Education and Practical Social Democracy

doi:10.1017/9781009614290.015

12 - Education and Practical Social Democracy

from Part III - Rhetoric, Language, and Ideology

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2026

Edited by

Jonas Hinnfors and

Magnus Feldmann: Affiliation:
University of Bristol
Jonas Hinnfors: Affiliation:
Göteborgs Universitet, Sweden
Mark Wickham-Jones: Affiliation:
University of Bristol

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Summary

Education has long been central to the social democratic agenda. In the postwar period, social democrats largely expanded access and reduced disparities through comprehensive schooling. By the 1990s, they shifted towards ‘Third Way’ social investment policies, incorporating market-oriented reforms, testing, and expanded childcare. The former was an ideological project that began with the demands of the party base and sought to persuade the electorate, while the latter was a more pragmatic project that started with broader electoral appeals and aimed to convince the base. Both, however, entered institutional contexts that varied in their receptivity to change. This chapter looks at political speech regarding education across these two periods to examine how social democratic parties adapted their rhetorical strategies to navigate the specific constraints of their political contexts. Using a hand-coded dataset of party manifestos from 1945 to 2022 across advanced democracies, it identifies four key rhetorical approaches social democrats employed in their educational speech: putting more emphasis, focus, clarity, and equity framing. The analysis reveals that while early social democratic rhetoric was more ideologically consistent and equity-driven, later discourse became more layered, ambiguous, and focused on economic outcomes.

Keywords

education party speech manifestos social democracy

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Type: Chapter
Information: Practical Social Democracy , pp. 271 - 301
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009614290.015 [Opens in a new window]
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2026

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