Neo‐Institutionalism in Education:
An emergent paradigm and its
critics
Aaron Benavot
Visiting Professor, CICE
Thursday, 23 February 2012Outline of Presentation
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Background to neo‐Institutionalism
neo‐Institutionalist research in the field of education
Three broad areas where neo‐Institutional theories have impacted
The worldwide institutionalization of education: Key arguments
and theoretical claims
Example of neo‐Institutional research in this first area
Study of schools as loosely coupled organizations
The institutional effects of schooling
On‐going and emergent lines of critique towards neo‐
Institutionalist claims
Conclusions

Background to neo‐Institutionalism
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AKA ‘world polity’ approach, ‘world culture’ or ‘world society’ approach
Many view neo‐Institutionalism (neo‐I) as a major (macro‐oriented) theoreticalparadigm in sociology and in other disciplines in the social sciences
Academic roots: Sociology department (and later School of Education) at Stanford
University in the 1970s: John Meyer, Francisco Ramirez, John Boli, Brian Rowan,
David Kamens, later A Benavot, D. Baker, C. Chabbott, Y. Cha, Y. Soysal, G. Drori,many others..
Neo‐I does not exemplify deductive (top‐down) theory‐building or ‘arm chair’
theorizing); rather it evolved through sustained theory testing—mainly between
macro‐ and meso‐level hypotheses and various kinds of empirical evidence
Neo‐I did not originate as a centralized research program, but rather based oncollaborative efforts of researchers and many ‘generations’ of PhD students
Is Neo‐I a paradigm? For many yes, since it developed a coherent set of theoreticalclaims and testable assertions which can be applied to many issues and topics inthe field of education, but also in other fields: e.g., organizations, development,
globalization, international civil society, human rights, gender (woman’s status),religionNeo‐Institutionalism in education
Broad, cumulative impact of Neo‐I approach in education is based on a verysignificant quantity of well‐cited, peer‐reviewed empirical research as well as
theoretical (re‐)formulations and elaborations. Research tends to be comparative,
cross‐national, historical, sometimes involving case studies; evidence tends to bequantitative in nature
Examples of areas of educational research in which the neo‐institutionalism
approach has had a significant impact on the literature: The expansion of mass education
 The establishment and timing of compulsory attendance laws
 The organizational character of schooling; patterns of governance The educational aims and purposes of education
 The transformation and decline of vocational education
 The structuring of the school knowledge: curriculum and textbook contents
 Gender inequality and gender parity in education
 The antecedents and consequences of higher education
 Globalization and educational policy making

Three broad areas in which neo‐Institutionalism
has influenced theories and conceptions ofeducation and societyo The worldwide institutionalization of mass andhigher education; the process of political
incorporation through mass educationo Schools as ‘institutional organizations’; Loose
coupling and conformity to institutional rules
o The impact of education on society: how doschools influence societal outcomesI. The worldwide institutionalization of
education“Mass schooling has become a worldwide institution, both as a normative principle and as anorganizational reality. The aspiration to achieve universal educational enrollment is found in
virtually all national societies and is often written into their grounding constitutions andnational laws and policies. Opposition to mass schooling, an ideological stance well
documented in educational histories has disappeared…”“Mass schooling made sense in so many contexts because it became a central feature of theWestern, and subsequently the world, model of the nation‐state and its development. Nation‐states expand schooling because they adhere to world models of the organization ofsovereignty (the modern state) and the organization of society as composed of individuals (themodern nation). This development took place earlier in political entities that served as theorganizational carriers of the new world models, and thus in the new nation‐states, rather
than in the old dynastic empires….”
Thus, neo‐Institutionalism situates nation‐states within a broader world environment andseeks to explain educational developments within nation‐states as a consequence of their
exposure to the pressures of this environment to adhere to the nation‐state model of politicalorganization…

Political incorporation through schooling
The rise and expansion of mass schooling is closely linked to the development andinstitutionalization of the nation‐state. Mass schooling became a core project of thenation‐state, a project through which the masses would become members of thenation‐state (citizens)….schools were organized to teach the young to identify with
their nation‐states and with related social, economic, and political structures. This isa central feature of the overall political incorporation process: expanding education
so as to turn excluded and disenfranchised masses (workers, peasants, ethnic,
religious and racial minorities, immigrants and women) into citizens with basic rights
and duties. The overwhelming success of this political incorporation project is often
underestimated by scholars who narrowly focus on the cognitive outcomes of
education.
The political incorporation process in earlier eras was certainly contentious. The
contestation took place not only between elites and masses but also among theelites and masses themselves. The crucial battles were over the question of who
was to be included as a citizen. In educational terms the corollary question was who
was to be schooled (or not). This was a question because the educability of themasses was a contentious issue. Thus the old debate was over inclusion versus
exclusion, which in principle has been resolved in favor of inclusion.
Source: Ramirez 2005

Political incorporation through schooling
Today the debates are over the terms of inclusion: to what extent are
individual diversity and difference going to be recognized andaddressed in the incorporation process established in schools?
In the past children were expected to become French, or American, or
German, or Italian citizens and, in doing so, shed their markers ofdifference: in terms of language, religion, ethnicity, national origin…
More and more, scholars and political commentators critique suchterms of incorporation, which require an individual to shed theirmarkers of diversity. That is, polities should be flexible and more
accommodating of diversity and difference. Canada with its deep
commitment to multiculturalism is the exception that recognizes(celebrates) diversity.
Impact of this debate in education: How is the national citizen to beconstructed in schools and depicted in curricula and textbooks? Today
diversity is valued.

Example of 1st neo‐Institutional theme:
Worldwide expansion of mass education
Key cross‐national studies of longitudinal change in enrolment inprimary education(1977) Meyer JW, Ramirez FO, Rubinson R, and Boli‐Bennett J, “The world
educational revolution 1950‐1970” Sociology of Education(1985) Boli J, Ramirez FO, and Meyer JW, “Explaining the origins and expansionof mass education” Comparative Education Review(1988) Benavot A and Riddle P, “The expansion of primary education,
1870‐1940” Sociology of Education(1992) Meyer, J. W., Ramirez, F. O., & Soysal, Y. N. “World expansion of mass
education, 1870–1980” Sociology of Education

A world education revolution?
Compilation of cross‐national dataset with economic, political, social andeducational variables to explore (test) modernization and dependency theories inearly 1970s at Stanford (see Meyer and Hannan 1979)
One line of overall research program: An analysis of the effects of national
characteristics on primary, secondary and tertiary educational expansion (1955‐
1970)
Hypotheses to account for national increases (no declines) in gross enrolment
ratios at primary, secondary and tertiary levels, 1955‐1970:
Economic development has positive effect(3 indicators)
Political / Social Modernization has positive effect(4 indicators)
Strong states/ Authoritarian states has positive effect (3 indicators)
Ethnically plural societies has negative effect(1 indicator)
Dependent societies has negative effect(3 indicators)
Findings: Only 6 of 42 coefficients are significant at .10 level or lessConclusion: Educational expansion ispart of worldwide process
Structural characteristics of societies – economic, political, social, cultural– have a weak impact on national educational expansion. Empiricalsupport for modernization and dependency theories is weak.
National education expansion is, in large part, a self generating process. It
expands as a function of the size of the previously uneducated population(like a contagion model)
The pace of expansion is slow at the beginning‐‐only children of dominanteconomic, political and cultural elites are schooled; then it speeds up in
middle of the process as formerly excluded groups gain access (e.g., urban
male children, girls, non‐propertied classes, and eventually, children living
in rural areas, minority, immigrant and disabled children); it finally slows
down when almost all children are enrolled (ceiling effect)

Pattern of educational expansion
Pace of educational expansion is like S shaped curve (logistic function) withfloor and ceiling effects: slow as the beginning (0‐20% enrollment rate), fasterin the middle (20‐80%), slow again near the ceiling when access is provided forchildren in hard to reach or marginalized groups (80‐100%)
100%

Net
Enrollment
Ratio

10%
Time ------------ >How valid and generalizable is earlycross‐national research? What is missing?
• Only examined 1955‐1970 period; what about other periods?
• Missing information for the poorest and smallest independent
countries, as well as dependent colonies that become independent
after 1960
• Measurement error in primary enrolment ratios: gross vs. net
enrolment ratios• Number of cases/countries used to examine the correlations
between national characteristics and educational expansion varies
from 27 to 95• No actual measure of incorporation into world polity, or the effectsof the world system

What was the pattern of educational
expansion before 1950?
Challenge 1: to collect comparative historical data on primary-level enrolments inthe absence of international agencies involved in its standardization: from census
compilations, comparative education publications (encyclopedias, dictionaries),
emerging statistical bureaus/offices in Europe and North America, historical
documents, current studies, etc. Cross-check the reliability of educational datafrom different sources
Definitional issues: What is the beginning and the end of primary education ineach setting? Which grade levels to include? (Does this change over time)?
Missing data: Are enrolments in all types of schools included in each country orcolony? Which school enrollments are excluded from national accounts?
Challenge 2: to collect data on the school age population of different states andcolonies during the 1870-1950 period (i.e., age group 5-14). Where data is missing
see if an estimate is possible.
Develop primary enrolment ratios for large number of countries and colonies.

The construction of a new cross‐national
dataset of primary educational expansion

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Estimating the school age population

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The expansion of mass education: 1870‐1980“…Countries in the old core were already approaching universal mass education by 1870.
Thereafter, mass educational systems appeared at a rather steady rate around the world until
World War II, with a sharp increase in the rate at that point.”
Little evidence that national characteristics predict growth in primary enrollment ratios over time.
Little (statistically significant) impact of urbanization, religious composition, independent status,
racial composition, ethnolinguistic heterogeneity, political linkages, and year of compulsory
schooling.
“Once countries enter the world of mass education, reporting some level of enrollment, growth isgeneral‐‐modified by floor and ceiling effects. Neither the properties suggested by traditional
functional analyses nor the categories developed in a typology of polity linkage to world models
make much difference. Countries move toward universal mass education at rates that vary, but do
not vary much with the general predictive factors we have considered…”
The expansion of mass education, once formed, was endemic throughout the period, but rates of
expansion increased after World War II. In the 1870‐1940 period, expansion followed an S‐shaped
diffusion pattern, limited by floor and ceiling effects, as if education systems were growing on asocietally engendered process within a supportive world context. After World War II, the sameprocess continued, but an added force that applied everywhere (limited only by ceiling effects)
gained strength‐as if the world society itself was playing an immediately directive role
Source: Empirical evidence and main arguments found in: Meyer, J. W., Ramirez, F. O., & Soysal, Y. N. (1992)“World expansion of mass education, 1870–1980” Sociology of Education

II. Schools as ‘institutional organizations’Classic study: Early 1970s examination of organizational satisfaction and governance patterns
in 30 San Francisco Bay Area school districts, which included surveys of 30 superintendents,
103 principals and 469 teachers
Researchers found:• Educational reforms announced enthusiastically by leaders and authorities, but neveractually carried out• Many rules and regulations filled the file cabinets of school administrators, but few tookmuch notice; teachers taught in the classrooms according to their own rules.
• State (California) and US federal funds flowed in and elaborate reports were sent out togive the appearance of compliance to regulations, but what went on in the classroom
seemed little changed.
• In fact it seemed that outside authorities had little impact on what transpired in class:teacher‐student interactions were little affected by the next classroom, by the teacher's
training, by the school's principal
Sources: John Meyer and Brian Rowan 1977. "Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure
as Myth and Ceremony" American Journal of Sociology, 83(2): 340-63

An institutional theory of educationalorganizations•

According to traditional, rationalistic theories of organizations, schools are viewed as formalorganizations; they construct a workable division of labor (hierarchy of authority), withspecialized positions and specified tasks that are carried out by different people. Managers
coordinate the system of work so that explicit (learning and teaching) objectives areaccomplished.

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The lack of coordination, the inefficient chain of command, the non-compliance with state andfederal standards, which the authors found in their study, should mean, acc. to traditional
theory, that such organizations would fall apart and eventually fail or ‘die’ (like businesses inmarket). Such inefficient organizations should be rife with administrative conflicts, lack ofconsensus over appropriate school policies and many unhappy workers. But this simply was
not the case in the schools studied: Schools rarely failed, personnel and programs wererelatively stable, outside monies and resources continued to be allocated and school
employees tended to be quite satisfied. How to explain this contradiction?

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Meyer and Rowan began elaborating an institutional theory of organizations. They argued that
schools, like other institutional organizations, are judged not by their closely monitored output(what they produce), but rather by their form (internal structure), and the extent to which it
conforms to important institutional rules in the environment. In conforming to suchinstitutional rules, these organizations gain valuable resources and thus increase theirpotential for success and survival. In doing so they buffer or decouple their main activities
and practices (teaching) from external scrutiny.

Schools as loosely coupled organizations
conforming to institutional rules•

According to institutional theories of organizations, schools•

seek to maintain their legitimate status as schools to survive:•

they must be accredited, they hire teachers who are credentialed, they carefully assign
students to classes which are organized in a sequence of grades that have standardized
meaning throughout country, they teach a curriculum made up of subjects in standardized
categories (reading math social studies, not cosmography, astrology, morality).

Thus, rather than tightly coordinating instruction in classrooms and output, schools spend much
more time and energy conforming to various institutional rules: general cultural beliefs (what areappropriate teacher roles, what are legitimate subjects to teach), requirements enforced byoccupational associations (tenure and seniority rules), mandates by state and federal
governments (certification and accreditation requirements) as well as local or community
standards (evolution theory vs creationism; climate change as science or not, sex education).
Schools conform because they know their survival and success depends on it. Schools don't failif their instructional performance is abysmal, when kids get to high school or college but don't
know how to read or write, when students don't internalize proper moral standards and become
drug dealers of thieves. Rather they fail when their conformity to institutional rules is called into
question. (not having credentialed teachers, not having correct special programs for gifted,
disadvantaged, not segregating)III. How does education affect society? The
impact of education on societal outcomes
Conventional ways of describing the main impact of education on society:
1) Socialization: education maintains and passes on (transmits) a cultural heritage-- the accumulated knowledge of earlier generations (values, beliefs and norms);2) Training (also a form of socialization): Basic education inculcates in young
children basic skills (literacy and numeracy) and general cognitive capacities.
Secondary and post-secondary institutions teach specific skills and bodies ofknowledge, which in turn, increases the ability of young people to perform more
effectively (more competently) the roles they will enter as adults in society andespecially in the economy.
3) Allocation: schools represent the legitimate means by which individuals areallocated to work positions in labor market
Some scholars (functionalists) claim that schools allocate the most talented andcapable individuals to the most important positions in society. Others (conflict
theorists) argue that such allocation basically reproduces the class structure andpower and authority of the dominant classes. Both agree that thorough allocation
processes, education has an important impact on society.
See Figure 1

How does education affect society? The
impact of education on societal outcomes
Neo-Institutional theory argues that the most important impact of education on society is byclassifying young people into socially meaningful, and institutionally embedded,
categories with distinct social status
Educational levels (primary, secondary, tertiary), school grades (1rst, 3rd, 9th, etc.), curricular
tracks (e.g., academic, vocational, comprehensive) and academic disciplines (history,geography, physics, etc.) are all types of institutional categories, which, in and of themselves,denote differential social status. Of the various statuses individuals attain in the course of theirproductive lives, they acquire considerable social status based on the variety of institutionalized
educational categories they pass through.
Most institutional categories are commonplace and confer minimal social status; others,
however, denote statuses judged to carry significant positive or negative social value: a “college
graduate”, a “high school dropout”, a “gifted seventh grader”, a “special education pupil”, and fora select few, a "doctor of philosophy".
While all schools confer commonplace statuses, some schools acquire the right to confer"special" statuses on their students -- a “certified public accountant”, a “clinical psychologist” ora “master of business administration” -- each of which is codified in the formal educational
credentials or diplomas they receive upon graduation. Special statuses, often due to thesubstantial market value they possess, mark those individuals who have acquired expertise in afield and who expect to be distinguished from others who have not attained similar credentials
and who therefore cannot make such claims of expertiseHow does education affect society? The
impact of education on societal outcomes
Where do schools receive the authority to confer social status on their pupils and graduates?
According to the neo-I approach, schools receive a charter (or socially defined mission) from alegitimate political authority in society -- frequently a central or federal state, but sometimes acolonial administration or religious organization -- to define and classify individuals in special
ways. These charters specify, in effect, the labels (social statuses) that each educational
institution can confer on those who pass through its classrooms.
Schools belong to a select group of institutions empowered and chartered by society to grantsocial status to individuals. This relatively exclusive societal mandate reflects the conviction that
education is an efficient and legitimate way to allocate status in the modern world. Thus, an
important effect of education lies in the power it holds to certify and sanction differences
between groups, positions, statuses, and individuals based on their educational achievements
and attainments, on the one hand, and the authority to create new positions and categories ofstatus, on the other.
Furthermore, the categories that schools apply as well as the labels they confer are deeply
embedded in wider institutional environments. Local schools are local in name only: they aretightly connected to rationally organized, national and international systems of education. In thissense, major educational categories such as classroom, grade, curricular track, ability group,
school subject, curricular timetable, transcript, and credential carry broad symbolic meanings
due to their strong institutional moorings. They are public in character, guided by notions ofrationality and purposive action and modeled on nationally, as well as internationally, recognizedentities, rather than local or particularistic ones.

Lines of Critique and Conclusions

Thank You!
Contact information:
Email: abenavot@hiroshim‐u.ac.jp
Orabenavot@albany.edu