Readings ST3 week 3
Bills, D. (2019). The problem of meritocracy: the belief in
achievement, credentials and justice.
TROTM = the rise of meritocracy.
Goal: focus on the use of the concept of meritocracy in scholarship on the role of schooling in the
reproduction, maintenance and transformation of modern systems of inequality and stratification.
Three meanings of meritocracy:
1. Meritocracy as a dystopic system for allocating scarce positions recognizing the need to fill
the positions requiring specialized expertise with the most capable people, British society
instituted a series of educational reform to ensure that those showing the most merit were
efficiently slotted into appropriate social positions.
2. Meritocracy as an incompletely realized societal aspiration/an emergent social form The
popular vision of meritocracy as a desirable state of affairs coincided not coincidentally with
the emergence of modernization theory in sociology. Meritocracy provides the means by
which each generation of Americans can achieve the American Dream. On the flipside there
is the myth of meritocracy, which is about values as well as actual patterns of status
attainment and mobility.
3. Meritocracy as rising or falling effect parameters the OED triangle (Origin, Education,
Destination) is a template for understanding status attainment and socioeconomic mobility.
Origin includes both meritocratic (achievement) and non-meritocratic (ascription)
components. The balance between ascribed and achieved components as determinants of
education presumably tells us something useful about the operation of meritocratic
processes. We can examine trends over time in these coefficients to make some judgements
about whether a given society is becoming more or less meritocratic.
Meritocracy from birth through high school: is it better to be smart or rich?
Meritocracy in schools can be a harsh system: whatever opportunities and rewards may be merited
by talented, motivated, and hard-working adults, there reasoning goes, the same standards appear
unduly harsh and unwarranted when applied to children and adolescents. We can identify several
reasons for this: family backgrounds are grossly unequal, a motivation to learn is not fixed, and both
talent and hard work can be cultivated.
The early years of schooling are often a time when students are expected to be judged
meritocratically, but the opportunities to acquire the resources needed to compete in the
meritocracy are ever more unequally distributed because families reproduce social hierarchies.
Talent is not randomly and not equally distributed across social class: parental investment in their
children ensure that variations in ability and effort are already evident before children enter school.
Because of educational homophily, society moves toward an increasingly polarized educational
meritocracy. But implying merit on their children has most to do with material benefits that elite
families can provide.
Educational meritocracy works for children of well-off parents.
Schools are incomplete meritocracies, but their recognition and reward of merit often serves to
ameliorate social inequality.
While educational meritocracies may promote equality in some ways, they are reproductive in
others.
, System justice theory explains how students come to accept their positions on the lower rungs of
educational ladders. Believing that the system is fair can provide individuals with a comforting
explanation for their own lack of success.
The tendency of those who do poorly in the educational meritocracy to accept the legitimacy
of the meritocracy serves to reproduce patterns of inequality over time
Meritocracy and college admissions
Many believe that the failure of the system to reward merit, known as ‘undermatching’, seriously
compromises the possibilities of meritocratic admission. The promise of meritocratic admission to
higher education is inevitably intertwined with race, gender and class. It is probably the admission to
elite institutions where the meritocracy is at its rawest. In the US for instance, the advantages
associated with attendance at elite colleges have ore to do with who attends these schools than it
does with any specific effect of these schools on student learning or later achievements.
Meritocracy is seen as legitimation for inequality recognizing the disadvantages of particular
groups in society without acknowledging their own advantages in the same system by recognizing
two elements of merit: intelligence, which most students assumed led to their own admission, and
cultivation of that intelligence, which requires elite secondary schools and which most students see
as disadvantaging particular groups in society.
What do employers judge as merit?
The labor market is only loosely coupled to education. Still, the meritocratic effect of education on
socioeconomic outcomes surely outweighs its non-meritocratic effect.
Conclusion
School children are rewarded for their knowledge and effort, and universities select students based
on objective school performance and test scores, but these ‘neutral’ qualities are drenched in class
privilege and advantage. Employers may seek candidates with the right degrees from the right
institutions, but credentials are sometimes empty of actual job-relevant information.
Barone, C. (2019). Towards an education-based meritocracy? Why
modernization and social reproduction theories cannot explain
trends in educational inequalities: outline of an alternative
explanation.
Is capitalism conducive to an education-based meritocracy? A dispute between two theories
Education is a key determinant of life chances which is strongly affected by family socioeconomic
background. Education promotes intergenerational reproduction of privilege.
IEO = Inequality of Educational Opportunity
Two hypotheses:
- Modernization theory capitalism results in declining IEO
Capitalist societies would increasingly approach the ideal of an education-based meritocracy,
where access to education is unaffected by family background, and where educational
qualifications are a major determinant of economic success. Hence, IEO is expected to
decline linearly.
- Social reproduction theory persistence of IEO
The upper classes have the cultural and economic resources, as well as the motivations, to
preserve a competitive edge in education, even in a context of mass education.
Critique on modernization theory:
Bills, D. (2019). The problem of meritocracy: the belief in
achievement, credentials and justice.
TROTM = the rise of meritocracy.
Goal: focus on the use of the concept of meritocracy in scholarship on the role of schooling in the
reproduction, maintenance and transformation of modern systems of inequality and stratification.
Three meanings of meritocracy:
1. Meritocracy as a dystopic system for allocating scarce positions recognizing the need to fill
the positions requiring specialized expertise with the most capable people, British society
instituted a series of educational reform to ensure that those showing the most merit were
efficiently slotted into appropriate social positions.
2. Meritocracy as an incompletely realized societal aspiration/an emergent social form The
popular vision of meritocracy as a desirable state of affairs coincided not coincidentally with
the emergence of modernization theory in sociology. Meritocracy provides the means by
which each generation of Americans can achieve the American Dream. On the flipside there
is the myth of meritocracy, which is about values as well as actual patterns of status
attainment and mobility.
3. Meritocracy as rising or falling effect parameters the OED triangle (Origin, Education,
Destination) is a template for understanding status attainment and socioeconomic mobility.
Origin includes both meritocratic (achievement) and non-meritocratic (ascription)
components. The balance between ascribed and achieved components as determinants of
education presumably tells us something useful about the operation of meritocratic
processes. We can examine trends over time in these coefficients to make some judgements
about whether a given society is becoming more or less meritocratic.
Meritocracy from birth through high school: is it better to be smart or rich?
Meritocracy in schools can be a harsh system: whatever opportunities and rewards may be merited
by talented, motivated, and hard-working adults, there reasoning goes, the same standards appear
unduly harsh and unwarranted when applied to children and adolescents. We can identify several
reasons for this: family backgrounds are grossly unequal, a motivation to learn is not fixed, and both
talent and hard work can be cultivated.
The early years of schooling are often a time when students are expected to be judged
meritocratically, but the opportunities to acquire the resources needed to compete in the
meritocracy are ever more unequally distributed because families reproduce social hierarchies.
Talent is not randomly and not equally distributed across social class: parental investment in their
children ensure that variations in ability and effort are already evident before children enter school.
Because of educational homophily, society moves toward an increasingly polarized educational
meritocracy. But implying merit on their children has most to do with material benefits that elite
families can provide.
Educational meritocracy works for children of well-off parents.
Schools are incomplete meritocracies, but their recognition and reward of merit often serves to
ameliorate social inequality.
While educational meritocracies may promote equality in some ways, they are reproductive in
others.
, System justice theory explains how students come to accept their positions on the lower rungs of
educational ladders. Believing that the system is fair can provide individuals with a comforting
explanation for their own lack of success.
The tendency of those who do poorly in the educational meritocracy to accept the legitimacy
of the meritocracy serves to reproduce patterns of inequality over time
Meritocracy and college admissions
Many believe that the failure of the system to reward merit, known as ‘undermatching’, seriously
compromises the possibilities of meritocratic admission. The promise of meritocratic admission to
higher education is inevitably intertwined with race, gender and class. It is probably the admission to
elite institutions where the meritocracy is at its rawest. In the US for instance, the advantages
associated with attendance at elite colleges have ore to do with who attends these schools than it
does with any specific effect of these schools on student learning or later achievements.
Meritocracy is seen as legitimation for inequality recognizing the disadvantages of particular
groups in society without acknowledging their own advantages in the same system by recognizing
two elements of merit: intelligence, which most students assumed led to their own admission, and
cultivation of that intelligence, which requires elite secondary schools and which most students see
as disadvantaging particular groups in society.
What do employers judge as merit?
The labor market is only loosely coupled to education. Still, the meritocratic effect of education on
socioeconomic outcomes surely outweighs its non-meritocratic effect.
Conclusion
School children are rewarded for their knowledge and effort, and universities select students based
on objective school performance and test scores, but these ‘neutral’ qualities are drenched in class
privilege and advantage. Employers may seek candidates with the right degrees from the right
institutions, but credentials are sometimes empty of actual job-relevant information.
Barone, C. (2019). Towards an education-based meritocracy? Why
modernization and social reproduction theories cannot explain
trends in educational inequalities: outline of an alternative
explanation.
Is capitalism conducive to an education-based meritocracy? A dispute between two theories
Education is a key determinant of life chances which is strongly affected by family socioeconomic
background. Education promotes intergenerational reproduction of privilege.
IEO = Inequality of Educational Opportunity
Two hypotheses:
- Modernization theory capitalism results in declining IEO
Capitalist societies would increasingly approach the ideal of an education-based meritocracy,
where access to education is unaffected by family background, and where educational
qualifications are a major determinant of economic success. Hence, IEO is expected to
decline linearly.
- Social reproduction theory persistence of IEO
The upper classes have the cultural and economic resources, as well as the motivations, to
preserve a competitive edge in education, even in a context of mass education.
Critique on modernization theory:
