Attention to Education in the Post-Industrial Society

Abstract

This chapter provides an analysis of party system attention to education based on the issue incentive model. The analysis shows that large, mainstream parties’ incentives are the key factor in explaining the dynamics of party system attention to education. However, compared to the three issues analysed before, problem characteristics rather than coalition considerations and issue ownership shape the incentives of large, mainstream parties. The fact that education is an obtrusive valence issue relevant to more or less the whole population implies that it is an issue that large, mainstream parties cannot ignore if public debates about policy problems emerge. The increased focus on education and human capital in the knowledge society has thus led to an increased focus on education. This focus has clearly been most pronounced in countries where it has materialized in a debate about the quality of primary schools. In Denmark, and later on also in Sweden, this debate came as a reaction to what was seen as disappointing PISA scores. In the UK, the PISA scores played a limited role in the debate about primary schools.