Neo-institutional Approaches to Understanding How Higher Education Transforms Society and the World of Work

The strong growth of higher education and its role as an institution have contributed to the creation of a schooled society, a world in which our daily lives, organizations, politics, and economies are affected by systems of education. Neo-institutional and comparative perspectives facilitate our understanding of the global transition from elite to mass to universal higher education driving the global knowledge society. Higher-education systems respond to diverse stakeholders even as they (re)shape the experiences, expectations, and demands of society. Education is not merely responsive to other institutions, such as economies and governments, but rather transforms the very nature of work and social life. Using neo-institutional theorizing, we explain broad global patterns, such as the emergence of higher education as a core social institution. This institution, in turn, has influenced societies by encouraging greater emphasis on science production, thereby enabling the scientization of social problems and facilitating the spread of cultural values around equality. Simultaneously, myriad differences and disparities between countries and among social groups persist. Finally, neo-institutional theorizing may usefully inform future research to study the evolution of schooled societies worldwide.