in the 1970s in the
1990s.

The flattening of the Anglophone curve
after 1985 is a particularly striking feature of
Figure 1 and deserves more discussion. In the
1980s, the combination of economic stagna-
tion and structural adjustment led to severely
reduced educational spending. According to

a World Bank report, the total educational
expenditure in Africa was cut by 30 percent in
the first half of the 1980s (Fredrikson 1990),
yet total enrollments in education increased
throughout the continent. Figure 1 suggests
that this reduced educational expenditure
affected Anglophone and Francophone
nations’ enrollment ratios differently. Diffusion
theory would not predict this leveling off to
occur at 70 percent of all children who were
enrolled. We suggest that the different edu-
cational models influenced this leveling off.
The demand-driven Anglophone model was
both better able to expand during the early
period and more vulnerable to economic
shock in the 1980s and 1990s, while the sup-
ply-driven Francophone model was better
able to withstand the early pressure for rapid
expansion and better able to cope with eco-
nomic hardships in the later period. Yet, there
are other potential explanations for the
observed differences in enrollment patterns
between these two groups of nations.

Islam and Gender

The different patterns of expansion of enroll-
ments between Anglophone and Francophone
nations could be spurious, reflecting deep soci-
etal chasms across linguistic zones. Religion is
one key consideration because modern school-
ing originated in the African continent with
Christian missionaries. In many instances,
Muslim parents who associated modern
schools with Christianity were reluctant to
enroll their children in modern schools.

Figure 2 compares the expansion of enroll-
ment across nations with a Muslim majority
versus those with a non-Muslim majority.
Throughout the 30-year period, non-Muslim
majority nations exhibited higher enrollment
ratios than did Muslim-majority nations.
However, the expansion of enrollments was
greater in Muslim nations, increasing about
30 percentage points, from 22 percent who
were enrolled in 1970 to 52 percent who
were enrolled by 2000. In comparison, enroll-
ment ratios increased only 18 percentage
points in non-Muslim nations in this period,
from 54 percent to 72 percent who were
enrolled.9 Moreover, Muslim nations expand-
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158 Garnier and Schafer

1990s, while enrollments stagnated in non-
Muslim nations. Clearly, religious differences
could provide an alternative explanation for
the differences in the models that are shown
in Figure 1. Figure 3 combines the data on
model and religion to show the separate

trends in enrollments for four groups of
nations: Anglophone non-Muslim, Anglophone
Muslim, Francophone non-Muslim, and
Francophone Muslim. This graph is less smooth
because of the small number of nations that are
represented, but it suggests that both educa-

Table 1. Nations, Model Affiliation, and Decennial Net Enrollment Ratios, 1970–2000

Net Enrollment Ratio

Nation 1970 1980 1990 2000

Francophone
1. Benin 28 52 45 70
2. Burkina Faso 10 15 27 36
3. Burundi 23 20 51 54
4. Cameroon 64 71 76 66
5. Central African Republic 50 56 53 55
6. Chad 28 30 43 58
7. Comoros 24 60 53 56
8. Congo, Republic 67 95 90 65
9. Congo, Democratic Republic 68 70 54 33
10. Guinea 24 27 26 47
11. Mali 17 20 21 43
12. Mauritania 10 27 36 64
13. Niger 12 21 24 30
14. Rwanda 48 59 66 NA
15. Senegal 34 37 48 63
16. Togo 55 75 75 91

Francophone Average
All
(Figure 1 Only) 35 46 49 55

(33) (44) (48) (55)

Anglophone
1. Botswana 46 76 93 84
2. Gambia 21 50 52 69
3. Ghana 46 57 54 58
4. Kenya 47 91 77 69
5. Lesotho 66 67 73 78
6. Malawi 32 43 50 73
7. Sierra Leone 31 47 45 NA
8. Sudan 32 42 44 49
9. Swaziland 62 80 88 93
10. Tanzania 25 68 51 47
11. Zambia 68 77 86 66
12. Zimbabwe 62 72 98 80

Anglophone Average
All
Figure 1 Only 45 64 64 70

(48) (68) (72) (69)

Overall Average 39 53 57 61

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Expansion of Enrollments in Sub-Saharan Africa 159

tional model and majority religion influenced
enrollment levels and expansion in sub-
Saharan Africa from 1970 to 2000.

More specifically, Figure 3 shows that non-
Muslim nations had higher enrollment levels
than did Muslim nations, but irrespective of
the religious majority, Anglophone nations
had higher levels of enrollment than did
Francophone nations. At the same time, 1980
enrollments were equivalent to 2000 enroll-
ments for all Anglophone nations (73 percent
enrolled for Anglophone non-Muslim and 63
percent enrolled for Anglophone Muslim,
respectively. By contrast, Muslim nations saw
a continued expansion of enrollments after
1980, with Francophone Muslim nations

expanding enrollments from 30 percent in
1980 to 50 percent by 2000).

Gender may also influence the expansion
of primary-school enrollments. Figure 4
shows male and female enrollments for the
Anglophone and Francophone nations from
1970 to 2000. The 1970 gender gap in
Anglophone nations was small; male enroll-
ments (51 percent) were only 5 percentage
points higher than were female enrollments
(46 percent). This gap closed, and, by 2000,
male and female enrollments were virtually
identical among Anglophone nations. In con-
trast, the gender gap was large in
Francophone Africa. In 1970, male enroll-
ments in Francophone Africa exceeded

Figure 1. Enrollment, by Model

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160 Garnier and Schafer

female enrollments by 18 percentage points
(41 percent versus 23 percent enrolled). The
gender gap in Francophone nations closed to
about a 12 percentage-point difference by
2000, but even then, male Francophone
enrollments, at 64 percent, lagged just
behind Anglophone enrollments (both male
and female), at 69 percent, while female
Francophone enrollments remained much
lower than all other enrollments, at 51 per-
cent. This graph suggests that gender shapes
the relationship between educational model
and enrollment expansion.

Figure 5 includes all three factors—model,
Islam, and gender—to provide the most con-
ceptually disentangled picture of the expansion
of enrollments in sub-Saharan Africa. In

Anglophone, non-Muslim nations, a higher
percentage of both boys and girls were enrolled
from 1970 to 2000, even though enrollments
within this group of nations declined slightly
after 1985. In Anglophone Muslim nations
(only three nations), both male and female
enrollments expanded rapidly from 1970 to
1980 and then declined (significantly in the
case of male enrollments). Male and female
enrollment ratios varied widely in Muslim and
non-Muslim Franco-phone nations, providing a
clear indication that gender differences may
not be strictly tied to religion and should be
considered independently. Moreover, these
four groups within the Francophone model
(male non-Muslim, male Muslim, female non-
Muslim, and female Muslim) all showed steady

Figure 2. Enrollment, by Religion

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Expansion of Enrollments in Sub-Saharan Africa 161

increases throughout the 30-year period, and
all with significant increases in enrollments in
the late 1990s. Among all the non-Muslim
nations in 2000, only 55 percent of the girls in
Francophone nations were enrolled, compared
to 71 percent of the boys in Francophone
nations and 73 percent of all Anglophone non-
Muslims, indicating a strong gender-model
interaction.

The social norms leading to larger gender
disparities in the Francophone region may
partly reflect religious differences across
zones, but there are also other structural
(e.g., percentage rural and migration pat-
terns) and cultural (lineage systems, marital
norms, and rites-of-passage customs) factors
that could potentially create gender differ-

ences in enrollments. Moreover, our discus-
sion of differences in the models alludes to
the strong possibility of interaction effects
between the type of educational model and
its ability to penetrate patriarchal and Muslim
societies. To assess the relationship between
educational model and enrollment expansion
more systematically, we constructed an addi-
tional quinquennial panel data set with a
range of variables that could potentially have
influenced the expansion of enrollments for
the same period, 1970–2000.

Independent Variables

We used the dummy variable, Francophone,
to test the effect of educational model. While

Figure 3. Enrollment, by Model and Religion

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162 Garnier and Schafer

we acknowledge within-model variation in
institutional arrangements, our focus is on the
broad influence of the specific national edu-
cational institution. Therefore, the dummy
variable served as a global proxy for model
effects. Data that would enable us to specify
whether individual nations within groups
conform to the different dimensions of the
two models are not available.

We measured the availability of resources
as the level of economic development, per cap-
ital gross domestic product (GDP). We further
defined economic growth as the change in the
per capita GDP over each five-year period. In
regression analyses, this variable is logged to
correct for its skewed distribution.

We included an indicator of worldwide
organizational and cultural resources, INGO
memberships, a measure of world institution-
alism. Institutional theorists have argued that
INGOs contribute to global institutional stan-
dardization and convergence (Boli & Thomas,
1997). Although it is also possible that the
pluralism of local nongovernmental organiza-
tions (NGOs) may further shape educational
expansion and development, we did not find
valid measures of local NGOs to include in
our analysis. Because the INGO variable is
highly skewed in the region, we took the nat-
ural logarithm of the number of INGO mem-
berships (Schafer 1999).10 The literature
emphasizes the importance of INGO expan-

Figure 4. Enrollment, by Model, by Gender

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Expansion of Enrollments in Sub-Saharan Africa 163

sion in the wake of the declining state
(Bratton 1989); therefore, we measured the
expansion of INGO memberships (again
using first differences).

We further distinguished between the
availability of resources and investment by
including a measure of investment and edu-
cational expenditure, defined as the total pub-
lic educational expenditure as a percentage of
the GNP. Data on national expenditures for
the region are limited. We obtained at least
one panel of such data for each nation, but
data for all panels were available for only 15
nations. This variable is “sluggish,” since edu-
cational expenditure levels changed slowly
over the 30-year period. The level of invest-

ment is more relevant than are short-term
changes in state educational expenditures.

Finally, we included pupil-teacher ratio in
our models. Pupil-teacher ratio is an imper-
fect measure of class size, and higher pupil-
teacher ratios are not necessarily linked to
lower-quality schools. But large increases in
pupil-teacher ratio may indicate that the
expansion of enrollments stretched the state’s
capacity to provide teachers. Fuller (1991), in
particular, argued that deteriorating school
quality that is due to the overcrowding of
schools as a result of the rapid expansion of
mass education is detrimental to the subse-
quent expansion of enrollments because par-
ents and communities see diminishing social

Figure 5. Enrollment, by Model and Religion, by Gender

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164 Garnier and Schafer

and economic returns to schooling (see also
Heyneman and Loxley 1983). Some variation
in the number of students per teacher can be
expected; therefore, we explored the effect of
the increase in the pupil-teacher ratio over each
five-year period.

Quality of the Data

All the independent variables just described
were drawn from three international databas-
es—the United Nations, World Bank, and
Union of International Associations. All these
variables have been used in cross-national
studies, but quinquennial panel coverage for
the nations of sub-Saharan Africa is incom-
plete. To deal with missing values for some
nations for some periods, we selected vari-
ables for which there was adequate coverage
for most nations in the sample for most of the
five-year periods (described in Appendix
Table A). An alternative strategy would have
been to include more variables and to deal
with missing data by imputing values. We
opted not to impute missing values of inde-
pendent variables. We imputed values of the
dependent variable, net enrollment ratio,
because gross enrollments were available for
each time frame and for both net and gross
enrollments for some periods. We did not
have any similarly practical way to impute the
values of the missing independent variables
and, therefore, opted to include only vari-
ables with sufficient coverage.

Bivariate Findings

Table 2 presents the bivariate relationships
across the two sub-Saharan educational mod-
els. The top four rows provide a test of
whether the relationships depicted in Figure 1
are statistically significant. They explore dif-
ferences between the models in enrollment
levels, enrollment growth averaged over the
30-year span from 1970 to 2000, the early
expansion of enrollments from 1970 to 1985,
and later expansion of enrollments from 1985
to 2000, respectively. The intercept differ-
ences that are depicted in Figure 1 are signif-
icant, with average net enrollment ratios
averaging 63 percent for Anglophone and 47
percent for Francophone nations, respective-

ly. The expansion of enrollments was roughly
similar across groups for the entire 30-year
period, with 5-year rates of enrollment
growth averaging 3.5 in Francophone and
3.9 in Anglophone nations. The rapid early
expansion in enrollments among the
Anglophone group was much greater than
among the Francophone group (with 5-year
increases averaging 7.8 compared to 4.6, p =
.06). After 1985, average enrollments fell in
Anglophone Africa but continued to expand
in Francophone Africa from 1985 to 2000,
but the differences are not significant (p =
.09). However, these early–late differences
(also depicted in Figure 1) are not statistically
significant at the p < .05 level. Nonetheless, the bivariate findings suggest the need for multivariate analyses to determine the extent of the effects of the models.

The bottom of Table 2 depicts differences
between the models across a range of
explanatory variables that are theorized to
influence enrollments. The Anglophone
nations had higher mean levels of economic
development, INGO expansion, and educa-
tional expenditure, but lower pupil-teacher
ratios than did the Francophone nations.
Moreover, the Anglophone nations exhibited
greater within-charter variation in the level of
economic development, INGO expansion,
and educational expenditure, while there was
more variation in pupil-teacher ratios among
the members of the Francophone group.

In bivariate descriptive analyses, we exam-
ined differences between the models in net
enrollment levels and expansion, which we
operationalized in terms of first differences
(Net Enrollment at Time t – Net Enrollment at
Time Time 5).11 In the next section, we fur-
ther explore whether differences in the mod-
els remain when resources, religion, and gen-
der are taken into consideration.

First-Difference Model of
Enrollment Expansion

To explore the effects of educational models
in sub-Saharan Africa, we use a first-difference
model of enrollment expansion. The first-dif-
ference model provides a way of capitalizing
on the strength of panel data, that is, the
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Expansion of Enrollments in Sub-Saharan Africa 165

omitted variables or unobserved, individual
country effects (Beck 2001; Firebaugh and
Beck 1994; Halaby 2004).

Although we focus on the effects of the
educational model and a limited number of
independent variables, we should not ignore
the possibility that unmeasured national attrib-
utes could have substantial effects on the
expansion of enrollments. National attributes
are enduring (do not change over time) and
unique (vary across nations) characteristics of

individual nations. These are left out of quan-
titative studies because they are difficult to
measure meaningfully. Examples may include
the cultural reception of the modern school,
the history of mission schools, the viability of
subsistence versus more modern lifestyles, the
presence of alternatives to modern schools,
state legitimacy and its relationship to school-
ing, and the prevalence of war or unrest,
among many others. Since national attributes
are unmeasured, we cannot empirically deter-

Table 2. Independent Variable Means (Quinquennial Averages, 1970–2000), by Educational

Modela

Variable Francophone Anglophone
Modelb Model t-statisticc

Net Enrollment 46.51 62.50 2.26*
1970–2000 (21.49) (19.24)

Net Enrollment Change 3.61 3.88 .20
1970–2000 (10.08) (8.65)

Net Enrollment Change 4.39 6.33 1.12
1970–1985 (7.59) (10.96)

Net Enrollment Change 3.12 -0.26 -1.67
1985–2000 (9.99) (7.24)

Level of Economic Development 409.62 609.20 2.73**
(219.51) (698.93)

INGO Change 57.67 83.64 3.75**
(37.67) (51.16)

Educational Expenditure 3.40 4.77 5.46**
(1.38) (1.77)

Pupil-Teacher Ratio 49.86 38.53 -7.14**
(11.35) (9.84)

Percentage Female 39.26 46.28 8.50**
(5.67) (5.65)

*p < .05, **p < .01 (two-tailed tests).

a Figures in parentheses are standard deviations.
b Figures standardized to 1995 prices.
c H0: Anglophone mean – Francophone mean = 0.

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166 Garnier and Schafer

mine whether they influence enrollment; we
justify the first-difference model because we
strongly suspect that national attributes have
a substantial influence on the growth (and
retardation) of enrollments in particular
nations during a particular time frame.
Therefore, following Firebaugh and Beck
(1994), we used a first-difference model of
enrollment growth as follows:

Enrollment Expansion = Net Enrollmentt –
Net Enrollmentt-5 =

ß0 + ß1 (INGO Expansion = Log International

INGO Memberships*t – Log International
INGO Memberships*t-5)

+ ß2 (Economic Growth = Log Level of Economic
Development*t – Log Level of Economic
Development*t-5)

+ ß3 (Pupil-Teacher Ratio Increase = Pupil-Teacher
Ratio*t – Pupil-Teacher Ratio*t-5)

+ ß4 (Net Enrollment Level*t-5) + ß5 (Level of
Economic Development* t-5)

+ ß6 (Francophone) + ß6 (Percentage Muslim) + ε

Both the dependent and independent vari-
ables are first differenced, except in the cases
of two time-invariant, dummy variables: the
Francophone dummy variable and percent-
age Muslim. We also include two “level” vari-
ables: (1) net enrollment level, which controls
for a ceiling effect because ratios cannot
exceed 100 percent enrolled, and (2) level of
economic development, which controls for a
constant-effects assumption that the initial
level of economic development (or availabili-
ty of resources) causes the expansion of
enrollments independent of shorter-term
fluctuations in resource-generating capacity
(economic growth). The panel model is esti-
mated for three time frames: 1970–2000,
1970–1985, and 1985–2000 to explore
early–late differences in charter effects on
enrollment expansion.

Differencing not only improves estimation
by effectively dealing with potential bias that
is due to unobserved country effects, it also
reduces estimation problems that are due to
temporal autocorrelation and nonstationarity.
Temporal autocorrelation (also serial autocor-
relation or serial dependence) is expected in
panel data; it is common for values for a par-

ticular country from one year to be associat-
ed with values for the same country from
other years. Using quinquennial data reduces
the problem because five-year correlations
are generally weaker than are one-year corre-
lations. Differencing further reduces the prob-
lem because the associations between
changes in values are typically not as strong as
are associations between levels of values from
one time unit to the next. Nonetheless, in
panel estimation, it is still necessary to test for
first-order serial autocorrelation, which we
did using a Wooldridge test (2002), imple-
mented using the STATA command, XTSERI-
AL. The tests (reported in Table 2) indicated
first-order autocorrelation in most models.
Therefore, we applied the Prais-Winston esti-
mator with AR (1) disturbance terms to con-
trol for first-order serial correlation in the first-
difference model.

Differencing also helps address the issue of
stationarity. Panel data analysis requires sta-
tionary data—meaning that means, vari-
ances, and autocovariances (at various lags)
of data do not vary over time—otherwise
there is a risk of a spurious regression problem
(Granger and Newbold 1974). We tested for
stationarity of all data using a Dickey-Fuller
test: an ordinary least-squares (OLS) regres-
sion of the first difference of a series on its
lagged level. This test detected a unit root for
one variable: level of economic development.
Moreover, the logarithmic transformation did
not eliminate the unit root, or problem of
nonstationarity. Further tests confirmed that
none of the differenced variables contained
unit roots; all satisfied the condition of sta-
tionarity that is required for panel analysis.

Panel analysis also requires that data be
homoskedastic within each period or panel.
We used panel-corrected standard errors
(PCSE), as recommended by Beck and Katz
(1995), adjusting standard errors in light of
the panel structure of the data, assuming a
common (as opposed to a unit-specific)
autoregressive process. Since we detected
autocorrelation in the model using the
Wooldridge test, we used PCSEs with a Prais-
Winston transformation that models first-
order autocorrelation. We checked our results
against two other procedures for adjusting
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Expansion of Enrollments in Sub-Saharan Africa 167

White robust-cluster error estimates (see
Moller et al. 2003) and the Newey-West stan-
dard error estimates (Halaby 2004). All the
findings presented next were consistent
across all three methods of correcting stan-
dard errors.

In sum, first differencing helped to ensure
that we would obtain unbiased estimates to
determine whether associations between
model and enrollment growth are genuine or
spurious. But there is a drawback to using the
first-difference model. First, differencing may
contribute to an endogeneity problem
because changes in some variables are often
associated with changes in other variables.
For example, our model suggests that eco-
nomic growth affects enrollment growth,
but, clearly, the reverse could also true (that
enrollment expansion leads to economic
growth). The same could be true for increas-
es in the pupil-teacher ratio—they could be
either a cause or an effect of enrollment
growth. Although methods exist for address-
ing endogeneity within the dynamic panel
framework (see Halaby 2004 for an
overview), we could not use such methods in
this study because of the limited number of
nations and time frames. However, our pri-
mary interest is the model effects and
whether such effects have changed over time.
Therefore, we focus on establishing the rela-
tionships in this section and return to the
issue of causality in the Discussion.

FINDINGS

Table 3 presents Prais-Winston estimates with
panel-corrected standard errors for the
regression of the first-difference model.
Model 1 presents the findings for the entire
30-year period, and Models 2 and 3 present
the findings for the early and late periods
(1970–1985 and 1985–2000), respectively.
Model 1 reveals a strong relationship
between economic growth and the expan-
sion of enrollments. In addition, increases in
pupil-teacher ratios were associated with
enrollment expansion during the 30-year
time frame. Finally, there is a ceiling effect
because countries with higher enrollment
ratios experienced less expansion, net of

other factors. The Wooldridge test showed
positive autocorrelation in the model, and the
Prais-Winston transformation reduced the
extent of autocorrelation (e.g., increased the
Durbin Watson statistic from 1.27 to 1.47).
Model 1 does not indicate a model effect, but
this should not be surprising because the
Anglophone-Francophone gap in 1970 was
about the same as in 2000 (see Figure 1).

The different form of expansion between
the two models lies in the paths they each
took to arrive at their millennial enrollment
ratios, which are depicted in Models 2 and 3.
The important finding depicted in Model 2 is
the strong negative Francophone effect, indi-
cating that the more centralized model
restrained the expansion of enrollments in the
early period, 1970–1985. Also during this
time span, both the level of economic devel-
opment and enrollment change were associ-
ated with a greater expansion in enrollments.
The Wooldridge test for serial autocorrelation
is not significant in this model, yet the Durbin
Watson statistic shows positive serial depen-
dence, which is not improved by the Prais-
Winston transformation. To explore the
robustness of the model effect further, we
reran the model with several different model
designs.12

After 1985, the effect of educational model
reversed itself (see Model 3), with
Francophone nations achieving higher enroll-
ment expansion than Anglophone nations
from 1985 to 2000, net of all other factors.
Increases in pupil-teacher ratios, not signifi-
cant in the early period, were positively asso-
ciated with more enrollment growth in the
later period. Finally, the strong association
between economic growth and enrollment
growth remained. We tested for the signifi-
cance of period differences (e.g., Is Model 2
significantly different from Model 3?) by
using a dummy variable EARLY = 1 for all vari-
ables years 1970–1985 and rerunning Model
1 with interaction terms with each right-
hand-side variable. These tests confirmed the
significance of period differences in educa-
tional model.

The findings reported in Table 3 have sev-
eral theoretical implications. First, they pro-
vide empirical support for our contention that
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168 Garnier and Schafer

of enrollment expansion in sub-Saharan
Africa after independence. The trend depict-
ed in Figure 1 persisted after we controlled for
resources, pupil-teacher ratio, percentage
female, and percentage Muslim.13 The first-

difference model design reduces the likeli-
hood that the Francophone dummy variable
encapsulates other, unobserved, differences
between the two groups of nations.

Second, the findings demonstrate the crit-

Table 3. Unstandardized Prais-Winston Regression Estimates with AR(1) Disturbances and
Panel-Corrected Standard Errors

Dependent Variable: Net Enrollment Change

(1) (2) (3)
Independent Variables 1970–2000 1970–1985 1985–2000

Economic Growth (logged) 17.69** 23.52*** 22.90**
(5.65) (7.57) (10.21)

International NGO Expansion (logged) -2.51 -5.89 -11.59
(2.84) (4.05) (9.48)

Increase in Pupil-Teacher Ratio .18* .13 .22*
(.09) (.10) (.11)

Percentage Female 1.09** .87 1.11
(.39) (.48) (.64)

Percentage Muslim -.05 -.06 -.03
(.03) (.04) (.03)

Francophone Dummy -1.74 -6.71*** 5.43*
(2.27) (2.12) (2.75)

Floor Effect: Level of Economic Developmentt-5 3.09 7.42* .44
(1.79) (3.27) (1.50)

Ceiling Effect: Net Enrollment Ratio t-5 -.20* -.27 -.09

(.09) (.19) (.09)

R-squared .29 .34 .42

Rho .09 .05 -.02

Wooldridge Test 10.91** 2.75 15.14***

Durbin Watson Before 1.39 1.38 1.18

Durbin Watson After 1.43 1.21 1.28

Countries 27 25 27

Observations 143 70 73

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests).

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Expansion of Enrollments in Sub-Saharan Africa 169

ical association between economic growth
and the expansion of enrollments. In short,
resources matter. The nations in the world’s
poorest region may have shared the desire to
expand educational opportunity, as world
institutionalism suggests, but their capacity to
achieve their educational expansion goals
was strongly linked to their capacity to
achieve economic growth. In testing for asso-
ciations between economic growth and
enrollment expansion over particular five-year
time frames, our design does not indicate
whether economic growth caused the expan-
sion of enrollments. We return to this ques-
tion in the Discussion.

Third, despite the depiction of large differ-
ences in enrollment between Muslim and
non-Muslim nations in Figure 2, the findings
in Table 3 suggest that the percentage of
Muslims in a nation did not significantly influ-
ence the expansion of enrollments. Figure 2
was partially misleading in that we grouped
nations with different proportions of Muslims
into one of two groups (majority Muslim or
majority non-Muslim). However, it is also pos-
sible that the effect of a large Muslim popula-
tion extends beyond the particular members
of the faith to influence enrollments through-
out the nation. If this were the case, it would
be more appropriate to use a dummy variable
than the percentages that we used in Table 3.
We further explore the influence of religion in
the next section. In addition, we explore gen-
der differences, again differentiating between
early and late periods of enrollment expan-
sion.

Religion and Gender

To explore the effects of religion and gender,
we used a reduced first-difference model in
which enrollment expansion is regressed only
on economic growth. We divided the
Francophone dummy into two groups, one
with five, mostly non-Muslim, nations and the
other with seven, predominantly Muslim
Francophone, nations. We kept the floor and
ceiling effects in the model. Table 4 presents
the results separately for the early and late peri-
ods, consistent with the previous analysis (but
excluding the model for the full 30-year peri-
od).

The first model in Table 4 found an early-
period negative effect of educational model for
both the Muslim and non-Muslim nations. The
Francophone educational model suppressed
enrollment growth overall, as well as for boys
and girls separately. The model effect is
stronger (e.g., the size of the coefficient) for
Muslim than for non-Muslim Francophone
nations. Among non-Muslim nations, the neg-
ative charter effect was much stronger for
female enrollments than for male enrollments
(-4.64 compared to -2.35).

Models 4, 5, and 6 test whether the positive,
late-period Francophone effect that was shown
in Table 3 held for both Muslim and non-
Muslim nations and across gender lines. The
signs of both the educational model and the
religious majority dummy variables are reversed
in all three equations, and four of the six model
coefficients are statistically significant. The pos-
itive charter effect in the later period is most
apparent among non-Muslim nations, where
Francophone systems experienced greater
expansion than their Anglophone counterparts
in overall, male, and female enrollments. The
Francophone Muslim nations, however, real-
ized a significantly greater growth in female
enrollments than did the Anglophone nations,
a finding that supports the implications of
Figures 4 and 5 that both female and Muslim
enrollment ratios increased substantially in the
region over the course of the 1990s. Again,
tests for period differences confirmed that the
effects of educational model were significantly
different for the early and late periods.

DISCUSSION

The findings just presented have considerable
implications for theories of educational expan-
sion. First, our contention that substantial dif-
ferences in the educational models influenced
the expansion of enrollments in the region is
supported by this analysis. Centrally planned
Francophone nations in sub-Saharan Africa
failed to achieve the same rapid increases in
enrollments as did their Anglophone counter-
parts in the initial period following indepen-
dence, but they maintained steady expansion
during the period of severe economic difficulty
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170 Garnier and Schafer

1990s. We offer a conceptual account of these
differences in the models that focus on central-
ization, international relations, and profession-
alism. It may be useful to specify further the ele-
ments of each model and variations within
zones, so that the contribution of specific orga-
nizational practices and institutional arrange-
ments to educational expansion can be further
understood. It is clear that organizational
processes affect expansion, even if the overall

shape of that expansion reflects universal
norms.

Second, resources matter. We present strong
evidence that nations with higher rates of eco-
nomic growth achieved a greater expansion of
enrollments over the entire 30-year period.
Furthermore, the level of economic develop-
ment kick-started the enrollment-expansion
process after independence, but became less
important over time. We also note that the

Table 4. Unstandardized Prais-Winston Regression Estimates with AR(1) Disturbances and Panel-
Corrected Errors

Dependent Variable: Net Change in Enrollment

Early: 1970–1985 Late: 1985–2000

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Independent Variables All Male Female All Male Female

Economic Growth (logged) 13.63*** 7.41 15.47*** 24.31*** 25.02*** 26.07***
(4.16) (6.20) (3.86) (6.35) (4.93) (6.73)

Francophone NonMuslim
(5 countries) -3.94* -2.35* -4.64* 9.85*** 8.60*** 7.61***

(2.18) (1.32) (2.24) (1.31) (1.58) (2.71)

Francophone Muslim
(7 countries) -9.21** -9.85* -9.33** 5.35 5.00 4.80*

(3.93) (4.70) (3.88) (3.56) (4.75) (3.02)

Floor Effect: Level of 4.47 4.72 4.65 1.51 1.42 .99
Economic Developmentt-5 (3.13) (3.77) (2.88) (1.69) (2.09) (1.59)

Ceiling Effect: Net Enrollment Ratio t-5 -.22 -.29 -.20 -.10 -.10 -.10
(.15) (.19) (.12) (.11) (.18) (.09)

R-squared .27 .23 .28 .41 .36 .44

Rho -.03 .24 -.04 -.18 -.18 -.13

Wooldridge Test 9.43* 38.66*** 8.59** 7.19* 3.18 5.04*

Durbin Watson Before 1.30 1.36 1.19 1.76 1.91 1.67

Durbin Watson After 1.21 1.34 1.19 1.46 1.49 1.53

Countries 22 20 20 22 22 22

Observations 63 60 60 63 63 63

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests). at LEHMAN COLLEGE LIBRARY on July 31, 2014soe.sagepub.comDownloaded from http://soe.sagepub.com/

Expansion of Enrollments in Sub-Saharan Africa 171

association between increases in pupil-teacher
ratios and enrollment expansion can be inter-
preted as indicating that the state’s capacity to
produce teachers failed to keep pace with the
popular demand for more and more schooling
in the late 1980s and 1990s. Population growth
and the demand for higher quality will, accord-
ing to some, continue to place pressure on
states to devote more scarce resources to
schooling. These results contradict Fuller’s
(1991) suggestion of a trade-off between the
deterioration in school quality and enrollment
expansion: Indeed, the national educational
systems that allowed for substantial increases in
pupil-teacher ratios also realized higher rates of
expansion, net of other factors, in the same
period. The extreme poverty and scarcity of
resources in the regions means that sub-
Saharan nations had to make difficult choices
between expanding low-quality mass school-
ing for more citizens versus maintaining higher-
quality schooling for fewer citizens. It is proba-
ble that the educational model played a signif-
icant role in how these kinds of decisions were
made.

Having said this, we note that our findings
show associations between variables measured
over the same five-year time frames, not causal
associations that are associated with classical
panel designs in which changes in enrollment
are regressed on independent variables mea-
sured at the earlier time frame. Although we
presented strong methodological reasons for
using the first-difference model, we also ran
classic regression models to assess the causal
relationship among resources, model, and
enrollment expansion (see Table 5). This model
confirms a strong, positive, causal and persis-
tent relationship between the level of econom-
ic development and the expansion of enroll-
ments in sub-Saharan Africa. It also depicts neg-
ative effects of educational model and Islam in
the early period. However, it is prone to bias
because it does not control for unmeasured
national attributes.
Third, the model effect was consistent for male
and female enrollments and generally consis-
tent across Muslim and non-Muslim popula-
tions. It seems likely that these and other soci-

etal factors could indirectly affect the expansion
of enrollments. Perhaps the Anglophone model
was initially more adept at stimulating local
demand for schooling, but later lost its legiti-
macy in the wake of economic failure, structur-
al adjustment, deteriorating school quality, and
increased educational inequality within nations.
By contrast, the Francophone model may have
been more effective in resisting popular (and
global) pressure to expand enrollments rapidly,
opting in favor of greater quality14 and equali-
ty of educational opportunity, so the
Francophone nations were better able to sus-
tain enrollment expansion over the longer
term. When data become available, it should
become possible to ascertain which specific
organizational practices are associated with
each model and how these organizational prac-
tices affect the expansion of enrollments across
the region.

Our findings are not fundamentally inconsis-
tent with institutional theory’s arguments and
the considerable evidence gathered to support
it. Our findings do suggest that timing is impor-
tant. It is the case that enrollments increased
dramatically in sub-Saharan Africa, despite the
general lack of resources. Moreover, the educa-
tional models were no in way native to that
continent. It happens that different models
were brought to Africa and that these models
affected the rate of expansion. It is worth not-
ing that the rate of female attendance in
Muslim areas is catching up, suggesting that
the universal norm eventually spreads, despite
local cultural practices. When data become
available, it should become possible to deter-
mine whether resources and model affect the
rate of expansion. Enrollments should reach
their maximum levels in areas that are relative-
ly resource rich and that rely on local control
over educational decisions. By contrast, enroll-
ments should remain at their low level in areas
that are resource poor and rely on central deci-
sion making. Eventually, all children will attend
school. However, which children will benefit
first and which will benefit last are affected by
resources and the prevalent educational model.

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172 Garnier and Schafer

Table 5. Unstandardized Prais-Winston Regression Estimates with AR(1) Disturbances and
Panel-Corrected Standard Errors

Dependent Variable: Net Enrollment Change
(1) (2) (3)
Independent Variables 1970–2000 1970–1985 1985–2000

Net Enrollment Ratio t-5 -.30*** -.30 -.27*

.11 .19 .13

Log. Level of Economic Development t-5 5.66** 7.92** 4.64*

1.36 2.20 1.96

Log. International NGO Memberships t-5 .39 1.23 1.51

.75 1.18 1.06

Pupil-Teacher Ratio t-5 .07 .06 .01

.09 .13 .11

Percentage Female t-5 -.01 -.11 .00

.13 .13 .21

Percentage Muslim -.06* -.11** -.01
.03 .04 (.05)

Francophone Dummy -3.89** -7.43** 1.11
1.50 2.07 (4.39)

R-squared .17 .22 .21

Rho .06 .01 .07

Wooldridge Test 15.37** 4.90* 8.24**

Durbin Watson Before 1.34 1.22 1.17

Durbin Watson After 1.43 1.18 1.30

Countries 27 25 25

Observations 143 73 76

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests).

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Expansion of Enrollments in Sub-Saharan Africa 173

NOTES

1. Actually, there are two more—Spanish
and Portuguese—but France and Britain colo-
nized many more countries.

2. This tradition is undergoing rapid
change. In Senegal, for example, “volunteer”
teachers are not civil servants, nor are “com-
munity” teachers in Benin. These teachers
now constitute about 50 percent of all teach-
ers.

3. A number of development projects in
Benin, Guinea, Mali, and Senegal, for exam-
ple, seek to decentralize the administrative
structure of the educational system and to
foster the creation of state-society partner-
ships.

4. Decentralization is now taking place in a
number of French-speaking countries. For
example, in Benin, some schools are hiring
teachers who are paid by parents. These
teachers have fewer educational credentials
than do state-appointed teachers, are paid
significantly less, and are under the control of
parents who work in partnership with local
educational authorities. It has been reported
(Garnier 2003) that under these circum-
stances, parents see to it that children attend
school.

5. Another example is the CAMES. This
organization groups French-speaking universi-
ties, administers a highly selective examination
(aggregation) in a number of disciplines, and
has organized committees that are responsible

Appendix A. Definition, Scope, and Source of Variables

Variable Definition Scope Source

Dependent Variables
Net Enrollment Percentage of 192 observations UNESCO Institute

primary school- (62 imputed values) of Statistics
age group enrolled 164 lagged observations

28 nations

Net Enrollment, Male (and Female) Percentage of primary 154 observations UNESCO Institute
school-age group 132 lagged observations of Statistics
enrolled 22 nations

Independent Variables
Level of Economic Gross domestic product 181 observations World Bank: World
Development per capita (fixed 1995 154 observations Development

prices) 28 nations Indicators
3 with missing data
(Comoros, Guinea,
Tanzania)

International Memberships in 190 observations Union of
Nongovernmental international 162 lagged observations International
Organizations nongovernmental 28 nations Associations

organizations 1 with missing data
(Comoros)

Pupil-Teacher Ratio Primary pupil-teacher 186 observations UNESCO Institute
ratio 159 lagged observations of Statistics

28 nations
4 with missing data
(C.A.R, Chad, Zaire,
Zimbabwe)

Educational Expenditure Total public 160 observations UNESCO Institute
educational 136 lagged observations of Statistics
expenditure as a 28 nations
percent of gross 14 with missing data
national product

Percentage Muslim Percentage Muslim 28 nations CIA World Factbook

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174 Garnier and Schafer

for the promotion of faculty members within
their member countries’ universities. French
academics also sit on these boards.

6. By specifying how much teachers
should be paid as national civil servants, the
model may have made rapid expansion diffi-
cult because high salaries absorbed a large
proportion of the resources that were allocat-
ed to education. Whether higher salaries led
to more effective schooling is unclear.

7. Even in French-speaking Africa, teachers
often report resorting to the local language to
help children learn. Of course, that kind of
help is possible only when they know the
local language.

8. Total enrollments continued to increase
in all sub-Saharan nations from 1985 to 2000.
Declining enrollment ratios mean that the
growth of the population of the official
school-age group outpaced the expansion of
enrollments.

9. The graph depicts the mean enrollment
ratios of majority Muslim and non-Muslim
nations, respectively. The percentage of the
population adhering to the Islamic faith varies
within both the majority and minority
groups.

10. In analyses not shown, we also
explored the potential influence of official
development assistance. We included the aid
measure to distinguish between institutional
effects of INGO memberships and access to
external financial assistance and found no sig-
nificant effects of aid in any of the models pre-
sented here.

11. Since first differences are raw change
scores and, therefore, more susceptible to the
effects of outliers, we checked our results
using two alternative ways of measuring
enrollment expansion: (1) change score: (net
enrollmentst – net enrollmentst-5)/net enroll-
mentst-5 and (2) logged values: natural loga-
rithm of net enrollmentt – natural logarithm
of net enrollment t-5. All resulted in similar
findings, so we report only the findings for
raw change.

12. We reran the same model with OLS
estimates and PCSEs, with Prais-Winston esti-
mates and Huber-White robust estimates
(with clustering), and with Newey-West stan-
dard errors. All models showed essentially the
same substantive results, particularly the neg-

ative effect of the Francophone dummy vari-
able and the absence of a Muslim effect.

13. Furthermore, the findings regarding
resource and charter effects are robust to
alternative model specifications in which the
following variables were included: percentage
urban, educational expenditure, aid per capi-
ta, gender parity, and fifth-grade students
expressed as a percentage of all students in
the first five grades.

14. It will be possible in the near future to
test this possibility because achievement tests
have been administered to children in both
linguistic zones.

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International Journal of Educational Development 35 (2014) 16–24

Investing in private education for poverty alleviation: The case of the World
Bank’s

International Finance Corporation

Karen Mundy, Francine Menashy 1,*

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, 252 Bloor St West, 7th Floor, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1V5, Canada

A R T I C L E I N F O

Keywords:

World Bank

International Finance Corporation

Private education

International education financing

Multilateral organization

A B S T R A C T

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector financing arm of the World Bank Group, is

currently the largest multilateral investor in private education in developing countries. Drawing from

staff interviews and programmatic data, this paper provides a brief overview of the IFC and its mandate;

examines the stated purposes of the IFC’s work in education; reviews the IFC’s portfolio of investments in

education; and looks at the linkages between the IFC and the World Bank’s lending arms. The paper

concludes by questioning the IFC’s contribution to the World Bank Group’s poverty alleviation mandate.

� 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

International Journal of Educational Development

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / i j e d u d e v

1. Introduction

Over the past decade, the International Finance Corporation
(IFC), the private sector financing arm of the World Bank Group,
has gradually expanded the scope of its work in education.
Although still quite modest, IFC education sector activities have
grown substantially from a few small initial projects in the mid-
1990s to the adoption of education as one of the organization’s five
‘‘strategic pillars’’ in 2004. Today the IFC describes itself as the
world’s ‘‘largest multilateral investor in private health care and
education in developing countries’’ (IFC, 2010c, p. 23). Further-
more, according to the World Bank’s recent education strategy
papers, the IFC is central to the Bank’s plans for supporting
educational development (World Bank, 1999, 2005, 2011a). Thus
the most recent World Bank Education Sector Strategy 2020
announces:

Within the Bank Group, the World Bank and IFC will work
together to improve knowledge about the private sector’s role
in education and to help countries create policy environments
and regulatory structures that align the private sector’s efforts
with national education goals. (World Bank, 2011a, p. 9)
The main focus of the IFC’s education strategy is to: finance
larger network providers, who have the ability to invest across
borders and go down-market to reach poorer populations. . .

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 416 978 0748.

E-mail addresses: karen.mundy@utoronto.ca (K. Mundy),

francine.menashy@gmail.com (F. Menashy).
1 September onwards affilation: University of Massachusetts Boston, 100

Morrissey Blvd, Boston, MA 02125 USA.

0738-0593/$ – see front matter � 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2012.06.005

[and to] provide financing for education to small and medium
enterprises, which typically target poor populations. . . (World
Bank, 2011a, p. 50)

This paper presents one of the first published analyses of the
IFC’s work in education. It provides a brief overview of the IFC and
its mandate; examines the stated purposes of the IFC’s work in
education; reviews the IFC’s portfolio of investments in education;
and looks at the linkages between the IFC and the World Bank’s
IBRD and IDA education sector activities. The paper concludes by
questioning the IFC’s contribution to the World Bank Group’s
poverty alleviation mandate.

The findings presented in this paper are based on
interviews and programmatic data collected in the spring of
2011 from staff in the World Bank’s education sector and inside
the IFC. In total, 25 interviews were conducted for this research
between April and June 2011, including 19 interviews with
current World Bank staff, two with retired World Bank staff (one
a former consultant for the IFC), three current IFC staff, and one
retired IFC/World Bank staff. An analysis was conducted of the
IFC’s complete education portfolio, based on data provided by
IFC staff to authors in May 2011, and available documents
and websites of the organizations which have received IFC
investments.

2. Introducing the IFC and its poverty alleviation mandate

Formed in 1956, the IFC is the private sector financing arm of
the World Bank Group. Its overarching mandate is the same as the
World Bank’s: to support a world without poverty (IFC, 2011d).
However, the IFC has the task, distinct from the World Bank’s other

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2012.06.005

mailto:karen.mundy@utoronto.ca

mailto:francine.menashy@gmail.com

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/07380593

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2012.06.005

K. Mundy, F. Menashy / International Journal of Educational Development 35 (2014) 16–24 17

four branches, of supporting the private sector in emerging
markets.2

The IFC was founded as a separate arm of the Bank, when
member governments became concerned that private entrepre-
neurs were not being effectively supported by multilateral lending
agencies (Bell, 1981). As with the rest of the World Bank Group, the
IFC is governed by a Board, which is elected by the IFC’s 182
member countries and has essentially the same composition as the
Board of Governors and Directors for the World Bank’s IDA and
IBRD facilities. Because voting is weighted based on paid in shares
to the IFC, the United States is the largest IFC shareholder (23.6% of
voting power in 2010); followed by Japan at 5.9%. Overall, rich
countries hold two-thirds of the organization’s voting power
(Moody’s, 2010; Bretton Woods Project, 2010).

The IFC’s business model is very much like that of any
investment bank. It uses paid in capital of approximately $2.4
billion from its member governments to generate loans and debt
or equity financing for private sector clients in developing
countries. Profits are reinvested into the IFC (with a small share
going to fund IDA/IBRD activities). An increasing share of the IFC’s
portfolio involves provision of financial guarantees to banks in
developing countries (Bretton Woods Project, 2011a,b). The IFC
also offers advisory services to private sector clients and to
governments interested in regulatory issues in specific industry
sectors,3 a part of its work that has grown more than 10-fold since
2001. Advisory services are increasingly funded through special
‘‘trust funds’’ provided as grants to the IFC by rich member
governments (IEG, 2011, p. xvii; Interview #4, IFC).4 Three core
principals guide all IFC activities: a business principle, of taking on
the full commercial risks of its investments, accepting no
government guarantees and earning a profit from its operations;
the principle of being an honest broker, using its unique abilities as
a corporation owned by governments to ‘‘bring together invest-
ment opportunities, domestic and private capital, and experi-
enced management’’; and the goal of playing a catalytic role,
investing only in projects for which ‘‘sufficient private capital is
not available on reasonable terms’’ (IFC, 1993).

Over time the IFC has increasingly laid claim to reaching the
‘‘base of the pyramid’’ through its investments (IFC, 2010e). The IFC
clearly positions itself as a significant contributor to the overall
poverty reduction mandate of the World Bank (IEG, 2011; IFC,
2010c). Thus according to its website (IFC, 2011d):

IFC, as the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, shares
its mission: To fight poverty with passion and professionalism
for lasting results. To help people help themselves and their
environment by providing resources, sharing knowledge,
building capacity, and forging partnerships in the public and
private sectors.

2 The World Bank Group consists of five branches. Its lending arms are the

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) – which lends to

middle-income nations and creditworthy less-developed countries – and the

International Development Association (IDA) – which focuses on the poorest

nations, providing them with essentially interest-free loans. The IBRD, IDA and IFC

have educational programs. The other two branches are the Multilateral Investment

Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and the International Centre for the Settlement of

Investment Disputes (ICSID), neither of which deals directly in education.
3 Financial products from the IFC include market-rate loans; buying and holding

equity in various companies and financial institutions; syndicated loans; and trade

finance, where advisory support is given to emerging markets to help ‘increase their

share of global trade’ (IFC, 2007a, p. 8). The IFC offers financial advisory services in a

wide range of areas from environment and social sustainability, privatization,

establishing public-private partnerships, and access to finance including support to

microfinance institutions (IFC, 2007a, p. 9).
4 The IFC technical assistance trust fund (with grants primarily from OECD

governments) is the 5th largest trust fund managed by the World Bank Group,

accounting for 5% of total trust funds (IEG, 2011, p. 101).

Over time, there have been two ways in which the IFC’s poverty
alleviation mandate has been addressed: first by broadening IFC
investments in low income (IDA-eligible countries), which it
describes as ‘‘frontier markets’’ (OEG/IFC, 2005); and second, by
expanding its work in sectors that it identifies as directly
addressing the needs of the poor: financial markets, infrastruc-
ture, health and education, and agribusiness (IFC, 2010g,h; IFC/
World Bank, 2011). In 2004 the IFC adopted five strategic pillars,
which include:

Pillar 1: strengthening the focus on frontier markets (IDA
countries, fragile situations, and frontier regions in middle
income countries); and
Pillar 4: addressing constraints to private sector growth in
infrastructure, health, education and food supply chain (IFC,
2010c, p. 15).

Among the most significant shifts in IFC work since 2000 has
been the expansion of its work in health and education, which
grew from less than 1% of its total investments, to 3% of the IFC’s
portfolio in 2010 (IFC, 2010h). Education and health are central to
the IFC’s efforts to reach the bottom billion. Thus, according to IFC’s
then Director of Health and Education, Guy Ellena: ‘‘By increasing
access to services to ‘Base of the Pyramid’ populations through our
health and education investments, we are helping to address the
unmet needs of these populations and delivering on our
development mandate’’ (IFC, 2010e). The IFC’s 2011–13 Roadmap
maintains this focus, noting that the ‘‘IFC’s health and education
sector are expected to show the strongest relative program growth
between FY09 and FY13’’ (IFC, 2010c, p. 34). The overall goal of its
work in these sectors is to ‘‘continue to fill the gap left by the public
sector in health and education. . .’’ and ‘‘address the needs of those
at the base of the pyramid. . .’’ (p. 15).

3. Enter education

The IFC’s work in education began in the 1990s with a few small
investments. A decision to create a new mechanism to fund to
small enterprises opened the way for additional investment in
education5 and led a former education specialist from the Bank to
take on a pioneering role within the IFC. A number of small
investments were provided to elite private schools in least
developed countries, while larger investments began to emerge
in higher education, particularly in Latin America (Maas, 2001;
Interview #3, IFC). The IFC held its first regional conference on
private education in 1999 in Cote D’Ivoire and conducted reviews
of the business environment for private education in Kenya,
Cameroon, India, Ghana and China in that same year (IFC, 1999a;
Karamokolias and Maas, 1997).6 In 2001, the IFC established a
Health and Education Department.7

Initially, IFC engagement in education met with considerable
push back. Internally, it took some time for the IFC itself to be
convinced that education was a good sector for investment. At the
IBRD/IDA facility of the World Bank, there were questions about
the role of the private sector in education and concerns that the IFC
was intruding on Bank territory (Interview #1, World Bank;

5 In 1989, the IFC set up the Africa Enterprise Fund, and in 1996, the Small

Enterprise Fund, both intended to support small projects below the $5 million

minimum typical for IFC investments.
6 The other country cases were described in interviews as companion pieces to

the Tooley book, but were not available on the World Bank and IFC websites.

Additionally, Michael Latham from CfBT was reported to have completed four

country cases on IFC investments in West Africa in 1999.
7 Health and Education investment activities are now housed in the Manufactur-

ing, Agribusiness and Services Department (MAS); educational advisory work is

housed in the IFC’s advisory services unit.

K. Mundy, F. Menashy / International Journal of Educational Development 35 (2014) 16–2418

Interview #3, IFC; Interview #4, IFC). According to one IFC staffer,
there were ‘‘big, big concerns from many of the executive directors,
particularly on the part of the Canadian, the UK, were sort of
ideologically opposed to private education, that it was going to
create a two tier system that only serves the rich. . . And bad news
all around’’ (Interview #4, IFC). The Bank’s Board of Directors also
questioned the IFC’s education sector capacity (Interview #3, IFC).
In 1999 the Bank’s President James Wolfensohn also sharply
questioned the IFC’s work in education following a visit to an IFC
funded elite school in Pakistan (Beaconhouse) (Interview #1,
World Bank; Interview #3, IFC; Interview #11, World Bank).

However, with support from a small cadre of World Bank (IBRD/
IDA) staff, the IFC continued to push forward an agenda for
education. A study by James Tooley on the global education
industry, later published jointly by the IFC and the International
Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA),
provided important justification for IFC engagement in the sector
(Tooley, 1999, 2006).8 At Wolfensohn’s request, a first roadmap for
IFC engagement in education was prepared in 1998 and submitted
to the Board in 1999 (IFC, 1999b). The roadmap elicited
considerable criticism from France, Canada, Switzerland and
Australia.9 Wolfensohn thus asked for a second and more complete
document explaining why the IFC should engage in the education
sector (Interview #1, World Bank; Interview #3, IFC). A second
(and still current) IFC education strategy was then developed by
Bank staffer Harry Patrinos and IFC staffer Tanya Scobie and
championed through to Board approval by then IFC Vice President
Peter Woike in 2001.

The successful endorsement by the Bank’s Board of the
second version of the IFC’s education strategy appears to lie in its
blending of a strong business case and social case for boosting
private sector investment in education, particularly in low-
income countries and for children and young people currently
without access. Early on, the document makes the case that
private engagement in education is perhaps more needed in
developing countries than elsewhere:

Few would argue against continued and increased public
financing of basic education, which produces the broadest
social benefits. However, there is no a priori reason for all
education to be publicly provided and funded at all levels. The
appropriate role for the public and private sectors in the
provision and financing of education should depend on
conditions specific to each country. Some have very little need
for private activity, given the willingness of the taxpayers and
the commitment and ability of the government to support
broad-scale, largely free public education at all levels. In others
(most developing and many developed countries), despite signifi-

cant investment in education reform, governments struggle to

extend quality services to their citizens. In these situations, there is

significant scope for the private sector to complement or partner

with the public sector in provision and financing (IFC, 2001,
pp. 4–5, emphasis ours)

Throughout, the strategy paper emphasizes the potential
contributions of the private sector to the issues of poverty, social
mobility and inequality. It frames the need for greater public

8 James Tooley was then professor at University of Manchester and fellow at the

UK based Institute for Economic Affairs, IEA, and already well-known for his active

advocacy for private provision of education (see Nambissan and Ball, 2010).

Tooley’s paper resulting from this study entitled ‘Educating Amaretch: Private

Schools for the Poor and the New Frontier for Investors’ won first prize in an IFC-

Financial Times essay competition in 2006 (IFC, 2006; Tooley, 2006).
9 Furthermore, despite broader pressure from the US for a greater Bank focus on

private sector development, one informant told us that the US Executive Director

chose to remain mute about support to IFC involvement in education during this

controversial period (Interview #3, IFC).

investment in private provision of education by arguing that there
is growing demand for schooling in developing countries that is not
being met because of limited state capacity (IFC, 2001, pp. 3–4).
Private education provision is then described as contributing to
poverty alleviation in several key ways:

� First, it can release public resources to target the poor by
diverting children from middle-income families to fee-paying
schools (IFC, 2001, p. 5).
� Second, private provision is argued to expand a country’s

capacity for service delivery when government capacity is low,
especially when combined with demand-side financing that
allows publicly funded students to go to private schools.
� Third, competition among private and public providers is argued

to promote quality, innovation, and diversity (p. 6), as well as
efficiency (in the form of lower unit costs).
� Fourth, in relation to social mobility, private education is

presented as ‘‘contributing to the growth and the strengthening
of the middle class’’ which is described as underserved by the
public system (p. 4); and as blurring the ‘‘distinction between
rich and non rich access’’ (pp. 5, 19). Instances are cited in which
private education providers cross-subsidize lower-cost private
services for the poor.

The strategy also makes a ‘‘business case’’ for the IFC’s
education activities by demonstrating how IFC work in the
education sector can be based on sound investments that play a
catalytic role in building out markets. It stresses that the IFC will
only invest in financially sustainable education projects – that is,
services for which there is clear consumer demand, in which there
is a pre-existing market, and which can be brought to larger scale
through injections of capital. In other words, the IFC will only
invest where there is a high likelihood of financial return on its
investments – win–win scenarios in which both poverty allevia-
tion and financial gain go hand-in-hand. Investments in higher
education, technical and vocational education, distance education
and technology education are correspondingly viewed as top IFC
investment priorities. Early childhood education, primary educa-
tion and secondary education are described as having ‘‘lower
investment probability,’’ in part because the size of capital required
for these initiatives is on too small a scale for a typical IFC
investment (pp. 12–13).

The successful inclusion of education in the IFC’s mandate can
also be viewed as an outcome of a specific historical conjuncture in
the World Bank’s history. From its origins, the World Bank Group
has held a strong general interest in strengthening the private
sector of developing nations, often attributed to the worldview
held by its most powerful member country, the United States. The
early 2000s saw this come further into ascendance, with the
election of a Republican government in the United States. Thus in
2002, the Bank’s Private Sector Development Review Group
endorsed a Private Sector Development Strategy, which called
for the expansion of Bank support for privately provided
educational and other basic services (Alexander, 2001, p. 287;
Kessler, 2003; Miller-Adams, 1999). At the same time, the IFC’s
work in education was supported by the establishment of an
Economics of Education Group within the central IBRD/IDA facility
at the World Bank. As will be discussed later, close personal
relationships between staff of this unit and those at the IFC led to
joint initiatives aimed at building a transnational network of
supporters in this arena. At a time when the newly agreed upon
Millennium Development Goals were focusing the attention of the
IBRD/IDA and the larger donor community on rapidly expanding
publicly provided basic education through sector program lending,
the IFC offered an alternative window for those in the Bank who
believe strongly in the need for competitive markets in education.

Table 1
IFC investments in Education, 2006–2010 ($ million).

Year Total Average investment

amount per loan

Investment amount by level of education Investment amount by income level of country

Higher education K-12 Other Low income Lower middle

income

Upper middle

income

High income

2010 128.392 18.342 107.094 13.399 7.900 4.000 – 94.399 29.993

2009 143.692 17.962 121.691 22.000 – 2.500 15.784 125.408 –

2008 41.295 8.259 36.505 4.789 – 6.933 20.993 13.369 –

2007 26.561 6.640 24.201 2.360 – 2.360 4.000 20.201 –

2006 40.430 6.738 22.711 2.354 15.366 2.354 10.710 27.366 –

Total 380.370 312.202 44.902 23.266 18.147 51.487 280.743 29.993

% of total to education 82.1 11.8 6.1 4.8 13.5 73.8 7.9

Source: Calculated from a list of investments provided by IFC staff to authors, May 2011.

Note: Country classification is based on the World Bank’s categorization of low, low middle, upper middle and high-income countries.

10 In a follow up to this study in June 2012, authors were informed that the IFC

plans to reduce its support for student loan facilities.

K. Mundy, F. Menashy / International Journal of Educational Development 35 (2014) 16–24 19

4. An overview of IFC investments in education

The IFC’s work in education can be divided into several
categories of activities. At a corporate level, the IFC supports
knowledge mobilization on the importance of private educational
provision. It also provides advisory services to businesses to
support their marketing, planning and development; as well as
technical assistance to governments interested in piloting
infrastructure PPPs in education. However, by far and away the
largest component of the IFC’s education sector work is investment
in education-related businesses.

4.1. The investment portfolio

As of March 2011, the IFC reported that it had made cumulative
investments of over $500 million to 63 education-related projects
in 31 countries (the total value of these business ventures, of which
the IFC contributes only part, was estimated at $1.5 billion)
(IFC, 2011c). While substantial, these investments remained a
relatively modest part of the IFC’s total $3.3 billion investment
portfolio in health, education and agribusiness, far smaller than IFC
investments in the health sector (IFC, 2010c, p. 17).

Based on a list of investments provided for us by the IFC, we
analyzed its education investment portfolio to look for geographic
and sectorial trends in the period between 2006 and 2010. In this
period, one can see a rather significant growth in the overall
volume of IFC investments in education in 2009 and 2010. In those
years, new investments rose from annual levels of $20–40 million
USD, to well-over $100 million per annum (Table 1). Furthermore,
the average size of IFC investments has also grown significantly
in the most recent years. This is due primarily to several recent
large-scale investments in higher education. Recent investment in
K-12 education has remained quite low, at 10.4% of total IFC
investments in education.

Geographically, the IFC’s investments in education businesses
are increasingly concentrated on middle income and higher
income countries (see Table 1). Over the five-year period between
2006 and 2010, only 4.8% of IFC education investments were made
in low-income countries (dropping to just over 3% for the most
recent year). Investments in lower middle-income countries
averaged 13.5% for the same period. The majority of investments
target upper middle-income countries. A notable 11 out of 15 of
the IFC’s new investments in 2009 and 2010 were made in upper
middle-income countries. And in 2010, 23.4% of investment dollars
went to a project in a high-income country (Saudi Arabia).

In our interviews at the IFC and the World Bank, a number of
explanations were provided to explain the IFC’s investment
trends. First, although the IFC continues to mount a few highly
publicized initiatives focused on privately provided basic educa-
tion for the poor, organizational pressures ensure the IFC’s
portfolio is concentrated in richer countries, and at post-primary

and secondary levels. For instance, the IFC rewards staff for
investments that can make attractive commercial returns, thus
producing incentives for private sector ventures that are substan-
tial in size and already scaled. It is therefore much more likely to
turn to higher education franchising than to private schools for the
poor (Interview #2, IFC; Interview #4, IFC).

Secondly, the IFC has minimum expectations for the size of its
investments, making funding for small-scale educational enter-
prises unattractive. Moreover, projects must be viewed as
financially sustainable to ensure a high chance of repayment at
competitive rates of interest, or of good returns on IFC equity
investments.

Finally based on the IFC’s founding principles (which include
playing a ‘‘catalytic’’ role), investing is made in areas where there is
insufficient financing available in the local market (Interview #1,
IFC; Interview #2, IFC). However, according to interviews with IFC
staff and staff in the World Bank, there are tensions between the
catalytic/entrepreneurial approach expected of the IFC and its
actual approach to investments, especially in the social sectors. The
IFC generally looks for larger, already scaled investments that are
profit-producing. Most social sector initiatives that target the poor
are small scale and need venture/start up finance (Interview #2,
IFC; Interview #14, World Bank). As a solution to this tension, the
IFC has increasingly begun to explore how it might assist existing
large-scale educational businesses to take on larger transnational
roles in developing country education markets (Interview #2, IFC).

4.2. The IFC and post-secondary education

As noted above, IFC investments in post-secondary education
dwarf its activities in any other education subsector. The IFC made
its first six investments in higher education between 1998 and
2001, all but one in Latin America (IFC, 2001). Since 2001, IFC
investments in higher education businesses have grown dramati-
cally in size, with recent investments averaging between $20 and
35 million (Table 1). At the post-secondary level, the IFC invests in
education businesses in three ways: it provides direct loans to
postsecondary institutions; it holds equity in individual postsec-
ondary education companies; and it also provides equity invest-
ments to supports student loan facilities.10

Recent loans to postsecondary institutions have included
Uniminuto in Colombia, where the IFC committed in 2009 $8
million in financing for professional and technical education that is
conducted in cooperation with local authorities, on skills for local
employment. According to IFC publications, Uniminuto operates in
11 municipalities and serves 35,000 students. Ninety percent of
Uniminuto students are the first members of their families to go to
university (IFC, 2010e). In Brazil, the IFC has made two loans of $40

Table 2
IFC investments in post-secondary education, 2006–2010 (US$ million).

Institution legal name Cmt date

Country Status income Subsector Orig Cmt-IFC Bal

Riyad Bank January 27, 2010

Saudi Arabia HI HE 29.993

Strathmore University June 25, 2008

Kenya LIC HE 2.143

Ashesi University College April 3, 2009

Ghana LIC HE 2.500

Socketworks Ltd February 27, 2006

Nigeria LM HE 2.500

Structured Student Financing Risk Sharing Facility September 15, 2006

Indonesia LM HE 4.872

Institute of Business Management December 19, 2006

Pakistan LM HE 3.339

Socketworks Ltd May 23, 2007

Nigeria LM HE 4.000

Bank of Palestine June 19, 2008

West Bank Gaza LM HE 16.000

Omnix International June 30, 2008

Jordan LM HE 4.993

Credit Agricole Egypt June 28, 2009

Egypt LM HE 15.784

Fundo de Educacao para o Brasil May 25, 2006

Brazil UM HE 12.000

Financiera Educativa de Mexico S.A. de C.V. March 6, 2007

Mexico UM HE 0.91

DUOC UC June 27, 2007

Chile UM HE 19.291

Banco Real Student Financing March 5, 2008

Brazil UM HE 13.369

Corporacion Universitaria Minuto de Dios September 7, 2009

Colombia UM HE 8.000

American University of Antigua Limited September 25, 2009

Antigua Barbuda UM HE 30.000

DUOC UC September 30, 2009

Chile UM HE 30.000

Ideal Invest S.A. November 9, 2009

Brazil UM HE 6.713

Anhanguera Educacional Participacoes S.A. December 23, 2009

Brazil UM HE 28.694

Ensino Superior Bureau Juridico S.A June 18, 2010

Brazil UM HE 35.000

Trustco Group Holdings September 21, 2010

Namibia UM HE 12.100

Estacio Participacoes SA December 15, 2010

Brazil UM HE 30.000

Total 312.201

Notes: Countries classified as low income (LIC), low middle income (LM), upper middle income (UM) and high income (HI) countries as per World Bank classifications.

11 Indirectly, the IFC also reports that its investments in microfinance and health

insurance schemes contribute to the ability of poor families to keep children in

school (IFC, 2010h, pp. 10, 27).

K. Mundy, F. Menashy / International Journal of Educational Development 35 (2014) 16–2420

million to Anhanguera Educational in Brazil (through Fundo de
Educacao Brazil), allowing this company to expand its campus
network and use of distance education. Anhanguera is one of the
Brazil’s largest private post-secondary institutions and the first to
list its shares through an IPO. It serves over 250,000 students,
focusing on low and middle income working adults (IFC, 2010e)
(Table 2).

IFC investments in student loan facilities are smaller in number.
They include, for example, an investment in the Sampoerna
Foundation and the PT Bank International Indonesia in 2006 to
establish a facility to fund student loans for post-secondary
education. Funding is provided by Sampoerna directly to the post-
secondary institutions, which in turn offer loans to their incoming
students for entrance fees and one year of tuition. The Sampoerna
Foundation incurs the first loss on these loans, while IFC
guarantees 50% of any portfolio losses in excess of these first
losses, up to $10million (IFC, n.d.). In Namibia, the IFC has
supported the Trustco Finance project, with a loan of $12.1 million
in 2010, in order to assist the microlender in providing student
loans to finance higher education costs, including tuition. The IFC
also provides advisory services support to improve the capacity of
Trustco Group (IFC, 2010f).

We examined the portfolio of IFC investments in education to
assess whether and how the IFC might be making a contribution to
poverty alleviation through its post-secondary lending. The picture
here is complicated. First, many of the institutions supported by the
IFC claim to target middle and lower income students, an assertion
that we were unable to explore in this research. However, we did
note that the geographical distribution of the IFC’s higher education
projects is starkly concentrated in higher income countries. Based on
our calculations of IFC investments from 2006 to 2010, only 1.5% of
dollars invested targeted post-secondary education businesses in
low-income countries. In total 16.5% of its investments were to
lower middle income countries, and 9.6% were to one project in a
high-income country. Most dollars were invested in upper-middle
income countries (72.4%). This geographic concentration of lending
seems likely to continue. Our interviews suggested that the IFC is
increasingly looking for investments in franchises that can cross
borders to provide educational services at low cost. One area
within post-secondary education that staff described as a growth

opportunity for the IFC is in the internationalization of existing
higher education franchises, usually located in higher income
countries (e.g. University of Phoenix, Devry) (Interview #2, IFC).

In our interviews with IFC staff, we also explored the extent to
which the IFC selects and monitors investments based on their
potential to enhance opportunities for the poor. However, we were
told that the IFC does not have mechanisms for evaluating the
poverty related impacts of its post-secondary investments. Nor
does it track the socio-economic status of the beneficiaries of the
institutions it supports. One area of recent concern in higher
education is the impact of student debt on family and student
futures – particularly when these debts are incurred through direct
loans for tuition from universities and colleges. In recent US
instances, for example, distance education institutions have used
tuition loans to expand enrolments, with little regard to whether
students can finance their full degree or are likely to gain
employment to repay their loans. The IFC does not assess the
impact of student debt on students and families nor does it track
the ultimate employment outcomes generated by its investments
(Interview #2, IFC; Interview #4, IFC). Its main quality assurance
focus is on the curricular content.

Though a key stated rationale for project selection by IFC is the
expansion of access to postsecondary education to the ‘‘bottom of
the pyramid,’’ monitoring the poverty impacts and equity
implications of its lending appear to be secondary concerns in
the IFC’s higher education portfolio.

4.3. The IFC and K-12 education

In K-12 education, the IFC invests directly in private schools and
school franchises, occasionally provides equity investments to
them, and also provides credit guarantees to local banks to
encourage them to make small loans to private schools.11 Direct
investments in private K-12 schools were among the first IFC
ventures in education, beginning with loans to the Rainbow
Academy in Kenya (1994) and Beaconhouse Schools in Pakistan

Table 3
IFC investments in K-12 education, 2006–2010 (US$ million).

Institution legal name Cmt date Country Status income Subsector Orig Cmt-IFC Bal

Kenya School Financing Facility December 7, 2006

Kenya LIC K-12 0.854

Brookhouse Schools Limited December 7, 2006

Kenya LIC K-12 1.500

Ghana School Finance Facility May 17, 2007

Ghana LIC K-12 2.360

Banque Rwandaise De Developpment May 22, 2008

Rwanda LIC K-12 4.789

First Education Holding B.S.C. (c) June 25, 2009

MENA Region UM K-12 22.000

Curro Holdings PTY Limited March 31, 2010

South Africa UM K-12 9.399

Braeburn Schools Limited December 16, 2010

Kenya LIC K-12 4.000

Total 44.902

Notes: Countries classified as low income (LIC), low middle income (LM), upper middle income (UM) and high income (HI) countries as per World Bank classifications.

K. Mundy, F. Menashy / International Journal of Educational Development 35 (2014) 16–24 21

(1996). Over the last decade, IFC investments continued to focus
primarily on elite private schools, financing construction, educa-
tion materials and other capital needs, either at the initial phase of
development or for expansion of an established school (Table 3).

IFC investments in K-12 education include franchises or chains
of schools. For example, a project was approved in 2005 for $8
million USD, where the IFC is assisting the SABIS Group (which
runs 27 schools in several countries) to build and establish an
elementary and secondary school, able to accommodate 1700
students (IFC, 2008). According to IFC reports:

the new facilities. . . have become both the flagship school and
international headquarters of the SABIS Group of Schools. The
state of the art facilities, housed on a 75,000 square meter
campus, include science and computer laboratories, dedicated
music and art rooms, and extensive sports facilities such as a
semi-Olympic swimming pool and an indoor basketball/tennis
court, as well as a performance hall. (IFC, 2007b)

More recently, in 2010, the IFC provided a long-term loan of
approximately $9.4 million USD to allow Curro Schools in South
Africa, a chain of private schools, to expand (the company ultimately
plans to operate 40 schools serving 40,000 children by 2020).
According to the IFC Press release, the rationale for this investment is
to ‘‘ease the burden on an already over-stretched public education
system and improve the quality of high school graduates that go into
the job market’’ (IFC, 2010e). Another direct investment in K-12
includes Braeburn Schools in Nairobi and Tanzania, which currently
operates a network of 13 schools in 7 campuses, serving over 2500
students; tuition ranges by grade from 114,000 to 234,000 Kenya
shillings (USD 1302.78–2674.12).12

Clearly, each of the above investments is meant to target middle
or upper-middle income students. However, the IFC has increasingly
attempted to make investments in low-fee private schools in low-
income countries. The most widely publicized among these
initiatives is the ‘‘IFC Africa Schools Program’’ which grew out of
initial risk sharing agreements with private banks in Ghana and
Kenya (Nyagah, 2009). As a mechanism, such risk sharing arrange-
ments allow the IFC to support small private enterprises that would
otherwise be too small to meet the minimum project size expected
by the IFC. Approved by the IFC Board in 2007, the Africa Schools
Program set aside $50 million in IFC credit guarantees to local African
banks, with initial investments in Ghana and Kenya. In addition to
the credit guarantees, the IFC Board agreed to provide $5 million in
advisory services to support the business development of the schools
themselves and technical advice to the Banks. Significant funding for
the advisory side was secured from the Dutch government, allowing
the IFC to contract CfBT13 to develop a suite of training materials and
workshops to support the business plans and managerial capacities

12 As described on the Braeburn Schools Website, http://ww.braeburn.com/

(accessed 04.04.11).
13 The Centre for British Teachers, a not for profit education consultancy and

service organization.

of the small proprietary schools and their operators (Interview #4,
IFC). As of July 31 2009, 67 schools serving 88,109 students had
received loans with support from this program. More recent
announcements have been made announcing expansion of this
program to Liberia (IFC, 2011b, secondary education and technical
vocational education); Uganda (IFC, 2010d) and Rwanda (IFC, 2008).

The IFC promotes its financing of K-12 schools as a central
contribution to the World Bank Group’s overarching poverty
mandate. However, our analysis of the IFC’s K-12 investments also
presents a mixed picture. As noted in Table 1, the overall share of
IFC investments in K-12 education is dramatically lower than in
post-secondary education, at just over 10% of its total education
sector investments. However, in contrast to postsecondary
education, a much larger number of IFC investments at the K-12
education level are indeed in low-income countries (five of the
seven investments since 2006). Nonetheless, since 2006 approxi-
mately 69% of the total IFC dollars for K-12 education have been
invested in businesses in upper middle-income countries.

Furthermore, when examining the tuition fees charged at IFC
supported institutions, the IFC’s claim to be reaching the bottom
billion through its K-12 education investments is untenable. As we
have seen the majority of investments in K-12 schools have been
targeted to elite institutions. Even the African Schools Program –
the IFC’s flagship initiative in low fee private schooling – supports
schools with tuitions well beyond the means of low income
children in low and middle income countries. Here there is a clear
case of obfuscation. Outright claims are frequently made by IFC
that schools supported by the Africa Schools initiative charge
tuitions ‘‘as little as $50 per term’’ (see for example, interview with
Guy Ellena; Nyagah, 2009). However, a recent World Bank impact
evaluation of the Africa schools program in Kenya cites average
fees per term of $284 (elementary) and $275 (secondary) in schools
funded by this program (Barrera-Osorio and Zable, 2011, p. 10).

Thus the IFC’s claim of reaching the bottom billion through its
investments in K-12 education must rest primarily on the notion
that by diverting children from middle and high income families to
private schools, it is helping to free up public resources to target
schooling for the poor.

4.4. Other IFC education activities

The IFC’s activities in education include not only financial
investments in private sector initiatives, but also efforts to
mobilize knowledge and build a larger network of investors and
entrepreneurs in the education sector; and to provide advisory
services to private sector clients and governments interested in
establishing public private partnerships in education.

As noted above, much of the knowledge mobilization and
network building in education sponsored by the IFC has occurred
in cooperation with the World Bank’s Economics of Education
Group. In 1999, staff from the IFC and key figures in the Economics
of Education division in the World Bank’s education anchor
launched biannual conferences on public private partnerships

http://www.ifc.org/edinvest/

K. Mundy, F. Menashy / International Journal of Educational Development 35 (2014) 16–2422

(PPPs) in education. These conferences on PPPs regularly invite key
advocates for increased private provision (e.g. James Tooley,
Michael Latham); as well as governments and private sector
providers (for proceedings see Patrinos and Sosale, 2007;
Chakrabarti and Peterson, 2008). As well, the IFC and Economics
of Education staff together established EdInvest, initiated in 1998
as an ‘‘. . .on-line investment information forum on private sector
development in education.’’ It began with initial funding from the
World Bank Development Marketplace as a joint venture between
CfBT and IFC’s Health and Education Department.14 It has
subsequently received financial and in-kind support from both
IFC and CfBT (World Bank, 1999, p. 35).15

In 2001 the IFC and the World Bank together published the
Handbook on Public Private Partnerships as a tool to help guide
Bank education sector staff and others to understand the role
that the private sector can play alongside public educational
systems (EdInvest/IFC, 2001). Subsequent joint activities have
included the publication of ‘‘The Evolving Regulatory Context for
Private Education in Emerging Economies’’ (Fielden and Lar-
ocque, 2008), the recent impact evaluation of the Africa Schools
Program in Kenya (Barrera-Osorio and Zable, 2011); and a
conference on public private partnerships in education in India
(World Bank, 2011b).

While there is no publicly available database of all the advisory
services provided by the IFC, in interviews staff suggested that
advisory work in education is still on quite a small scale, and
mainly focuses on business effectiveness and risk management.
Private sector clients must pay to access advice, though the IFC
subsidizes the cost of its advice when it is launching major new
initiatives. The Africa Schools Program, for example, utilizes
resources from the Dutch government and other trust-funds to
allow the IFC to provide business advice to the local banks making
loans to schools. In addition, the IFC hired CfBT to develop a suite of
training materials and workshops to support the business plans
and managerial capacities of the small proprietary schools and
their operators. The IFC has produced various policy documents
and resource materials to assist private education providers – as
for example, its 2010 Education Investment Guide (IFC, 2010b); and
guides that address the question of facility safety and money
management for parents (IFC, 2010a,e). A more recent initiative
(launched in collaboration with the World Bank), the Education for
Employment program in the Middle East and North Africa, utilized
trust funds for the development of a strategic plan and conference
to launch IFC work in skills and training in this region (World Bank,
2011a, p. 61; IFC, 2011a). The IFC’s regional offices and investment
units are sometimes involved in the preparation of analytic reports
on markets for private education in specific countries, but these are
generally used to guide internal IFC investment strategy and are
often not publicly available (see for example, CDC Consult, 2010).

Advice to governments about private sector markets in
education has remained on quite a small scale. Through the IFC’s
Infrastructure Advisory Services Department, governments can
receive advice to help them structure contracts with the private
sector for the design, construction, delivery and management of
public services. Most of the IFC’s PPP advisory activities have
focused on ‘‘Private Finance Initiatives’’ (PFIs) – which ‘‘limit
private involvement to the management of infrastructure, while
keeping the delivery and management of core services in the public
domain’’ (IFC, 2009). According to interviews conducted in May
2011 the IFC currently has three major advisory mandates on PFI’s:
two in higher education (Botswana, Gujarat) and a large K-12
project in Brazil (Interview #4, IFC).

14 CfBT is the Centre for British Teachers, a not for profit education consultancy

and service organization.
15 See http://www.ifc.org/edinvest/.

Notably, the IFC does not collaborate closely with the World
Bank at the level of country investments. Our recent study shows
that few IFC loans are linked to World Bank country lending to
education; indeed, the IFC is rarely mentioned in World Bank
project documents (Mundy and Menashy, 2012). Despite effusive
claims to cooperation across the last three Bank Education Sector
Strategies, in interviews, both Bank and IFC staff reported very
little collaboration between the two organizations. Thus one IFC
staff described the IFC/Bank relationship at the country level in
these terms: ‘‘integrated certainly not. Coordinated only as
required’’ (Interview #1, IFC), while a senior education sector
manager of the World Bank described the relationship as still at a
‘‘very nascent stage’’ (Interview #8, World Bank). This may reflect
what Miller-Adams notes is a major challenge of coordinating
across the two different cultures of the Bank and IFC (1999, p. 62).
Thus as one interviewee reported to us: ‘‘the objectives of the IFC
are sustainability in business. The objective of the World Bank is
quite different. The objective of the World Bank, for instance, is
creating access for poor populations. So those two objectives can
be compatible, but not necessarily’’ (Interview #5, World Bank).

5. Discussion and Conclusions

This paper has provided an introduction to a new multilateral
actor in education, the International Finance Corporation. As a part
of the World Bank Group, its investments in education are
relatively small (totalling about $500 million over 11 years, as
contrasted to total lending of $5 billion for education from IBRD/
IDA in the single 2010 fiscal year). Nonetheless, understanding the
IFC is important for two reasons. First, the IFC is clearly considered
by the World Bank Group as playing an increasing and central role
in the overall approach to education taken by the organization.
Secondly, the IFC is a publicly funded organization whose work is
intended to contribute to the World Bank’s poverty reduction
mandate. It is important to ask whether the IFC’s education sector
activities meet this objective.

The IFC describes its work in education as contributing to
poverty alleviation, supporting the ‘‘bottom of the pyramid’’ and
achieving the Millennium Development Goal for basic education
(IFC, 2010c, p. 32, 2010e). However, our analysis suggests that the
geographical distribution of the IFC’s educational investments is
not targeted towards low-income countries. Its K-12 investments
appear to primarily support opportunities for the children of
middle or higher-income families. Furthermore, while projects are
screened for the quality of their academic services and environ-
mental impacts, the IFC does not have a formal mechanism for
assessing and evaluating the poverty impact of its investments. In
its project appraisals, performance reporting, program evaluations
and strategic planning, success is measured by the IFC in terms of
direct financial returns on investment or quality of curriculum, not
in terms of poverty impacts, risks to individual student borrowers,
or creation of opportunities for those with the lowest incomes. The
IFC has acted as an ideal vehicle for experimenting with private
sector provision in education, outside of the typical oversight by
governments that shapes the Bank’s core country level lending in
education. Yet as a vehicle for advancing the notion that private
provision improves opportunities for the poor, it has proven a
disappointment even to the most forceful advocates of such
policies inside the Bank: ‘‘. . .they [the IFC] don’t really want to do
anything at the bottom of the pyramid. I remember about two or
three years ago, we brought this up with one of the vice presidents.
He said basically, you make money selling to rich people. That was
his view on it. Well, if that’s your view, you’re not going to get very
far in terms of addressing the poor’’ (Interview #12, World Bank).

These findings echo those of other recent studies of the IFC,
which have raised significant concerns about the contributions the

http://www.ifc.org/edinvest/

K. Mundy, F. Menashy / International Journal of Educational Development 35 (2014) 16–24 23

IFC makes to poverty alleviation. The Bank’s Independent
Evaluation Group (IEG), for example, has recently suggested that
the relative shares of IFC investment in areas likely to reach the
poor (infrastructure, agribusiness, health and education) have not
changed significantly over the last decade. Instead investments in
global trade finance have come to dominate IFC lending (IEG, 2011,
p. 20). Furthermore, individual IFC investments pay limited
attention to poverty and distributional issues in their design
and their performance outcomes measures (IEG, 2011, p. xi). Thus
‘‘. . .most IFC investment projects generate satisfactory economic
returns but do not provide evidence of identifiable opportunities
for the poor’’ (p. 6).

Appendix A. Complete list of IFC investments in education, 2006–

Institution legal name Cmt date

1. Socketworks Ltd February 27, 2006

2. Fundo de Educacao para o Brasil May 25, 2006

3. Structured Student Financing Risk Sharing Facility September 15, 2006

4. Financiera Educativa de Mexico S.A. de C.V. November 22, 2006

5. Kenya School Financing Facility December 7, 2006

6. Brookhouse Schools Limited December 7, 2006

7. Institute of Business Management December 19, 2006

8. Financiera Educativa de Mexico S.A. de C.V. March 6, 2007

9. Ghana School Finance Facility May 17, 2007

10. Socketworks Ltd May 23, 2007

11. DUOC UC June 27, 2007

12. Banco Real Student Financing March 5, 2008

13. Banque Rwandaise De Developpment May 22, 2008

14. Bank of Palestine June 19, 2008

15. Strathmore University June 25, 2008

16. Omnix International June 30, 2008

17. Ashesi University College April 3, 2009

18. First Education Holding B.S.C. (c) June 25, 2009

19. Credit Agricole Egypt June 28, 2009

20. Corporacion Universitaria Minuto de Dios September 7, 2009

21. American University of Antigua Limited September 25, 2009

22. DUOC UC September 30, 2009

23. Ideal Invest S.A. November 9, 2009

24. Anhanguera Educacional Participacoes S.A. December 23, 2009

25. Riyad Bank January 27, 2010

26. Curro Holdings PTY Limited March 31, 2010

27. Ensino Superior Bureau Juridico S.A June 18, 2010

28. Harmon Hall Holding, S.A. de C.V. August 11, 2010

29. Trustco Group Holdings September 21, 2010

30. Estacio Participacoes SA December 15, 2010

31. Braeburn Schools Limited December 16, 2010

Source: List provided to Authors by IFC Staff, June 5, 2011.

Note: The country categorization by income level uses the World Bank definition for low in

(HI) countries.

We must then ask: Why does the IFC present education as one
of its core ‘‘pillars’’ and a central arena for reaching the bottom
billion? And why do public statements from the World Bank stress
the contributions the IFC makes to poverty alleviation and learning
for all? Perhaps the answer to this has more to do with legitimation
than impact: a focus on educating the poor presents the IFC as a
development-friendly organization, worthy of the growing num-
ber of trust funds it receives for education and other social sectors
by OECD governments. As one interviewee suggested to us, the IFC
can see ‘‘the propaganda value of an investment bank investing in
something good. . . that has social good kind of ramifications, like
education’’ (Interview #1, World Bank).

2010 (US$ millions)

Country Status income Subsector Orig Cmt-IFC Bal
Nigeria LM HE 2.500
Brazil UM HE 12.000
Indonesia LM HE 4.872

Mexico UM Other 15.366

Kenya LIC K-12 0.854
Kenya LIC K-12 1.500
Pakistan LM HE 3.339
Mexico UM HE 0.91
Ghana LIC K-12 2.360
Nigeria LM HE 4.000
Chile UM HE 19.291
Brazil UM HE 13.369
Rwanda LIC K-12 4.789
West Bank Gaza LM HE 16.000
Kenya LIC HE 2.143
Jordan LM HE 4.993
Ghana LIC HE 2.500
MENA Region UM K-12 22.000
Egypt LM HE 15.784
Colombia UM HE 8.000
Antigua Barbuda UM HE 30.000
Chile UM HE 30.000
Brazil UM HE 6.713
Brazil UM HE 28.694
Saudi Arabia HI HE 29.993
South Africa UM K-12 9.399
Brazil UM HE 35.000

Mexico UM Other Ed 7.900

Namibia UM HE 12.100
Brazil UM HE 30.000
Kenya LIC K-12 4.000

come (LIC), lower middle income (LM), upper middle income (UM) and high income

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http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/disclosure.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/IFC_Road_Map_FY11-FY13/$FILE/FY11_13_IFC_Road_Map

http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/disclosure.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/IFC_Road_Map_FY11-FY13/$FILE/FY11_13_IFC_Road_Map

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http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/che.nsf/Content/Features_Education_BoP_031610

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http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/about.nsf/Content/Mission

http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/about.nsf/Content/Mission

http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/che.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/Factsheet_Sampoerna/$FILE/Sapoerna

http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/che.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/Factsheet_Sampoerna/$FILE/Sapoerna

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http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/about.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/Moodys_IFC_R

http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/about.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/Moodys_IFC_R

http://www.traceinvestafrica.com/feature_articles/148954.htm

http://norberto.bottani.free.fr/spip/IMG/pdf/educating_amaretch_gold_essay

http://norberto.bottani.free.fr/spip/IMG/pdf/educating_amaretch_gold_essay

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTEDUCATION/0,contentMDK%3A22987531~menuPK%3A282428~pagePK%3A64020865~piPK%3A51164185~theSitePK%3A282386,00.html

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http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTEDUCATION/0,contentMDK%3A22987531~menuPK%3A282428~pagePK%3A64020865~piPK%3A51164185~theSitePK%3A282386,00.html

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTEDUCATION/0,contentMDK%3A22987531~menuPK%3A282428~pagePK%3A64020865~piPK%3A51164185~theSitePK%3A282386,00.html

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTEDUCATION/0,contentMDK%3A22987531~menuPK%3A282428~pagePK%3A64020865~piPK%3A51164185~theSitePK%3A282386,00.html

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTEDUCATION/0,contentMDK%3A22987531~menuPK%3A282428~pagePK%3A64020865~piPK%3A51164185~theSitePK%3A282386,00.html

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTEDUCATION/0,contentMDK%3A22987531~menuPK%3A282428~pagePK%3A64020865~piPK%3A51164185~theSitePK%3A282386,00.html

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTEDUCATION/0,contentMDK%3A22987531~menuPK%3A282428~pagePK%3A64020865~piPK%3A51164185~theSitePK%3A282386,00.html

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• Investing in private education for poverty alleviation: The case of the World Bank's International Finance Corporation

Introduction
Introducing the IFC and its poverty alleviation mandate
Enter education
An overview of IFC investments in education
The investment portfolio
The IFC and post-secondary education
The IFC and K-12 education
Other IFC education activities
Discussion and Conclusions
References
Complete list of IFC investments in education, 2006-2010 (US$ millions)

TARTU, Estonia—Most educators and policymakers can rattle off a list of

international educational powerhouses: Korea, Singapore, Japan, and Finland.

But there’s an overlooked member of the list: Estonia. Even as educators from

around the world flock to Finland to discover its magic formula, Estonia, just a two-

hour ferry ride away, has not aroused the same degree of interest.

Is Estonia the New Finland?
With a focus on equity, the northern European country has quietly joined the ranks

of the global education elite.

First-grade students take a computer class in Tallinn, Estonia.

S A R A H B U T R Y M O W I C Z
J U N 2 3 , 2 0 1 6 | E D U C A T I O N

TEXT SIZE

 

Ints Kalnins / Reuters

http://www.theatlantic.com/author/sarah-butrymowicz/

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/

That could change if the country remains on its upward trajectory. In 2012,

Estonia’s 15-year-olds ranked 11th in math and reading and sixth in science out of

the 65 countries that participated in an international test that compares

educational systems from around the world (called the Programme for

International Student Assessment, or PISA).

In addition to beating out western nations such as France and Germany and

essentially tying Finland in math and science, Estonia also had the smallest

number of weak performers in all of Europe, about 10 percent in math and reading

and 5 percent in science.

Those numbers differ markedly from how the United States is performing, which

continues to be stuck in the middle of the pack in all three subjects. More than a

quarter of U.S. students were low-performers in math. But few people are asking

what meaningful lessons we can draw from Estonia’s success. In fact, many U.S.

researchers and educators argue it’s misleading and unhelpful to compare the

United States to any top performing country because of demographic and cultural

differences.

While there is less income inequality in Estonia than in the United States—and,

with 1.3 million people, the country is significantly smaller—the Baltic nation also

has its share of cultural diversity. When it achieved independence from the Soviet

Union 25 years ago, Estonian became the official language and the language of

school instruction. Yet about a fifth of its students come from families that still

speak Russian at home, and they have historically lagged behind their native

speaking counterparts on tests such as PISA.

Estonia’s performance on PISA isn’t in spite of its poor
students; it’s because of them.

Though its students may come from diverse backgrounds, Estonia’s schools give

them very similar educational experiences. In embracing students of all

backgrounds and income levels, Estonia has succeeded not only on exams but on a

goal that many policymakers, educators, and advocates say the United States must

achieve: creating an educational system based on equity. The idea is a holdover

from the Soviet era and one that the country intends to keep even as it continues to

grapple with how to modernize its schools and further shrink the already small

achievement gaps among its students.

As a result of this commitment, Estonia’s performance on PISA isn’t in spite of its

poor students; it’s in no small part because of them.

“We have been able to keep education very even,” said Jürgen Ligi, the Estonian

minister of education. “It has worked.”

On the 2012 PISA math exam, more than a third of low-income students were

among the country’s top performers. Estonia had the second smallest gap in

performance between its poorest and richest students out of all participating

countries known as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

(OECD). Students in its lowest income quartile scored about as well as American

students in the second highest income quartile.

Fifth-graders at Konguta Kool prepare for a math lesson in the computer lab. (Sarah Butrymowicz / The
Hechinger Report)



https://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results-volume-II

Marc Tucker, president of National Center on Education and the Economy in

Washington, D.C., visited Estonia last year to find out what they’re doing right. He

said that after the fall of the Iron Curtain other former Soviet satellites, such as

Hungary and the Czech Republic, transitioned to a system preferentially suited to

the needs of its elites. Estonia, however, kept giving equal opportunities to students

of all backgrounds.

“What [we] saw in Estonia was not a new education system, it was an old one,”

Tucker said. “By every account they did not change the system after the wall came

down…. It’s hardly surprising they continued to get great results.”

There are many factors that may contribute to Estonia’s success on PISA beyond

their focus on equality. Education continues to be highly valued. Teacher

autonomy is relatively high, which has been shown to be related to better test

scores. Teachers stay with the same students in grades one to three – or sometimes

even up to sixth grade – allowing deep relationships to develop. Many officials and

educators say teachers here are good at supporting students and preventing them

from getting off track, in contrast to the U.S., where teachers spend a lot of time

intervening to help students who have fallen behind.

But many educators said that an emphasis on giving everyone a similar educational

experience is a crucial piece of the puzzle. “We really follow the straight line that

everyone is equal,” said Karin Lukk, principal of Tartu Kivilinna Kool, a grade 1-9

school in Estonia’s second largest city. “It doesn’t matter what kind of family you

come from, you can still achieve a lot.”

R E L A T E D S T O R Y

A Country Created Through Music

That approach starts at the very beginning. Early childhood education is free

beginning at 18 months (when paid maternity or paternity leave ends). Everyone

gets free lunch, meaning teachers might not know exactly what a child’s

In Dutch schools, more time in school and more educator control

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/11/estonia-music-singing-revolution/415464/

background is. College is free. Private schools, although an increasing threat to

public education, are still a relatively small slice of the educational system.

Estonian schools are often economically integrated, so poor and rich students are

frequently in the same classrooms.

By comparison, in the United States, students do not get the same educational

experience. Quality of childcare and schools vary widely depending on income.

Families with the most money often have access to the best child-care centers and

most elite colleges. Schools are often segregated both by race and income, with

poor students often having fewer resources and less experienced teachers.

The divisions for American students also occur within schools. A 2016 study by the

Brookings Institute found that on average, states track three-quarters of eighth

graders in math, meaning they might be put on a path in middle school that

determines which level of math class they’ll end up in in their final year of high

school. (The study found, however, that the more tracking a state does, the better

the results for those that end up in the top tier of classes.)

But for students in the lower tiers, other research suggests tracking isn’t helpful. In

a 2015 study, researchers analyzing PISA results and responses on student surveys

about what kind of math topics they are taught have discovered that students from

less affluent backgrounds in all participating countries are taught less difficult math

and typically perform worse on the assessment. They argue that “the weaknesses

of their math coursework actually keeps [low-income] students from catching up.”

Estonia has the smallest gap out of OECD countries between low- and high-income

students in the kind of math they are taught and one of the smallest gaps in

performance. That 2015 study attempted to separate out how much the instruction

a student receives in school contributes to their scores. If home life or other factors

beyond a school’s control were the sole determinant, researchers would have found

no relationship. Instead, they found that, on average, in OECD countries, the

students’ diverse educational opportunities explained 33 percent of the difference

in scores between low- and high-income students. In the United States it was 37

http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2016/03/24-brown-center-report-tracking-loveless

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1063875

percent, while in Estonia it was just 16 percent.

According to the paper’s co-author William Schmidt, the study’s takeaway is that

“inequality [in test scores] due to schooling in the U.S. does not have to be, as there

are other countries in which the percentage of such inequality is much lower.”

Estonian schools follow a national curriculum that dictates what students must

cover in each subject each year through ninth grade. At that point, students decide

whether to go to upper secondary school for three more years, where they focus on

academics, or to vocational school to prepare for a specific career. Different schools

may require different entrance exams, but students who want to go to upper

secondary school almost always are able to do so, according to officials and

educators.

Most students, roughly two-thirds, select upper secondary school, according to the

Estonian Ministry of Education and Research. In larger schools, they may also pick

an area study – like science and mathematics or humanities. That choice is based

on interest, though, not prior test scores or grades. And students still take a

common set of courses that makes sure students have basic skills in all subjects.

Yet it’s up to the school to figure out how all the students attain this common skill

set. Estonian schools are free to separate students however they want as long as

they learn the same material in each grade. In the late 1990s, educators at Tartu

Kivilinna Kool split up their students into three groups for math classes: high,

average and low. At each level, the school’s 950 students followed the same basic

curriculum, but they moved at different speeds or, in some cases for the more

advanced students, dove deeper into the material. It was a departure to what they’d

done under the Soviet system.

But by 2008, they abandoned the practice. “It didn’t work,” Lukk said. The lowest

group “didn’t develop at all. They just vegetated.”

“My problem is whether we can keep [the test results]
when stressing creativity. Will it be in some conflict?”

Konguta Kool—an elementary school in a small village about an hour east of Tartu –

had some success when it divided its students up into high and low performing

groups, but ultimately didn’t have the staff to keep the system.

On a sunny March day, Konguta’s 15 fifth graders were warming up for a math

lesson in the school’s small computer lab. They logged in to their laptops and

signed on to a program to practice addition. Soon the only sound in the room was

that of mouse clicks as they entered answers.

One girl’s screen started as basic as possible with 1+1. Within two minutes, she was

up to problems like 2589 + 1233.

The school makes use of drills like this so students can practice calculating in their

heads. But teachers also try to plan lessons that connect math to real life. Stairs to

the lower level of the school are marked with descending negative numbers –

during the winter they use them to mark the temperature. One wall is covered with

charts: results of a poll of students’ favorite bread or tallies of how many times

different birds have been seen in the garden.

The school generally does well on the national exam its students take at the end of

sixth grade, said English teacher Katrin Libe. Those results aren’t made publically

available, though; Estonian students are tested once every three years and school

level results are only published at the end of 12th grade.

And while Estonia’s schools are currently benefiting from adhering to the old

system, there are also changes creeping in that might disrupt its academic focus. In

Konguta’s teachers lounge, Libe and math teacher Pille Granovski spoke about a

recent conference they attended, where a psychologist suggested early education

should focus more on emotional and social skills than starting to lay the

groundwork for academics. The school has an early childhood center attached to it,

which enrolls students as young as 18 months old.

“I think the learning process is quite playful [there],” Libe said.

“I don’t know,” Granovski responded. “It is playful but you still have to start

learning very early.”

Educators all over Estonia are grappling with new teaching ideas and philosophies,

trying to reconcile them with the more rigid system they went through. This

discussion is not unlike conversations in America as most states shift to the

Common Core State Standards, which have led to major changes in how teachers

structure their lessons to demand higher order thinking.

Estonia’s traditional educational system still often favors more teacher-centered

classrooms and emphasizes learning facts over developing soft skills. It’s generally

served the country well when it comes to testing, so there is a reluctance to change

entirely.

Teachers at Konguta Kool use online programs for students to practice basic arithmetic. (Sarah
Butrymowicz / The Hechinger Report)



“My problem is whether we can keep [the test results] when stressing creativity,”

Ligi said. “Will it be in some conflict?”

But throughout the country, policymakers and educators are talking about the need

to produce students who can do more than score well on a test, perhaps go on to

become entrepreneurs and creative leaders. Educators are also concerned that

focusing on the average student and bringing up low-achievers to that standard

comes at the expense of pushing gifted students further.

Estonian education philosophy needs to change and is changing, many educators

said, to one that puts more focus on students as individuals and has them drive

more of what happens in the classroom.

Yet it can be hard to get teachers to give up on the traditional ways, let alone attract

good recruits for the teaching profession when pay is still among the lowest in

Europe. Even though teacher training has been completely overhauled at Tartu

University to place more emphasis on how to teach students critical thinking and

communication and less on content knowledge, officials there say it’s taking a while

to trickle down into the classroom.

And a rise in the charts hasn’t bred compliance, among teachers or students. In

PISA student surveys, two-thirds of Estonian students said they are happy at their

school, one of the lowest levels in OECD countries.

Estonian PISA Coordinator Gunda Tire says Estonians are complainers by nature,

so they’ll respond differently to a question about happiness than, say, Americans

would. (Nearly 80 percent of U.S. students said they were happy at school on the

survey.)

That cultural attitude leaves them with a constant drive to keep improving their

schools. “Nothing is ever good enough,” Tire said. “No one would say the school

system is doing fine.”

This post appears courtesy of The Hechinger Report.

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/PISA2012-Vol3-Chap1

Home

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

S A R A H B U T R Y M O W I C Z is a staff writer at The Hechinger Report.

http://www.theatlantic.com/author/sarah-butrymowicz/

Explaining the Origins and Expansion of Mass Education
Author(s): John Boli, Francisco O. Ramirez and John W. Meyer
Source: Comparative Education Review, Vol. 29, No. 2 (May, 1985), pp. 145-170
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Comparative and International
Education Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1188401

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Articles

Explaining the Origins and Expansion
of Mass Education

JOHN BOLI, FRANCISCO O. RAMIREZ, AND JOHN W. MEYER

The prevalence of mass education is a striking feature of the modern
world. Education has spread rapidly in the last 2 centuries, becoming a
compulsory, essentially universal institution. It has even expanded greatly
in the poorest countries. Unesco estimates that about 75 percent of the
children of primary school age in the world are enrolled in something
called a school (1980 data).’ For the developing countries, the mean figure
reported is 68 percent. Although the richer countries have long since
reached virtually universal enrollment, the fervor for education in the
poor countries may be even stronger.2 Mass education is clearly no longer
the prerogative of boys: the World Bank reports that elementary enrollment
ratios for girls are as high as those for boys in developed countries, and
they are only slightly lower than the ratios for boys in developing countries.3
In both rich and poor countries, secondary education has expanded to
the point where it is obviously to be considered a mass form of education
as well. The day is not far off when at least some type of secondary
schooling will be widely available in countries where it was completely
absent a few decades ago.

Another way to gauge the universality of education is by the fact that
about 19 percent of the world’s population are students, nearly all of
them in mass educational institutions. For most people, education may
be the most important element of their social status, and their educational
background will have a greater direct impact on their overall life chances
than any other element but nationality.

In the first part of this article, we consider a number of lines of
explanation of the rise of mass education that have emerged over the
past 2 decades. Two general sociological themes characterize these theories.
First, there has been a tendency to see vertical or lateral social differentiation

Work on this paper was supported by the Stanford Center for the Study of Youth Development
and funds from Father Flanagan’s Boys’ Home. We assume responsibility for the work, of course.
Our thanks go to Aaron Benavot for his contributions to the ideas expressed here.

1 Unesco, Statistical Yearbook (Louvain: Unesco, 1955-83).
2 D. Hansen and A. Haller, “Status Attainment of Costa Rican Males: A Cross-cultural Test of

a Model,” Rural Sociology 38 (1973): 266-67; Stephen Heyneman, “Influences on Academic Achievement:
A Comparison of Results from Uganda and More Industrialized Societies,” Sociology of Education 49
(1976): 200-211.

3 World Bank, Education: Sector Policy Paper (Washington, D.C.: IBRD, 1980).

Comparative Education Review, vol. 29, no. 2.
C 1985 by the Comparative and International Education Society. All rights reserved.
0010-4086/85/2902-0008$01.00

Comparative Education Review 145

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BOLI, RAMIREZ, AND MEYER

as the core feature of modern society. The relations of complex inter-
dependence among social units, whether seen as reciprocal and mutually
beneficial or as asymmetric and exploitative, are believed to be the root
of all other features of modernity. Lines of reasoning employing this
theme attempt to explain such modern rituals of mass solidarity as de-
mocracy, universalistic cultural and religious movements, and mass ed-
ucation. On the right, mass education is explained as a means of resolving
the strains of differentiation, with emphasis on the lateral dimension,
whereas on the left it is explained as a means of legitimating vertical
differentiation.

Second, there has been a reductionist tendency that overemphasizes
the importance of interest groups as central social actors. As particular
groups or classes arise and gain power, they build institutions such as
mass education for their own purposes. The expansion of education is
therefore directly related to the strength of the dominant group vis-a-vis
its competition and to the particular problems it must solve to control its
local situation. Explaining the rise of mass education involves analyzing
the power relations of interest groups in society.

We argue that these two themes generate misleading analyses of mass
education and themselves face serious theoretical and empirical difficulties
in dealing with the highly institutionalized and universalistic aspects of
mass education. Viewing education as a creature of differentiation un-
derstates its strong linkages with the integrating institutions of Western
political and religious universalism and overlooks the importance and
autonomy of these institutions as driving historical forces. At the same
time, the reductionist stress on interest groups or classes as causal forces
ignores the generality of the institutional level at which mass education
developed. Education has been generated by worldwide social movements
in modern history, and a satisfactory explanation of its origins must take
into account the very broad ideological and institutional pressures that
have been at work.

Our own analysis, developed in the second part of the article, stresses
the modern reconstruction of the individual and the expanded linkages
between the individual and newly emerging, more inclusive social units-
the rationalized society and the rational state. We see mass education as
an outcome of the religious, economic, and political processes that expand
and secularize the organization and ideological rules of individual mem-
bership in these larger units.

In the third part, we outline several lines of empirical research that
derive from our analysis, with applications to both the formative period
of mass education (the nineteenth century) and to the rapid expansion
of education in the twentieth century. We develop a series of hypotheses
specifying the particular aspects of modern political, economic, and religious

146
May 1985

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EDUCATIONAL EXPANSION

mobilization that should be most strongly related to the formation and
expansion of educational systems. We emphasize that our arguments are
of very general applicability: we believe that they hold for Third World
countries as much as for the developed West. Even though such countries
are characterized by a good deal of traditional social organization, extreme
social inequality, and relative lack of autonomy due to their subordination
to the developed countries, they are nonetheless enthusiastically engaged
in the same progress-oriented societal project as their richer counterparts.
If anything, our arguments apply with even greater force to the Third
World than to European countries in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, when they were at comparable levels of economic develop-
ment, because education has become increasingly closely linked to the
national project and is now a virtually indispensable element of national
development.

Core Elements of Mass Education

The emphasis on social differentiation and inequality as determinants
of mass education fails to appreciate some of the central features of mass
education as an institution.4 We distinguish three primary institutional
features, which constitute an umbrella of claims under which all modern
systems of mass education have emerged and expanded. As institutional
claims, they are, of course, often at variance with what researchers studying
particular schools or national systems actually observe; institutional ideology
is never fully realized in practice. But the striking thing about modern
mass education is that everywhere in the world the same interpretive
scheme underlies the observed reality. Even in the most remote peasant
villages, administrators, teachers, pupils, and parents invoke these insti-
tutional rules and struggle to construct schools that conform to them.

1. Mass education is institutionally chartered to be universal, stan-
dardized, and rationalized.5 This element always characterizes educational
ideology; in practice, it is a goal that is usually sought but not always
obtained. Education is a mass institution in the sense that it incorporates
everyone, cutting across such lines of differentiation as ethnicity, region,
class, and gender. This characteristic is often taken for granted, because
in many countries it is observable as empirical fact: all, or nearly all,
children attend elementary schools that are supposed to be similar in

” Francisco O. Ramirez and John W. Meyer, “Comparative Education: Synthesis and Agenda,

”

in The State of Sociology: Problems and Prospects, ed. James Short (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1981);
“Comparative Education: The Social Construction of the Modern World System,” Annual Review of
Sociology 6 (1980): 369-99.

5 Francisco O. Ramirez and John Boli, “Global Patterns of Educational Institutionalization,” in
Comparative Education, ed. Philip Altbach, Robert Arnove, and Gail Kelly (New York: Macmillan,
1982).

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BOLI, RAMIREZ, AND MEYER

cultural content, purposes, structure, funding, and general control.6 In
some countries, the same can be said of secondary schooling. Even where
higher status people send their children to distinctive elementary schools,
these schools differ from the mass institutions more in the resources they
have available than in their general aspirations or curricula.

Explanations viewing mass education as the creation of interest groups
or classes have difficulties with this general fact. They can readily account
for a variety of uses of schooling but not so easily for the extraordinary
standardization and universalism of the institution. Very elaborate but
unconvincing arguments have been developed to explain why a standardized
and homogeneous institution “really” (i.e., behind the scenes) arises to
prop up a differentiated division of labor.’ For some, the universalism of
mass education is an obfuscating plot; for others, it is a response to
“situational strain,” a fuzzy concept indeed.

2. Mass education is very highly institutionalized at a very general
collective level.8 It is remarkably homogeneous in aspiration throughout
the world, and this uniformity has led to increasingly homogeneous or-
ganizational forms as well. Note how easy it is for Unesco to assemble
data on the prevalence of education, precisely because educational systems
everywhere are built to conform at least nominally to world-institutionalized
standard models. This sweepingly institutional, or ideological, element
has characterized education for perhaps 2 centuries.’ Mass education has
arisen not as a practical device to deal with particular local problems or
group conflicts but as a general system expressing principles of broad
meaning and validity. It developed out of comprehensive religious struc-
tures, as well as broad national regulations and laws. It encompasses the
most central aspects of human life: the nature of God and moral action,
the laws of the natural world, and so on.

Many current theories about mass education also wrestle uneasily with
this element. They could explain the emergence of school systems in
limited areas designed to provide specific advantages for particular groups,
but they have difficulty explaining the broad ideological mission of ed-
ucation. This mission deals with the most general aspects of social reality,
especially when it is so similarly defined across localities, regions, and
even countries that are so radically different from one another.

“6 Alex Inkeles and Larry Sirowy, “Convergent and Divergent Trends in National Educational
Systems,” Social Forces 62 (December 1983): 303-33.

7 Joel Spring, Education and the Rise of the Corporate State (Boston: Beacon, 1972).
SJohn W. Meyer, “The Effects of Education as an Institution,” American Journal of Sociology 83

(September 1977): 340-63.

9 Yehudi Cohen, “The State System, Schooling, and Cognitive and Motivational Patterns,” in
Social Forces and Schooling, ed. N. Shimorhara and A. Scrupski (New York: McKay, 1979); and “Schools
and Civilization States,” in The Social Sciences and the Comparative Study of Educational Systems, ed. J.
Fischer (Scranton, Pa.: International Textbook, 1970).

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EDUCATIONAL EXPANSION

3. Mass education is institutionally chartered to conduct the socialization
of the individual as the central social unit.o0 Although education is supposed
to be homogeneous and standardized, the formal values and rituals it
promotes celebrate the competence, capacities, and responsibility of the
individual member of society. Even the most statist or collectivist modern
systems have this individualist character in the sense that they also define
the individual as the central unit of action, stress the importance of proper
socialization, and view collective progress as the result of the competence
and commitment of progressive individuals. More traditional educational
forms aim less to socialize individuals as distinct social entities than to
redefine their social identity through highly ritualized methods and rote
instruction, which affect not the individual but his relationship to corporate
social entities.

Given the diversity of modern political systems in so many respects,
it is surprising how consistently educational systems attempt to build
collective society by enhancing individual development. The individual
is to know, to understand, to explain, to choose, and ultimately to become
an effective person capable of making suitable choices and engaging in
proper action. The rituals of mass education celebrate the reality of in-
dividual choice and responsibility, not the immersion of individuals in
corporate groups such as castes, classes, extended families, and so on.
Again, many theories cannot come to terms with this element. They can
explain rituals of complete passivity for the masses, but they are mute
with respect to the heavy stress on individual competence, initiative, and
responsibility.

”

Explanations of Mass Education

Any theory of the origins and expansion of mass education must deal
with the core ideological elements of the institution: its highly institu-
tionalized structure, its explicit incorporation of all members of society,
its dramatic stress on individual action, and its homogeneous and univ-
ersalized rationalistic frame. Seen in this light, mass education is clearly
linked to a complex of other modern institutions that structure society
as a rational project and extend its boundaries to include control of the
individual’s behavior and worldview. These include religious ideologies
that emphasize the individual’s relation to transcendental authority (God,
history, the universe) as a matter of personal faith and action; political
legitimations of authority relations that build on both the sovereignty of

“o John Boli and Francisco O. Ramirez, “World Culture and the Institutional Development of
Mass Education,” in Handbook of Theory and Research in the Sociology ofEducation, ed. John G. Richardson
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1984).

” See the critique of Bowles and Gintis (n. 17 below) in Christopher J. Hurn, The Limits and
Possibilities of Schooling (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1978), pp. 76-80.

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BOLI, RAMIREZ, AND MEYER

the individual actor (e.g., as voter) and on the rights and obligations of
the individual (as subject or citizen); and economic market systems that
make assumptions about individual capacities and motivations in both

production and consumption. Contemporary polities systematically assume
that social institutions have this general modern character, even though
there is considerable variation in the specific types of institutions emphasized.

The argument we develop in the next section views mass education
as a secular procedure for constructing the individual-the central actor
of modern institutions of religious, political, and economic organization.
We argue that mass education expands where institutional forms em-

phasizing the individual dominate. This type of causal link has often been
discussed: with respect to mass education and the citizen-based nation-
state, by Merriam and Bendix; with respect to religious and economic
individualism, by Weber and McClelland.” But these discussions have
tended to be cynical about the institution of individualism rather than
analytical about its relation to inequality and differentiation. Disappointed
theorists consider free democracy as sustaining inequality, the lawful bu-
reaucratic state as oppressive, the free religion of disciplined Puritans as
coercive, and the economy of free exchange as generating much inequality.
This is all true, but it is a mistake to ignore the power of such structures
as institutions that form the basis of modern society.

Perceiving a mismatch between individualist ideals and social practice,
modern theories of the rise of mass education turn to the other main
dimension of modernization, the increasingly differentiated division of
labor. Rather than straightforwardly explain the rise of mass education
as depending on the expansion of the universalistic institutions of individual
membership in society, many theorists have tried to present these institutions
(and, hence, education) as epiphenomenal reflections of social differen-
tiation.

Education and Differentiation

Clearly, modern societies are highly differentiated. They are made
up of many different, interdependent roles and groups. As organizational
structures, they are differentiated even at the individual level, so that for
better or worse every individual occupies a structurally unique position
in society. The conception of society as a network of highly differentiated
roles has so much power over modern social scientific imagination that
any other conception of what is central in modern society seems idealistic
and naive.

“12 C. Merriam, The Making of Citizens (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931); Reinhard
Bendix, Nation-Building and Citizenship (New York: Wiley, 1964); Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and
the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Scribner’s, 1958); David McClelland, “Does Education Accelerate
Economic Growth?” Economic Development and Cultural Change 14 (1966): 257-78.

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EDUCATIONAL EXPANSION

But how does differentiation explain the construction and expansion
of homogeneous mass education? It is easy enough to explain how a
sorting process in secondary schools or universities could arise to allocate
individuals among stratified occupational positions. How does a long period
of homogeneous mass education serve the same ends?

Several theoretical approaches address the problem; some make fairly
direct links between social differentiation and mass education, and others
specify more indirect links.” Both types start with a society composed of
different roles and interests and try to account for the development of a
combination of interests that will push society down the road toward mass
education. Highly functionalistic, these explanations suppose that forces
or interests located in differentiated society produce education to make
society work better. In mainstream versions, society works better for the
general good;14 in more critical (leftist) versions, society works to sustain
the position of dominant groups.’5 In either view, mass education somehow
makes the differentiated role system work more smoothly. What is the
connection?

In some theories, the proposed link is a direct connection between
education and the cognitive or normative base “needed” for members of
a complex society to play their different parts successfully. Individuals
need to understand the diverse roles generated by an urbanized, indus-
trialized society and the power relations among them, or they will not be
able to fit into the structure. Hence, education is necessary to provide the
cognitive skills required by the modern system. If individuals approve of
the roles and power relations, “internalizing the values” of the differentiated
society, their willing participation in the structure will be all the more
certain.’6 Thus the imputed functional requirement of differentiated society
for cognitive or moral competence creates a need for mass schooling to
provide knowledge of the structure and adherence to the norms that
support the structure. The connection between differentiation and ed-
ucation is generated by a need for a common cultural base in society.

More indirect links between differentiation and education are posited
in social control theories. Here the strains engendered by social complexity
threaten to fragment modern society, and social control becomes prob-
lematic. Mass education arises as a mechanism for legitimating the structure

‘ Spring; Remi Clignet, Liberty and Equality in the Educational Process (New York: Wiley, 1974). ” 4 mile Durkheim, L’Evolution pMdagogique en France (Paris: Alcan, 1938), vol. 2; Talcott Parsons,
“The School Class as a Social System,” Harvard Educational Review 20, no. 4 (1957): 297-318; S. N.
Eisenstadt, From Generation to Generation (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1956).

‘5 Pierre Bourdieu and J. C. Passeron, La Reproduction culturelle (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1970);
Basil Bernstein, Class, Codes, and Control, 3 vols. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971-75).

“6 Robert Dreeben, On What Is Learned in School (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1968); Alex
Inkeles and David Smith, Becoming Modern: Individual Change in Six Developing Countries (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975); Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture (Boston:
Little, Brown, 1963).

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BOLI, RAMIREZ, AND MEYER

of society; it becomes an essential device of social control, providing a
normative base legitimating the differentiated system (mainstream version)
or a mystification constructed by dominant elites to legitimize their power
(critical version). Education props up the authority structure with theories
of formal equality (political rights, universal suffrage, freedom of economic

consumption, etc.) that are sustained by schools and a variety of other
institutions. It emphasizes equality in a very unequal society either by
providing “equality of opportunity” as the appropriate social response to
inequality (mainstream version) or by maintaining the illusion of equality
where true equality is impossible (critical version). It is generated not by a
direct need for cognitive or moral integration but by a more indirect need
for legitimation to support the differentiated order or the ruling elites.”

The heat of the political disputes between mainstream and critical
theorists obscures the fact that, with regard to education, their arguments
are virtually identical. In both lines of analysis, mass education helps meet
the functional need for integration of the increasingly differentiated system,
providing a unifying culture of universalistic equality.'” There are differences
in tone: the critical Left speaks more about vertical differentiation (“class
structure”) as a source of strain; the mainstream Right draws greater
attention to the Durkheimian concern about education as a remedy for
excessive lateral differentiation (“division of labor”). Similarly, the Left
emphasizes the immediate group or personal interests of the elites ad-
vocating mass education, whereas the Right emphasizes more systemic
purposes or problems. But the predictions of the two perspectives with
respect to education are hard to distinguish.

Too many questions are raised by such theories, even apart from the
obvious problems that plague all functionalist explanations, whether of
the Left or the Right. If the elites have enough power to build a system
of social control through mass education, why do they need the system?
If they wish to generate a system that integrates society through obfuscation,
why do they design it so to enhance the membership and institutional
importance of the otherwise dispossessed? If the structural features of
mass education are so epiphenomenal and illusory, why does the educational
system operate so hegemonically? How can such massive false consciousness
be maintained?

Many of these same questions are troublesome for another variety of
explanation that at least has the virtue of avoiding a functionalist approach
to the problem. In what has come to be known as “conflict” theory, the

” Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America (New York: Basic, 1976);
Michael B. Katz, Class, Bureaucracy, and Schools: The Illusion of Educational Change in America (New
York: Praeger, 1975); Spring (n. 7 above).

“1 For alternative critiques, see Randall Collins, “Functional and Conflict Theories of Educational
Stratification,” American Sociological Review 36 (1971): 1002-19; and Margaret S. Archer, “The Neglect
of the Educational System by Bernstein and Bourdieu,” European Journal of Sociology (in press).

152 May 1985

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EDUCATIONAL EXPANSION

central notion is that mass education arises as a result of competition
among status groups for social dominance.’9 Education is the modern
arena of two aspects of status group competition: in the first, groups
compete for education because it facilitates occupational and social success;
in the second, groups compete to use education for their own purposes,
knowing that dominant groups can structure educational curricula to
insure the hegemony of their own cultural values. In this perspective,
then, social differentiation produces competing status groups that try to
dominate education for their own purposes.

Like the other perspectives, conflict theory is unable to answer a number
of crucial questions regarding the rise of mass education. Why does ed-
ucation become the arena of competition in the first place? Why do groups
that are capable of controlling society and imposing their values on others
bother with a set of institutional rules stressing universalistic equality and
individual competence rather than straightforward dominance and hi-
erarchy (as has usually been the case in the past)? All these theories have
a peculiar and unspoken premise: dominant groups (or the differentiated
order) cannot survive in the modern world without propagating a myth
of equality; elites are just strong enough to keep it a myth but not strong
enough to dispense with it. The theories also rely heavily on the supposition
that false consciousness can be massively imposed and maintained, even
in the face of very severe inequality.

In fact, all these theoretical lines beg the crucial questions surrounding
mass education. Why is it so universalistic? Why does it so greatly emphasize
the individual as the primary social construct and make of that individual
the locus of social value and competence? Why does it stress equality in
such unequal social structures?
Problems of Evidence

The most telling failure of the modern attempt to connect mass ed-
ucation with social differentiation is empirical, however, not theoretical.
Certainly, mass education is the creature of a modern system of which
urbanization, economic development, and industrialization-the orga-
nizational concomitants of differentiation-are central components. But
just as certainly, differentiation as such is not closely associated empirically
with the origins and expansion of mass education.

First, the evidence is consistently negative on the direct connection
between differentiation and education. Mass education in Europe, Japan,
and the United States commonly preceded industrialization and extensive
urbanization.20 Within Europe, the early industrializers were not the first

“9 Randall Collins, The Credential Society: A Historical Sociology of Education and Stratification (New
York: Academic Press, 1979); Hurn.

20 Bendix; Ronald Dore, Education in Tokugawa Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1964); C. F. Kaestle and M. A. Vinovskis, Education and Social Change: Nineteenth Century Massachusetts-

Comparative Education Review 153

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BOLI, RAMIREZ, AND MEYER

to embrace the ideology of mass education and begin to construct universal
school systems: Prussia, Austria, and Denmark were ahead of France and
England,2′ and Scotland has had higher educational enrollment rates than
England throughout the modern period.22 Furthermore, regional analyses
fail to show a connection between urbanization or industrialization and
the expansion of enrollments.23 Within the United States, the less indus-
trialized western states moved more rapidly to create and expand mass
education than had the eastern states,24 and analyses of the nineteenth
century find no effect of urbanization on educational enrollments.25 In
cross-national analyses of the contemporary world, industrialization is
found to be poorly related to the growth of mass education as well.26
Hence industrialization and urbanization are not central causal factors
directly generating mass education at all.

Second, empirical analyses do not support the social control or status
group conflict theories any better. Such theories predict greater educational
expansion in cities, where the need for social control is stronger, but
urbanization is not related to increasing enrollments. They also predict
that immigration rates should be closely associated with the expansion of
education because immigrants are prime targets of social control efforts.
The evidence, however, is negative on this point for the United States;
in cross-national studies, educational expansion has been shown to be
unrelated to ethnic fragmentation.27

On reflection, the evidentiary failure of these theories makes a good
deal of sense. If dominant groups, faced with social control problems,
had the power to construct massive educational systems to legitimate
themselves, why would they bother? Would not direct subordination of
the unruly orders be a more probable and effective alternative? In fact,
of course, social systems facing problems of disorder, labor unrest, or
failure of social control mechanisms have not resorted to education. They
have relied on straightforward repression. In extreme instances, this is
obvious: in the American South, the education of slaves was strictly for-

Quantitative Studies, Final Research Report, Project no. 3-0825 (Washington, D.C.: National Institute
of Education, 1976).

21 Boli and Ramirez (n. 10 above).
22 Peter Flora, State, Economy, and Society in Western Europe: 1815-1975, 2 vols. (Frankfurt: Campus

Verlag, 1983).
“23 John Craig and Norman Spear, “The Diffusion of Schooling in Nineteenth-Century Europe:

Toward a Model” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Social Science History Association,
Columbus, Ohio, 1978).

“24John G. Richardson, “Historical Sequences and the Origins of Common Schooling in the
American States,” in Richardson, ed. (see n. 10 above).

“2 John W. Meyer, David Tyack, Joane P. Nagel, and Audri Gordon, “Public Education as Nation-
Building in America,” American Journal of Sociology 85 (1979): 591-613.

26 John W. Meyer, Francisco O. Ramirez, Richard Rubinson, and John Boli-Bennett, “The World
Educational Revolution, 1950-1970,” Sociology of Education 50 (October 1977): 242-58.

“27John Ralph and Richard Rubinson, “Immigration and the Expansion of Schooling in the
United States: 1890-1970,” American Sociological Review 45:943-55; Meyer et al. (n. 26 above).

154 May 1985

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EDUCATIONAL EXPANSION

bidden, not encouraged, and slaves were controlled through physical
punishment. In less extreme examples, repression has still been the standard
approach to social control.

For example, in most European countries, early urbanization generated
a variety of labor control methods that were plainly repressive. Expanding
the educational opportunities of the disorderly or potentially disorderly
classes was unthinkable until late in the nineteenth century.”28 Even then,
the educational improvement of the lower classes was not generally proposed
when maintaining order was seen as most problematic. In times of internal
disorder, repression was the usual response. Today, repression rather
than rapid educational expansion remains the favored response to politically
threatening situations, as in colonial societies or southern Africa. There
are no empirical analyses showing that political instability results in ed-
ucational expansion.
Theoretical Reconsideration

Before proceeding to our own argument, we present some general
considerations. First, it makes sense to see the differentiating institutions
of the Western system as dialectical counterparts of the integrating in-
stitutions.29 The two sides of this dualism constitute a single cultural
frame. The political, religious, and economic institutions that integrate
the individual into society cannot simply be ignored or treated as epi-
phenomena; they are not just mystifications that hide the inequalities of
the differentiated system. Since the twelfth century, the legal and ideological
bases of Western political and economic differentiation have been rooted
in integrative ideological soil, including a universalistic doctrine of the
individual and a fundamental commitment to equality; empirically, ed-
ucational ideology as expressed in official documents is still linked closely
to doctrines of equality today.”3 One need not believe in equality as an
established fact to see the profound effects of these doctrines on religion,
law, the economy, and political structures.

Second, it is these institutions of integration that are especially relevant
to the origins and expansion of mass education. Education flourishes
where these institutions are strong. It is more weakly associated with
differentiating social forces. Indeed, we argue below that organizational
differentiation in and of itself may be negatively related to mass education,
in that an institution such as education that enhances and equalizes the
status of individuals is more difficult to establish in a highly differentiated

“28 See Donald K. Jones, The Making of the Education System, 1851-81 (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1977).

“29 See Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London: Verso, 1974).
so Walter Ullmann, The Individual and Society in the Middle Ages (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University

Press, 1966); Colin Morris, The Discovery of the Individual, 1050-1200 (London: SPCK, 1972).

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BOLI, RAMIREZ, AND MEYER

system. The failure to find positive effects of differentiation in the postwar
period suggests that this line of thinking may prove very fruitful.

Third, the package of institutional elements that constitute modern
society contains somewhat varied contents in different societies; some
dimensions of modernity vary more or less independently of other di-
mensions. For example, the purest examples of modern political egali-
tarianism and individualism are to be found in rural areas of the American
North and West, not in areas of maximum industrial concentration. As
we shall argue, mass education accompanies not differentiation per se
but universalistic individualism. The nature of the process by which mass
education develops is determined by the particular way in which the
individual is bound to the social collectivity.

Creating Members of the Rational Society and Modern State

Instead of seeing differentiation as the crucial factor leading to mass
education, it is more useful to look at the other central aspect of modern
society: its structures of universalistic integration. Modernization involves
the construction of rules of political and economic inequality, to be sure,
but it also involves legal and cultural principles of equality-principles
that are even more heavily emphasized, and in greater detail, in Third
World countries than in European nations. There is considerable dis-
agreement about which of these aspects is primary and about what are
the consequences of each for long-term societal development. But the
key point, often overlooked or denied by theorists for various ideological
reasons, is that modern society contains both highly differentiated roles
and binding common cultures, both highly fragmented images of action
and sweeping assertions of common human identity.

In our view, mass education is produced by the social construction of
the main institutions of the rationalized, universalistic worldview that
developed in the modern period-the citizen-based nation and state, the
new religious outlook, and the economic system rooted in individual action
(originally in markets, now more commonly in organizations such as those
found in contemporary socialist countries). Mass education arose primarily
as a means of transforming individuals into members of these new insti-
tutional frames that emerged in Europe after the Middle Ages. The nature
of society was redefined; society became a rational, purposive project
devoted to achieving the new secular ends of progress and human equality.3″
The project was defined in the new institutional frames to include individual
members of society as essential components -loci of sovereignty and loyalty,
production and consumption, faith and obedience. Thus the individual

“3′ See Robert Nisbet, History of the Idea of Progress (New York: Basic, 1980).

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EDUCATIONAL EXPANSION

must be made rational, purposive, and empowered to act with autonomy
and competence in the new universalistic system.32

In the emerging society built around individual membership, theories
of socialization developed and became central.33 In the new view, the
unformed, the parochial, or even the morally defective child could be
molded in desired ways if its environmental experiences were controlled
in a rational and purposive manner. Such deliberate socialization was
necessary because all of the virtuous goals of society increasingly were
seen as attainable only to the extent that individual members of society
embodied the corresponding personal virtues. Because society was held
to be essentially a collection of individuals, the success or failure of its
effort to realize progress and justice was dependent on the nature of the
socialization experiences encountered by the individual.34

Such a view-that mass education is part of the effort to construct
the universalistic and rationalized society, incorporating individuals and
their actions-fits well with the distinctive features of mass education we
have noted above. Mass education is too all-encompassing and homogeneous
to be explained by the division of labor. It is too highly institutionalized
in political and religious collectivities of too broad a purview to be seen
as a simple reflection of local interest relations. Finally, it focuses too
much on the individual as chooser and actor to be conceived as a simple
instrument of passivity and labor control in a differentiated society. This
is true even in socialist and Third World countries, for their educational
programs assume individual competence and responsibility as much as
those of the developed West.

It is important to see that, in modern history, all this has been a highly
institutional and ideological business. It is not simply an accidental by-
product of social changes that happened to occur in one or another
locality. Both the differentiating and the integrating aspects of the modern
system were pursued as rationalizing projects by all sorts of elites mobilizing
their societies for improvement. The political, economic, and cultural
aspects of individualism were inherent in these projects and eagerly pursued
by mobilizing elites, and it is individualism that gave rise to visions of the
necessity of mass education. Of course, it is precisely this project-oriented,
or ideological, character of the institutions of individualism that generates
the great gulf between doctrine and reality. Just as the rules of the market

“32John W. Meyer, John Boli, and George M. Thomas, “Rationalization and Ontology in the
Evolving World System” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association,
Portland, Oregon, March 1981).

“3 Philippe Aries, Centuries of Childhood (New York: Vintage, 1962); Bernard Jolibert, L’Enfance au XVIIe siecle (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1981); John Sommerville, The Rise and Fall of
Childhood (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1982).

“34 Francisco O. Ramirez and John Boli, “The Political Construction of Mass Schooling: European
Origins and Worldwide Institutionalization,” mimeographed (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University,
Department of Sociology, 1984).

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BOLI, RAMIREZ, AND MEYER

economy or democratic regime are rhetorically invoked most loudly where
they are weakest,35 the ideological bases of mass education are often most
solemnly celebrated where they are least put into practice. Nonetheless,
in the educational arena both the doctrines and organized school systems
depicted in theory are coming to be universal.

Two Forms of Educational Construction of the Modern Individual
In the broadest sense, mass education arises as a purposive project to

construct the modern polity, reconstructing individuals in accordance
with collective religious, political, and economic goods and purposes.
Because the modern polity takes different forms, the route to mass education
involves somewhat different paths in different societies. One crucial dis-
tinction is whether the polity of progress-oriented individuals under con-
struction is linked to the state apparatus or to less central societal structures.

Consider the case in which the effort to construct a rationalized society
is grounded on a conception of individuals as members of networks of
institutions and relations that together constitute the societal unit. There
is no (or only a weak) formal central authority structure that is empowered
to act on behalf of society as a whole. In this case, education is built
around a model of creating societal members. Education is engendered by
the effort to create properly socialized members of the rational society
who have the capacity and disposition to join in the struggle for progress
as workers, innovators, consumers, organizers, and committed members
of the political community. Given the goals of progress and equality, this
model depicts education as a process of mass mobilization linking individuals
to a pervasive “civic culture” that has broad moral authority in the dispersed
institutions of society. Social movements generated by this overarching
institutional nexus create organizations to socialize children in a common
experiential frame. The form and content of the educational system,
although highly decentralized, varies little from region to region because
the rational model of society is so thoroughly institutionalized in the civic
culture.36

This is a fair and succinct description of the line of development
followed in the United States. Education developed from movements
motivated by religious, political, and economic visions of a progressive
future, but these were not vested primarily in the state.37 In fact, in this
model of development, mass education generally precedes the adoption
of formal state rules about education. The United States has long had
the most expanded educational system in the world, but it still has no

“15 Jacques Ellul, Propaganda (New York: Knopf, 1965).
36 John W. Meyer, “Myths of Socialization and Personality” (paper presented at the Conference

on Reconstructing Individualism at the Center for the Humanities, Stanford University, February
1984).

“7 David Tyack, The One Best System (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974).

158
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EDUCATIONAL EXPANSION

national rule of compulsory mass education; in this respect, it is almost
unique.

The model of creating societal members has dominated educational
development in only a few places; in most countries, modernization has
centered less on society as the locus of the modern polity and more on
the state organization itself. Here we have the model of education as
creating members of the nation-state. The nation-state, along with the individual,
has been a primary generator of social mobilization throughout modern
history. It is now entirely dominant as an organizational form, having
defeated or incorporated alternatives. Like the individual, the nation-
state is seen in modern ideology as a rational, purposive actor, organizing
society toward progress and competitive success in the larger interstate
system. The state incorporates the individual through the institution of
citizenship, which both grants participatory rights in political, economic,
and cultural arenas and imposes strong obligations to participate in state-
directed national development.38

In this model, education becomes the vehicle for creating citizens. It
instills loyalty to the state and acceptance of the obligations to vote, go
to war, pay taxes, and so on. It also equips citizens with the skills and
worldview required for them to be able to contribute productively to
national success. The state promotes a mass educational system in order
to transform all individuals into members of the national polity, and it
supports a uniform system to build devotion to a common set of purposes,
symbols, and assumptions about proper conduct in the social arena.”

The dominant form of expansion of mass education in Western Europe
took this route, the creation of nation-state members. To American eyes,
this style of development looks ‘.top-down” because the rules of mass
education devolve from the organizational center of society represented
by the state. In a broad sense, however, the “creation of societal members”
model also involves top-down mobilization, because universalistic patterns
that are institutionalized at a very general level are imposed on individuals.
The latter model involves stronger assertions of individual sovereignty
and autonomy, whereas the former locates authority in society more ex-
plicitly at the top, whence it is delegated downward to the individual. In
this case, the individual’s duties are as explicit and compelling as his or
her rights, if not more so.

The contrast between the two models comes out most clearly if we
see the construction of mass education as involving two distinct social
processes. There is, of course, the expansion of schools as organizational

“38 T. H. Marshall, Class, Citizenship, and Social Development (New York: Doubleday, 1964); Bendix
(see n. -12 above).

9 Francisco O. Ramirez and Richard Rubinson, “Creating Members: The Political Incorporation
and Expansion of Public Education,” in National Development and the World System, ed. John W. Meyer
and Michael T. Hannan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979).

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BOLI, RAMIREZ, AND MEYER

entities. One can envision a rough scale with the establishment of nationwide
networks of schools at the low end; universal enrollment and, later, universal
attendance as intermediate steps; and universal attendance for a specified
number of years at the high end. The other process involves not the
organization of schools but the clarity and elaboration of the rules of mass
education, which are given their fullest expression in the laws of the state.
Here the scale has rules requiring the construction of schools and training
of teachers at the low end; compulsory enrollment and attendance for all
children as intermediate steps; and detailed rules specifying the levels,
sequences, curricula, and administration of the educational enterprise at
the top.

Our two models of educational construction differ in their implications
for the organizational expansion of education as distinguished from the
institutional rules and laws binding education into society. The model of
creating members of the nation-state leads above all to the adoption of
institutional rules of compulsory education; the system of schools and
enforced attendance of students would expand later as a consequence.
The model of creating members of the modern society (the “liberal de-
mocracy” model) entails the expansion of the system of schools and pupil
attendance more than the creation of legal institutional rhetoric concerning
mass education. Ultimately, either form of structural modernization leads
to mass education, but the route traveled and the degree of state involvement
and state adoption of formal rules varies considerably.

Let us flesh out this analysis with several examples before developing
it as a set of research hypotheses. Although the United States represents
the purest example of the model of creating societal members, this model
also dominated in England. In these countries, educational enrollments
expanded considerably ahead of the establishment of formal rules instituting
compulsory primary education. Schools were established on a voluntary
basis, often by religious organizations, and state support of education was
limited and indirect until relatively late.40

By contrast, in countries such as Prussia and Denmark, the state took
the leading role in establishing mass education; voluntary organizations
played almost no role at all. In these countries, institutional commitments
to compulsory education preceded the construction of school systems by
well over a century, and it seems unlikely (though early statistics are not
available) that primary enrollments in Prussia and Denmark encompassed
as large a proportion of children as those in the United States until the
late nineteenth century.41

40 Meyer and Hannan, eds.
4 Ramirez and Boli (n. 5 above); John Craig, “The Expansion of Education,” Review of Research

in Education 9 (1981): 151-210.

160
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EDUCATIONAL EXPANSION

As these examples reveal, the adoption of institutional rules calling
for compulsory mass education tends to be linked more with the location
of social authority in the state, whereas the construction of a mass system
of schools is linked more with the location of social authority in the
individual. In any given country, of course, authority is divided between
the state and the individual, and there is considerable variation in the
nature of this division. Thus there is great variation in the date of adoption
of compulsory education rules and in the rate of construction of mass
schooling systems across countries. It is important to remember, however,
that both forms of the new model of society devoted to the rationalized
pursuit of progress lead to mass education. We can summarize this argument
in three general propositions:

I. The penetration of society by any rational, purposive model of social
organization leads to both the adoption of institutional rules of compulsory
education and the construction of a mass system of schools to create
members of the new model of society.

II. Social forces that incorporate the individual into the collectivity as
a member of the rational society lead to the construction of mass systems
of schools, but they have less impact on the adoption of central institutional
(state) rules of compulsory mass schooling.

III. Social forces that incorporate the individual into the collectivity
as a member of the nation-state lead to the adoption of national rules
making education universal and compulsory, but they have less direct
impact on the construction of mass systems of schools.

The first proposition implies that both the institutional rules and the
organizational structures of mass education are generated by the expansion
of the rationalized societal model. In other words, relative to other societal
forms (“traditional,” “primitive,” “medieval” societies), the rationalized
progress-oriented form of social organization is far more likely to generate
mass education. The second and third propositions summarize the im-
plications of the two models (“ideal types,” in Weber’s language) as different
processes whereby educational development proceeds.

Research Agenda

Broadly comparative explanations of mass education often fail to specify
the empirical implications of their central arguments and the research
directions to be pursued in testing these hypotheses. The literature is
replete with apologies for this shortcoming: lack of adequate data, problems
of data comparability, lack of fit between variables and indicators, conceptual
and methodological problems in sorting out the effects of intercorrelated
independent variables, and so on. There are serious difficulties in all

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BOLI, RAMIREZ, AND MEYER

comparative investigations,42 but the increasing availability of comparative
historical data on mass education (including considerable information on
non-European countries)43 and the development of more powerful analytic
models44 make these problems more tractable. In the following subsections,
we want to show how our theoretical argument can be evaluated with the
resources currently available.

Our research agenda requires investigation of two dependent variables:
(1) the establishment of national educational rules and agencies creating
modern systems of mass schooling and (2) the organizational expansion
of primary and secondary educational enrollments. The former can be
measured by determining the date of (a) the adoption of compulsory
primary education rules, (b) the establishment of national educational
ministries or bureaus, and (c) national unification of primary and secondary
school systems. Organizational expansion can be measured by computing
the size of primary and secondary enrollments relative to the appropriate
age groups. Information on institutional rules can be found in a number
of comparative educational histories;45 more systematic information on
enrollments is reported by Flora, Mitchell, and Banks.46 For the more
recently independent nations, the same information is reported in the
World Survey of Education Handbook and in the Unesco Statistical Yearbook.47
The central research issue is determining how the independent variables
indicated in our theoretical argument affect the likelihood of founding a
national system of mass education and of expanding primary (and later,
secondary) enrollment ratios.

Reorganization of a Society
Our three propositions identify the general conditions under which

educational development occurs. From the first we derive three hypotheses:
i) The institutionalization of the national exchange economy leads to the adoption

of mass education rules and the expansion of mass educational enrollments.-An
exchange economy is institutionalized to the extent that production factors
are unrestrained by traditional norms defining and regulating economic
relations; where legal or religious structures sustain relative market freedom

“42 Morris Zelditch, Jr., “Intelligible Comparisons,” in Comparative Methods in Sociology, ed. Ivan
Villier (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971).

“4 Flora (n. 22 above); B. R. Mitchell, European Historical Statistics, 1750-1970 (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1975); Arthur S. Banks, Cross-national Time-Series Data Archive (Binghamton: State
University of New York at Binghamton, Center for Comparative Political Research, 1975).

“a Nancy Brandon Tuma and Michael T. Hannan, Social Dynamics: Models and Methods (New
York: Academic Press, 1984).

45 See, e.g., Margaret S. Archer, Social Origins of Educational Systems (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage,
1979); Edward Reisner, Nationalism and Education since 1789 (New York: Macmillan, 1922).

4 Flora (n. 22 above); Mitchell, European Historical Statistics, 1750-1970; B. R. Mitchell, International
Historical Statistics, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983); Banks.

47 Unesco, World Survey of Education Handbook (Geneva: United Nations, 1955-71), vols. 1-5;
Unesco, Statistical Yearbook (n. I above).

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EDUCATIONAL EXPANSION

in labor, land, commodities, and capital, mass education is more likely.
Conversely, restrictions regarding the mobility of peasants, the sale of
land, or the circulation of money should have negative effects on educational
development. The pervasiveness of structures of economic individualism
should be distinguished from other factors that have received more attention
in studies of the impact of differentiation on education, particularly in-
dustrialization and urbanization. From our perspective, mass education
is neither a functionalist mechanism of social integration nor a repressive
social control apparatus generated by internal disorder and conflict. We
therefore do not expect the more urbanized and industrialized societies
to expand educational systems more rapidly than other societies when
other factors are held constant.

The greater speed with which Scandinavian countries founded mass
schooling in the nineteenth century illustrates the distinction between
these two sets of economic factors: relatively greater market freedom in
these countries contributed to their national commitment to mass education,
even though they were less industrialized and urbanized than other Eu-
ropean countries.48 Today, strongly entrenched caste or tribalist principles,
if restrictive of market freedom, can be expected to hinder the creation
and growth of mass education, controlling for the level of urbanization
or industrialization (see below).

ii) The political rationalization of society leads to mass educational rules and
enrollments.-Political rationalization consists of both the expansion of
state authority and power in society49 and the expansion of citizenship
links between the state and the individual.50 Both state formation and
nation building involve a sweeping reconstruction of the social order;
collective and individual authority cease to be derived from nature or
custom and instead become positive instruments in the quest for progress.
The rights and powers of states and individuals cease to be mere immunities
from traditional obligations and become action opportunities for attaining
new goals and affirming new values.

Indicators of the expansion of state authority include constitutional
powers,51 fiscal powers,”5 size of the public bureaucracy,53 and the presence

“48 Arnold Heidenheimer, “Education and Social Security Entitlements in Europe and America,”
in The Development of Welfare States in Europe and America, ed. Peter Flora and Arnold Heidenheimer
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1981).

“49 Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1968).

50 Marshall (see n. 38 above); Bendix (see n. 12 above).
“51 John Boli-Bennett, “The Ideology of Expanding State Authority in National Constitutions,

1870-1970,” in Meyer and Hannan, eds. (see n. 39 above).
52 Flora (n. 22 above); Charles L. Taylor and M. C. Hudson, World Handbook of Political and

Social Indicators, 2 vols. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Interuniversity Consortium for Political
Research, 1971).

53 Flora (n. 22 above); Banks (see n. 43 above).

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BOLI, RAMIREZ, AND MEYER

or absence of military conscription.54 Indicators of citizenship rights include
franchise rights,55 civil liberties, and social welfare rights;56 similar indicators
are also available in Boli-Bennett’s work.57

iii) The institutionalization of individualist cultural ideology leads to mass
educational rules and enrollments.-The triumph of mass education pre-
supposes cultural universalism, emphasizing the primacy of the individual
and a strong link between individual growth and national development.
Uniform socialization of the masses is in the national interest only if it is
assumed that all properly socialized individuals will make positive con-
tributions to national success. Since Weber, many have argued that there
is a strong link between Protestantism and individualism; this argument
squares with the common observation that mass education developed
most rapidly in Protestant countries.58 But religious individualism is more
likely to become a national project to create a standardized “new man” if
such religious sentiment is organizationally rooted in a national church.
We thus expect that the establishment of a national church stressing the
ultimate authority of the individual should make educational development
proceed faster. (Data on the presence or absence of an individualistic
national church can be obtained from such sources as the World Christian
Encyclopedia. )59

These three hypotheses stress one common idea: the reorganization
of society around a rational purposive model that emphasizes economic,
political, and cultural individualism generates mass educational rules and
enrollments. In this process, mass education is assigned a central role,
linking beliefs in the efficacy of organized socialization and the importance
of childhood learning experiences for adult capacities to the optimistic
assumption that reconstituted individuals will further national development
and progress.
Forces That Delegitimate or Inhibit

What we have said so far builds on the idea that newly legitimated
structural and cultural elements promote mass education. Conversely,
mass education is also boosted by forces that delegitimate prior structural
arrangements and cultural recipes:

54 Devi Prasad and Tony Smythe, Conscription: A World Survey (London: War Resisters’ International,
1968).

55 Tom Mackie and Richard Rose, The International Almanac of Electoral History (London: Macmillan,
1974).

56 Flora (n. 22 above); Harold Wilensky, The Welfare State and Equality (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1975).

“57 John Boli-Bennett, “The Expansion of Nation-States, 1870-1970” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford Uni-
versity, 1976).

51 William Boyd and Edmund J. King, The History of Western Education, 11 th ed. (London: Black,
1975).

“5′ David Barrett, World Christian Encyclopedia (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1982).

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EDUCATIONAL EXPANSION

iv) External challenges to the integrity of the national polity delegitimate older
social institutions and create opportunities for new groups (often linked to the state)
to promote efforts of national mobilization, thereby leading to mass educational
rules and enrollments.-External challenges often come in the form of national
failure in the competitive interstate system, such as the military setbacks
that stimulated mass education efforts in Prussia in 1807 and France in
1871; a systematic analysis of the effects of military victory or defeat on
education can be undertaken using warfare data such as that compiled
by Wright.60 Similarly, a decline in the economic dominance of a given
country in the world system may lead to a greater affirmation of the
national commitment to education, as we have recently witnessed with
the sober rhetoric of “a nation at risk” in the United States.61 A corollary
of this hypothesis is that more successful competitors are more likely to
delay the adoption of educational ideologies and organizational forms.
The relatively slow and incomplete adoption of national educational systems
in England and the United States in the nineteenth century illustrates
this aspect.

Our theoretical argument also suggests a number of factors that will
inhibit both rules and enrollments. These factors represent alternative
social organizational forms that are based on units other than the individual.
Intermediate corporate groups are the fundamental social units and in-
dividual membership in society or the state is not at issue. We therefore
hypothesize the following:

v) Mass educational development is inhibited by plantation economic organization
and industrial economic organization where the structure emphasizes intermediate
groups rather than the individual; religious organizational forms that emphasize
liturgical ritual and church mediation between the individual and God; and
corporatist or feudal political organization, where intermediate groups (estates,
syndicates, families) are considered primary elements of society.-This set of hy-
potheses implies that Catholic countries, for example, will be slower than
Protestant countries to develop mass education. It is important to remember,
however, that Catholic countries today are nevertheless far more involved
in mass education than any country in earlier times, before the rational,
purposive model of societal development came to dominate social ideology.
After the Counter-Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the French Rev-
olution, Catholic polities increasingly took a modern rationalistic form,
as in nineteenth-century Latin America. Similarly, modern polities that
retain traditional elements in their authority structures (e.g., tribalism in
African nations and other ethnic cleavages in a number of countries) are

60 Quincy Wright, The Study of War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942).
“61 National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk (Washington, D.C.: Gov-

ernment Printing Office, 1983).

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BOLI, RAMIREZ, AND MEYER

likely to have less expanded educational systems than more purely in-
dividualistic polities but much more expanded schooling than premodern
polities.

This fifth set of hypotheses is central, for they distinguish our argument
most clearly from the predictions of other lines of reasoning. Future
research that supports or rejects them will be most telling for the perspective
we have developed.
Promotion of a Nation

Our second and third propositions distinguish social forces that are

especially likely to lead to the adoption of educational rules from those
that more strongly affect educational enrollments. As specifications of the
first of these propositions, we identify two sets of factors that promote
nation building and the creation of members of the rational society but
do not promote state formation and citizenship ideologies.

vi) Market economy rules and political ideologies that delegitimate political
collectivities above the level of the individual, or that legitimate only a universalist

collectivity without a corresponding organizational structure, increase educational
enrollments but delay the adoption of institutional rules.-Examples relevant to
this hypothesis include the rather pure forms of laissez-faire economic

thinking that characterized Britain and the United States in the early
nineteenth century”62 and the highly atomized view of the individual (now
known as libertarianism) that was prevalent in the United States at the
same time.”6 Where no national center is legitimated, membership in the
state becomes meaningless and national compulsory education almost a
heresy, although formal schooling is an eminently reasonable activity to
prepare for participation in the rational society.

vii) Individualistic religious movements not structured as national churches
increase educational enrollments but hinder the adoption of national educational
rules.-Individualist Protestant sects emphasize the authority of individuals
to work out their own salvation with God. Literacy becomes a broad
requirement of Christians because each individual is to know the Word
of God personally.”64 Movements reflecting such an orientation generate
schools and pupils but not a centralized structure of rules and agencies.
Social consensus on the value of mass education, rather than mandatory
national law, is the goal and fulfillment of such movements. They flourish
in “redeemer” nations such as the American Christian nation “under God,”
as distinct from models such as the Prussian or Scandinavian Lutheran
nations that centralize authority.

62 Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon, 1944).
“63 C. B. MacPherson, Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1962).
“64 Carlo Cipolla, Literacy and Development in the West (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969).

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EDUCATIONAL EXPANSION

Further Research Considerations

Two further research considerations are important. First, both forms
of mass educational development are sensitive to forces that lie beyond
the territorial boundaries of national markets, states, and cultures. Cohen’s

pioneering work is based on the premise that a civilizational network

encompassing a number of national subunits is a prerequisite for the

ideological success and organizational expansion of education.65 As the
system of national societies becomes more highly integrated, world stan-
dards of national development built on models of the mobilizing, pro-
gress-oriented society emerge. These standards strongly promote mass
educational rules and enrollments. This line of analysis leads to two hypo-
theses:

viii) Increasing integration of the world structure promotes educational de-

velopment.-A variety of forces internal to society, including the state itself,
respond to world standards of appropriate nation-state structure,66 in-
dividual citizenship rights,67 and the need for mass education to link
individuals to national purposes and goals.68 The adoption of compulsory
education itself becomes increasingly compulsory as the number of countries

joining the ranks increases: the lag between date of independence and
date of enactment of compulsory education laws or constitutional provisions
has decreased dramatically over the last century.69 The same type of thinking
should apply to enrollments: enrollments in countries with given properties
should increase more rapidly, the more expanded the educational systems
in other countries are. This assertion can be tested by comparing educational
enrollment growth rates at such historical periods as the end of the nine-
teenth century, the interwar period, and the postwar period. The ex-
traordinary growth of enrollments in poor countries since the 1950s should
turn out to be higher than growth rates for countries at comparable levels
of development in earlier periods.70

ix) Educational development is directly related to the degree of national linkage
to the world system.-Nations that are most strongly tied to the world system
are subject to the greatest pressures to conform to world standards. They
therefore are more likely to engage in educational expansion. Measures
of linkage to the world system include such indicators as trade, treaties,

“65 Cohen, “The State System,” and “Schools and Civilization States” (see n. 9 above).
“66John W. Meyer, “The World Polity and the Authority of the Nation-State,” in Studies of the

Modern World-System, ed. Albert Bergesen (New York: Academic Press, 1980).
“67 John W. Meyer, Christopher Chase-Dunn, and John Boli-Bennett, “Convergence and Divergence

in Development,” Annual Review of Sociology 1 (1975): 223-46.
“68John Boli-Bennett and John W. Meyer, “The Ideology of Childhood and the State: Rules

Distinguishing Children in National Constitutions, 1870-1970,” American Sociological Review 43 (De-
cember 1978): 797-812.

“69 Ramirez and Boli (see n. 5 above).
70 Meyer et al. (n. 26 above).

Comparative Education Review 167

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BOLI, RAMIREZ, AND MEYER

diplomatic representation, and memberships in international organiza-
tions.71

Since 1900, there has been a great rise in the level of integration of
the world system. Average national linkage to the world system has increased,
and there has been a corresponding increase in the degree of world
consensus regarding the necessity of mass education (see the “Educational
Sector” reports of the World Bank).” We therefore expect that internal
economic, political, and cultural factors are more weakly related to the
adoption of compulsory education and the expansion of school enrollments
recently than in earlier periods. Today, not even economic dependency
can bar the growth of primary education; all nation-states seem to be
marching to the beat of a common drummer.”73 Even the historically more
libertarian states have moved toward a greater role for the state in ed-
ucation-however beleaguered, a Department of Education is still active
in the United States, and in Great Britain the power of local educational
authorities has declined relative to that of the national ministry.74

Relating the Dependent Variables

Finally, we should say a word about the relationship between mass
education rules and educational enrollments, our two dependent variables
of interest. We predict that rules have positive, but perhaps small, effects
on enrollments. They signal a national commitment to building schools,
and even though they do not guarantee that the requisite resources will
be forthcoming, they probably increase the share of available resources
allocated by the state to education. On the other hand, the expansion of
enrollments may well inhibit the adoption of compulsory rules to some
extent when such enrollments are grounded in a form of social organization
that bypasses the national state (as in the United States). In brief, where
the creation of members of the rational society is well advanced, it becomes
more difficult for the state to create members of the national polity. Or,

x) The adoption of national educational rules expands educational enrollments.
xi) The expansion of educational enrollments in the absence of national ed-

ucational rules inhibits the adoption of such rules.

Conclusion

Figure 1 summarizes the empirical implications of our central argument.
Our theory of the rationalization of individual and collective authority,

“7′ See David Snyder and Edward Kick, “Structural Position in the World System and Economic
Growth, 1955-70: A Multiple-Network Analysis of Transactional Interactions,” American Journal of
Sociology 84 (1979): 1096-1126.

72 World Bank (n. 3 above).
“73 Alan Sica and Harland Prechel, “National Political-Economic Dependency in the Global Economy

and Educational Development,” Comparative Education Review 25 (1981): 384-401.
74 H. Perkin, “British Society and Higher Education,” Yale Higher Education Research Group

Working Paper no. 20 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University, Institute for Sociological and Political
Studies, 1977).

168
May 1985

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BOLI, RAMIREZ, AND MEYER

the incorporation of individuals, and the rise and expansion of mass
education poses a clear alternative to other contemporary theories of
education that emphasize processes of differentiation or the reproduction
of inequalities. We have shown that these theories ignore the universal
and institutional character of mass education and tend to take for granted
what most needs to be explained, that is, the fact that everywhere individuals
are being reconstituted as active, purposive members of the rational society
or national state. Our theoretical framework opens the way to understanding
why mass education has become a central project for achieving social
progress and national success in the world of competing nation-states.

170
May 1985

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• Article Contents

p. 145
p. 146
p. 147
p. 148
p. 149
p. 150
p. 151
p. 152
p. 153
p. 154
p. 155
p. 156
p. 157
p. 158
p. 159
p. 160
p. 161
p. 162
p. 163
p. 164
p. 165
p. 166
p. 167
p. 168
p. [169]
p. 170

• Issue Table of Contents

Comparative Education Review, Vol. 29, No. 2 (May, 1985), pp. 145-282
Front Matter
Explaining the Origins and Expansion of Mass Education [pp. 145 – 170]
U. S. Foreign Policy and the Education of Black South Africans [pp. 171 – 188]
Student Expectations of Educational Returns in Peru [pp. 189 – 203]
Israeli Policy toward Sephardi Schooling [pp. 204 – 215]
High School Selection in Less Developed Countries and the Quest for Equity: Conflicting Objectives and Opposing Pressures [pp. 216 – 231]
Reports
Community Adult Education: A Comparative Analysis of Theory and Practice [pp. 232 – 239]
Comparative Education in China [pp. 240 – 250]
Essay Reviews
An Encyclopedic Undertaking [pp. 251 – 255]
untitled [pp. 256 – 261]
Book Reviews
untitled [pp. 262 – 264]
untitled [pp. 265 – 266]
untitled [pp. 266 – 269]
untitled [pp. 269 – 272]
untitled [pp. 272 – 273]
untitled [pp. 273 – 276]
untitled [pp. 276 – 277]
untitled [pp. 277 – 279]
untitled [pp. 279 – 280]
Book Note
untitled [p. 281]
Back Matter [pp. 282 – 282]