Journal Article

Meritocracy, social mobility and a new form of class domination

Jin, Jin, Ball, Stephen J.

2020

Overview

Meritocracy is used by governments in many societies as an 'effective' way to represent social justice and legitimise - explain away - class inequality. By focusing on a small number of working-class students who achieve academic 'success' and have reached elite universities in an ideal meritocratic environment - Chinese schooling - this paper aims to discuss the relation of meritocracy to upward social mobility and class domination. Our analysis raises questions about the notion of 'success' in a meritocratic environment and suggests the operation of a new form of symbolic domination in relation to these working-class high-achievers. Through their 'successes' at school, they are distanced from their working-class localities and histories, while they also remain outside of the middle-class sensibilities that they aspire to - they become a 'third class' whose core values reside in meritocracy itself. There is no transcendence of class here rather a different form of distinction and exclusion.

• Publisher: Routledge,Taylor & Francis, Ltd,Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subject: Academic achievement / Access to Education / Aspiration / Bourdieu / China / College Seniors / College students / Dominance / Foreign Countries / High Achievement / Ideology / Inequality / Meritocracy / Middle class / Personality Traits / Selective Admission / Self Concept / Social Distance / Social Justice / Social Mobility / Social Structure / Student Characteristics / Transcendence / Universities / Upward mobility / Working Class / working-class students at elite universities