The need for further conceptualization of education policy in the social investment approach

Education reduces the intergenerational transfer of poverty and boosts growth according to the Social Investment (SI) approach. However, educational systems differ both in their capacity to promote equality and produce the skills needed for today's knowledge economies. Despite extensive scholarship on how education policies vary in their social and economic effects, SI research has only begun to incorporate or otherwise problematize this heterogeneity. Social Investment research needs to go beyond calling for ‘more’ education to systematically address the variegated social and economic effects of education policies. Further theorizing is needed to explore how different education policies stand to realize the aims of SI and draw out contingencies. With attention to differences among social groups, such analyses would illuminate tensions and trade-offs between the social and economic ambitions of SI as well as between various SI goals, on the one hand, and other societal objectives and values, on the other hand.