Education and Participation in Development

The theoretical framework holds that the impact of formal education in the modernization process is a consequence of the inter-systemic com munication function of formal education, in which schooling is viewed as a social experience rooted in modernity and in which the learning consequen ces are in curvilinear relationship with extent of schooling. Data based upon national probability samples in Costa Rica and Finland, graphically relating eight indicators of "modernity" to educational achievement, are generally supportive of this hypothesized curvilinearity and suggest, addi tionally, that impact of education may vary by level of socioeconomic development.