Meritocracy

A meritocracy can be defined as a system in which the rewards (wealth and privilege) are distributed according to individual merit. In other words, good things will accrue to those who work hard and do well. A meritocratic society is generally distinguished from an aristocratic one in which wealth, position, and privilege were received as a function of one's ancestry and family background. In theory, a meritocratic society is more fair because any individual has the possibility of being successful and achieving at a high level. In actuality, meritocratic beliefs are often linked to decisions about differential access to rigorous curriculum and high level pedagogy that maintain social-economic stratification among students. For this reason, conceptions of meritocracy impact greatly the areas of curriculum design and development and indirectly, have influenced research in curriculum studies.

The term meritocracy was first used in 1958 by Michael Young, a British sociologist, when he wrote a science fiction novel called The Rise of the Meritocracy. This satirical book depicted a society where people in power legitimated their status using merit as the justificatory terminology; those who were poor or left out were seem deservingly disenfranchised.

Our belief in meritocracy, often linked to the American dream that states that anyone can be successful with enough drive and effort, ignores the ways in which stratified societies tend to reproduce themselves.

In her new book, Meritocracy Inc.: How Wealth Became Merit, Class Became Race, and College Education Became a Gift From the Poor to the Rich, Lani Guinier argues that many of the criteria associated with individual talent and efforts (which should be rewarded proportionately) are actually highly linked to one's social position or opportunities gained by virtue of family and position so that while the system called meritoracy is supposed to be more democratic and egalitarian than aristocracy, it in fact reproduces the same distribution of power and rewards.

A strong belief in the existence of a meritocratic system often leads to a system of blaming those [Page 565]who are not successful, associating their failure with lack of intelligence, drive, commitment, or effort. In other words, if the system is fair, then those who are failing have only themselves to blame. This analysis keeps us from looking at societal and structural barriers to achievement and avoids interrogating how racism, classism, sexism, and other oppressive institutions and practices manifest in highly differential achievement by various groups and individuals. Those who believe in meritocracy are often highly critical of programs of affirmative action, arguing that since the system is fair, there is no reason to provide special opportunities to those often disenfranchised or excluded.

In their book, The Meritocracy Myth, Stephen McNamee and Robert K. Miller, Jr. challenge the myth that the system distributes resources especially wealth and incomeaccording to the merit of individuals. McNamee and Miller do not deny that there is such a thing as merit; rather, they question the idea that societal resources are distributed exclusively or primarily on the basis of individual merit. They cite the interaction of merit with nonmerit factors such as inheritance, social and cultural advantages, unequal educational opportunity, luck and the changing structure of job opportunities, the decline of self-employment, and discrimination in all of its forms.

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