Massification of education refers to the historical and policy-driven process through which education systems expand from serving limited social groups to enrolling increasingly large proportions of the population, especially at secondary and tertiary levels [1][2][3]. It involves rapid growth in participation, institutional capacity, and credential attainment, often supported by state policy, public financing, and diversification of educational providers [1][2]. Massification is characterized by widened access and social inclusion alongside structural challenges such as resource pressure, stratification across institutions, and concerns about quality, equity, and graduate outcomes. In educational analysis, the term denotes system-level expansion in scale and participation, distinct from universalization as a normative goal and from simple enrollment growth without broader structural transformation [1][2][3].
- massification of education
- educational expansion
- higher education participation
- access and equity
Education Methods and Integration • Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management • Business, Management and Accounting • Social Sciences
References
- Martin Trow. Reflections on the Transition from Elite to Mass to Universal Access: Forms and Phases of Higher Education in Modern Societies since WWII; Springer Nature: Durham, NC, United States, 2008; pp. 243-280. [CrossRef]
- Evan Schofer; John W. Meyer; The Worldwide Expansion of Higher Education in the Twentieth Century. Am. Sociol. Rev. 2005, 70, 898-920, 10.1177/000312240507000602.
- University College London; Simon Marginson. The Dream Is Over: The Crisis of Clark Kerr’s California Idea of Higher Education; University of California Press: Oakland, CA, United States, 2016; pp. 247-248. [CrossRef]