An analysis of worldwide educational expansion between 1950 and 1970 is presented along with explanations for the expansion. The paper particularly addresses the socialization process and the institutionalization of schooling along national lines. Section I reviews available theories which seek to explain the expansion of education in the modern world as a function of variables in national structural characteristics. Theories discussed are economic, political, social, authoritarian, ethnic, and colonial in nature. In section II, descriptive data are presented which indicate that the rapid expansion of education since World War II is not related to national structural characteristics. In the third section diffusion models are presented which describe how the educational process occurs, followed by further explanation in section IV of why institutions expand. Findings indicate that very little variation in educational growth is accounted for by any measure of national economic, political, or social structure. The final section identifies and discusses emergent features of world society which have triggered the educational revolution by fostering formal socialization, prolonged student dependency, and the global redefinition of elites and masses. References are included. (Author/DB)