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High participation society
The chapter focuses on the ultimate question of the project: what will change in a society when a majority of the age group will have higher education. Seeking for approaches to understand the future role of higher education in the HPS societies the chapter reviews theories and concepts developed in two disciplinary traditions: social sciences (structural functionalism, neoinstitutionalism, conflict theories, cultural reproduction theories as well as some higher education specific approaches) and educational philosophy (Bildung theories, growth theory among others). Those two strands of scholarship respectively highlight two key dimensions in the relationship between higher education and society: (a) the social and occupational structure and (b) socialization as human/personal development, self-formation. The chapter addresses the potential changes in HPS societies along those lines. It concludes that a Bildung idea of the duality of human nature as both being determined by the world and being self-determining largely corresponds two above disciplinary approaches and their traditional focus and opens up an intellectual space for further cross-disciplinary, multi-dimensional research on the role of higher education for individuals and society.
