High Participation Society

The chapter asks the ultimate question about high participation systems (HPS) of higher education: what kind of society is it when the majority of young people have higher education? It reviews theories and concepts developed in two disciplinary traditions: social sciences (structural functionalism, neo-institutionalism, etc.) and educational philosophy (Bildung and growth theory among others). Those two strands of scholarship highlight two key dimensions in the relations between higher education and society: the social/occupational structure, and socialization as human development/self-formation. The Bildung idea of a dual human nature, both determined by the world and being self-determining, largely corresponds to these two disciplinary approaches and opens up an intellectual space for further cross-disciplinary, multi-dimensional research on the meanings of HPS higher education for individuals and society.