Socializing Human Capital for Twenty-First Century Educational Goals: Suggestive Empirical Findings from Multinational Research

Crucial to global HE are the differences in the socialization processes that prepare students prior to their entry to universities. This preparation is analysed to reveal variations that are likely to affect the building in a society of the human capital capabilities: cognitive, empathetic, and interpersonal. The nature and availability of these resources is seen as key to a society’s ability to generate innovativeness and cooperativeness. Data are analysed from representative populations in seventy-nine nations positioned in a two-dimensional matrix of Practicality vs. Civility and Other-directedness vs. Self-directedness. This mapping permits comparison between societies on the initial mental structures of meaning and relevance brought by students into a nation’s classrooms. Implications are drawn for current forecasts of skills appropriate to living in twenty-first century conditions.