School meritocracy and the reproduction of social class inequalities

Anatolia Batruch

Abstract: The school system is intended to offer all students the same opportunities, but most international surveys reveal that lower social class students have lower grades and lower educational attainment as compared to higher social class students. In this talk, I will present a series of studies and experiments that show the specific contribution of school meritocracy in the reproduction of social class inequality in school and in society. I will first present evidence that teachers discriminate against lower-social class students. I will then present experiments documenting how school practices oriented towards meritocratic selection contribute to this discriminatory behavior. Finally, I will present data on the relationship between beliefs that schools are meritocratic and attitudes towards social class and income inequalities in the general population.

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