Placed in the context of the issues that inform the contemporary debate as well as the measured trends in student numbers, educational expenditures, and institutional structures, this report examines the major features of education's changing socioeconomic environment. These include structural changes in employment and the labor market and the outstanding problems of unemployment, shorter working time, and rapid technological development. The report begins with a succinct presentation of some of the basic facts of education today, encompassing the socioeconomic as well as the more strictly educational. Part two--"The Socio-Economic Environment of Education"--examines economic, social, and cultural questions and developments and seeks to identify some of the broad implications for education. Particular emphasis is given to the socially disadvantaged, cultural minorities and migrants, and women, as well as the family, the community, and values in education. In part three--"Educational Responses in the Eighties"--the more general socioeconomic issues are complemented by the specific questions that arise in each of the main sectors of countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), including compulsory schooling, post-compulsory education and training, and higher education. Dominant themes include the importance of improving the quality of schooling, the low-achievement problem, bridging the divide between education and training, opening more widely education's doors to adults, and maintaining and protecting research capacity. Questions of expenditure and finance and an overview of the report and its conclusions are contained in the final chapter. (LH)