This article analyses three normative accounts that can underlie educational policies, with special attention to gender issues. These three models of education are human capital theory, rights discourses and the capability approach. I first outline five different roles that education can play. Then I analyse these three models of educational policies. The human capital approach is problematic because it is economistic, fragmentized and exclusively instrumentalistic. Rights and capabilities are in principle multi-dimensional and comprehensive models, and can therefore account for the intrinsic and non-economic roles that education plays. However, depending on how one fills out the specific details of the rights and capability frameworks, they also have some drawbacks. I conclude by arguing that the intrinsic aim of educational policy should be to expand people's capabilities, whereas we should use the rights discourses strategically, that is, when they are likely to contribute to expanding people's capabilities.