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The chapter focuses on how higher education (HE) influences the construction of social trust. Social trust is defined as one of the most important subjective aspect of people’s well-being. The analysis refers to impersonal trust and institutional trust, and uses various indicators for measuring the two, such as generalized trust, generalized fairness, trust in parliament, and trust in the legal system. The study covers 19 European countries and explores the problem at both aggregate and individual level. It draws on data from the European Social Survey (2006–2010), applying descriptive statistics and multilevel modeling for the analysis of data. The chapter argues that the higher the educational level of people is, the more trustful they are. Our findings clearly show that, at the individual level, HE influences positively the degrees of both impersonal and institutional trust. The results also suggest that the relationship between HE and trust differs substantially across European countries. As regards impersonal trust, the impact of HE is stronger in countries where people without HE have lower average levels of impersonal trust. However, with respect to institutional trust, HE tends to have a strong positive impact in countries with high levels of institutional trust among people without HE. Furthermore, both impersonal and institutional trust among HE graduates is greater in countries with full democracy than in those with a flawed democracy. This fact raises once again the question whether social trust is a characteristic of individuals or of social systems.

More than three decades ago, Robert Hutchins published his visionary book, The Learning Society. “In the 21st century,” wrote Hutchins, “education can at last be come what it is in itself... The learning society will not only offer opportunities for developing every one’s education through all stages of one’s life but will also succeed to transform its values in such a way that learning, self‐regulation, humane behaviour will be come its goals and all in stitutions will be oriented towards them” (Hutchins, 1968: 134). If, in the year of publication, these ideas were accepted as scientific foresight, today, they describe the reality in the advanced western democratic societies. The concept of continuing education is defined as “one of the key ideas of the 21st century” and the very education throughout life, as “a key to the 21st century” (Delore, 1997: 20, 97). Today, education ceases to be viewed only as preparation for life, as its so‐to‐say foyer with clearly outlined boundaries. It is turning into a permanent companion of the individual, not only a part of one’s life but also a specific form, a way of life.

This study seeks to ascertain whether there are regional gender differences in vocational education in Bulgaria at the upper secondary level and to shed more light on the main factors for the (non-)emergence of these differences. The research has drawn on data from the National Statistical Institute and the Centre for Information in Education in Bulgaria as well as a nationally representative school-leavers survey (2014); it has applied descriptive statistics and multilevel modelling for the data analysis. Overall, the present study demonstrates that the regional dimension is indispensable for understanding the development of vocational education and gender differentiation in education. The analysis provides evidence that the mechanism by which the education system contributes to regional gender segregation in vocational education is its opportunity structures at the regional level, which are related to vocational education offers. In addition, we found a positive association between industrial development and the share of women in engineering at the regional level.