Publish at October 09 2017 Updated May 08 2025
What role does education play in people's expectations of the state?
This is the question addressed by the European Research Council-funded project Investing in Education in Europe: Attitudes, Politics and Policies (INVEDUC) across eight European countries: Sweden, Denmark, the UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.
Several interesting points emerge from a report published in 2017.
The second part of the report takes a closer look at the current political debate in three countries, drawing on the results of three opinion surveys: in Germany, theIfo Education Survey ( since 2014); in Switzerland, the three surveys (2007, 2012 and 2015) conducted by the Swiss Coordination Centre for Research in Education; in the USA, the Program on Education Policy and Governance (since 2007).
In both Switzerland and Germany, we discover a desire for children to be cared for over a full school day, and an expectation of standardized or nationally comparable school tests. 79% of Germans are in favor of repeating a year.
In the United States, particular attention is paid to online education, which in Europe remains limited to higher education: 46% of Americans would be in favor of credit recognition for online courses in secondary education.
While this information deserves to be placed in the specific context of each education system, a more "general" point can be made:
" the acceptance of reforms crucially depends on the extent to which the public is informed of the relevant facts about the proposed reform".
A few examples from the report show that informing respondents can have consequent effects on their preferences, such as more accurate information on actual levels of educational expenditure, or the communication of research findings showing, for example, the importance of investment in education from the earliest age.
European Expert Network on Economics of Education (EENEE). Public Opinion and the Acceptance and Feasibility of Educational Reforms (2016).
https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/a29f75ba-dc81-11e6-ad7c-01aa75ed71a1/language-en
INVEDUC project: https: //www.polver.uni-konstanz.de/en/busemeyer/research/current-projects/erc-project-inveduc/
(Last consultation: October 2017)
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