Education Policies and Systems Across Modern History: A Global Dataset

Abstract

We introduce a global dataset on education policies and systems across modern history (EPSM), which includes measures on compulsory education, ideological guidance and content of education, governmental intervention and level of education centralization, and teacher training. EPSM covers 157 countries with populations exceeding 1 million people, and time series extend from 1789 to the present. The new dataset opens up for studying several questions concerning political control and the politicized nature of education systems. In addition to describing the measures, we detail how the data were collected and discuss validity and reliability issues. Thereafter, we describe historical trends in various education system characteristics. Finally, we illustrate how our data can be used to address key questions about education and politics, replicating and extending recent analyses on the (reciprocal) relationship between education and democratization, the impact of education on political attitudes, and how rural inequality interacts with regime type in influencing education systems.