گسترش آموزش جهانی و توسعه اجتماعی و اقتصادی: بررسی یافته های علوم اجتماعی

Among development agencies, conventional wisdom holds that educational expansion improves economic welfare and health, reduces inequalities, and encourages democratic political systems. We investigate the empirical foundations for these expectations in recent social science research. Consistent evidence indicates that health and demographic benefits result from educational expansion, and suggests that education enhances, but does not ensure, individuals’ economic security. However, the impact of educational expansion on growth remains debated, and decades of sociological studies offer evidence that educational expansion does not necessarily narrow social inequalities. Finally, considerable controversy surrounds the implications of educational expansion for democratization. Reasonable forecasts of the consequences of further educational expansions need to consider the diverse social contexts in which these expansions will occur.

Among development agencies, conventional wisdom holds that educational expansion facilitates numerous favorable changes for countries and individuals. Improved economic welfare and health, reduced inequalities, and more democratic political systems are just some of the purported benefits invoked in pleas for the expansion of education throughout the world. A recent World Bank document on the Education for All initiative provides a characteristic example: [G]lobal research … has established unequivocally that education increases individual incomes; that it is positively correlated with macroeconomic growth; that it is strongly correlated with reductions in poverty, illiteracy and income inequality; and that it has strong complementary effects on the achievement of … lower infant and child mortality, better nutrition, and the construction of democratic societies. The expansion of educational opportunity, which can simultaneously promote income equality and growth, is a “win win” strategy that in most societies is far easier to implement than the redistribution of other assets, such as land or capital. In short, education is one of the most powerful instruments known for reducing poverty and inequality and for laying the basis for sustained economic growth, sound governance, and effective institutions. (2002a, p. v)

This paper has discussed the empirical foundations for widely held expectations about the consequences of educational expansion. We find that two of the assumptions listed at the outset of this paper are well supported by empirical research. First and most strikingly, substantial research spanning disciplinary boundaries attests to the health and demographic benefits of improved educational composition: Countries with better-educated citizens indeed have healthier populations, as educated individuals make more informed health choices, live longer, and have healthier children. The populations of countries with more educated citizens are likely to grow more slowly, as educated people tend to marry later and have fewer children. Second, educational opportunities enhance, but do not necessarily ensure, the future economic security of the world’s most vulnerable children. Consistent results spanning many years and several social science disciplines guided by diverse research paradigms suggest that these benefits can be reasonably anticipated from further educational expansion.