The Politics of Equality in Secondary Education Across Wealthy Postwar Democracies

Abstract

Abstract In the postwar period, the focus of governments in advanced democracies generally shifted from generalizing basic education to staffing an increasing share of the population with more complex and specialized knowledge and skills through the expansion of secondary schooling. The demands of industrial development, heightened by the rise of the knowledge economy, meant policymakers across place and partisan divides have largely supported secondary expansion. However, despite these common trends lie ongoing differences across place in terms of the logic of the massification of secondary education—its ideal degree of differentiation among pupils and teachers, standardization of teaching and pedagogical practices, and the structure of control. This chapter analyzes the patterns resulting from the policy choices of political parties and organized interests across advanced democracies in these three domains as well as the political determinants underlying these choices.