%0 Journal Article
%A Jin, J
%A Ball, SJ
%D 2020
%F discovery:10083065
%I ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
%J British Journal of Sociology of Education
%K meritocracy, social mobility, Bourdieu, working-class students at elite universities, China
%N 1
%P 64-79
%T Meritocracy, social mobility and a new form of class domination
%U https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10083065/
%V 41
%X 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.
%Z This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.