Towards social investment in education and training

This chapter situates education and training policy in the broader debate on continuity and change in mature welfare states, their political-economic determinants, and socio-economic consequences. It first surveys how existing scholarship in comparative politics and comparative political economy explains variation in education and training systems, focusing on both structural developments and domestic political dynamics. It then reviews sociological, economic, and public policy literature on recent trends in educational expansion, socio-economic returns, and inequalities in advanced democratic countries. It concludes by identifying avenues for future research that would enable a better understanding of education policy in contemporary societies. We point toward the need for better comparative data capturing variation in education policy across time and space, as well as for greater cross-fertilization between neighbouring social science disciplines, such as political science and sociology, that have so far analysed education policy from different vantage points and with limited dialogue between them.