Belief in School Meritocracy and the Legitimization of Social and Income Inequality

Batruch, Anatolia; Jetten, Jolanda; Werfhorst, Herman G. van de; Darnon, Céline; Butera, Fabrizio

doi:10.1177/19485506221111017

Cited by 22 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Meritocracy assumes that if individuals are sufficiently motivated and hardworking, nothing is beyond their reach. In people’s defence of meritocracy, we underestimate prejudice (Barreto & Ellemers, 2015) and legitimize social and income inequality (Batruch et al, 2022). Indeed, it is people in positions of high power, and with more resources, who are likely to have self-serving attributions and distorted perceptions of fairness (Lois & Riedl, 2022).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The differential impact of socioeconomic status indicators on values and self-mastery ( El impacto diferencial de los indicadores del nivel socioeconómico en los valores y el autodominio )

Rea

2023

International Journal of Social Psychology

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Socioeconomic status and social class are measured with a wide and complex range of indicators with little attention paid to the impact these choices may have on empirical findings. This research tests whether different socioeconomic indicators consistently predict motivational differences in the same sample. Two studies were conducted in the United Kingdom. The first study (N = 430) examined the relationship between income, employment, education and personal values. The study found inconsistent relationships between different socioeconomic indicators and value preferences. A similar pattern of inconsistent relationships between socioeconomic status indicators and measures of selfmastery, and personal values, was found in the second study (N = 959). The only universal finding across all socioeconomic indicators in both studies was the null relationship with self-transcendence value preferences. These results indicate that we need to be more cautious in framing socioeconomic status as a construct and more rigorous in assessing differences observed across social classes. RESUMENPara medir el nivel socioeconómico (NSE) y la clase social se utiliza una gama compleja de indicadores, sin prestar apenas atención al impacto que su selección puede ejercer en los resultados empíricos. Esta investigación explora si los distintos indicadores socioeconómicos predicen de forma consistente las diferencias motivacionales en una misma muestra. Se realizaron dos estudios en el Reino Unido. En el primero (N = 430) se analizó la relación entre ingresos, empleo, educación y valores personales. Los resultados revelaron relaciones inconsistentes entre los distintos indicadores socioeconómicos y las preferencias de valores. En el segundo estudio (N = 959) se identificó un patrón similar de relaciones inconsistentes entre los indicadores socioeconómicos y las medidas de autodominio y los valores ARTICLE HISTORY

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The differential impact of socioeconomic status indicators on values and self-mastery ( El impacto diferencial de los indicadores del nivel socioeconómico en los valores y el autodominio )

Rea

2023

International Journal of Social Psychology

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“…Economic inequality also affords the creation of institutions that can maintain and have the potential to perpetuate the status quo. This role of institutions is most evident in local schools (Batruch et al, 2022;Goudeau et al, 2021;Stephens et al, 2012). Economic inequality may motivate more parents to seek access to the very best schools for their children because they perceive to live in a-winner-takes-all society (Ongis & Davidai, 2022).…”

Section: The Bottom-up Influence Of Economic Inequality: Behaviors Th...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A socioecological approach to explaining how economic inequality and psychological tendencies mutually constitute each other.

Göbel¹,

García²

2023

Preprint

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Economic inequality is one of the defining challenges of our era. Social science research links higher levels of economic inequality to a range of undesirable outcomes, including more crime, social anomie, and ill health. Social psychological research is at the forefront of investigating how economic inequality shapes the human mind and behavior, but it has mostly focused on explaining how economic inequality at the structural level causes individual level manifestations. In this review, we reconceptualize economic inequality as a dynamic system, and we adopt a socioecological perspective to explain how economic inequality and psychological tendencies mutually constitute each other. First, we show how the psychological experience of economic inequality is afforded by social and physical environments that people interact with. Next, we show that through mechanisms such as self-selection, individuals and institutions can maintain and even perpetuate economic inequality. Our socioecological perspective highlights the self-reinforcing cycle of economic inequality and individual behavior, and it discusses to what extent lived experiences and psychological manifestations of economic inequality may differ across economic strata. We end by discussing the implications of our model for the research agenda in the social psychology of economic inequality.

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“…If teachers believe that schools are meritocratic, they may perceive achievement inequality as a fair outcome of a meritocratic process. Indeed, individuals who believe that schools are meritocratic perceive socioeconomic inequalities as fair, oppose affirmative action, and reject policies aimed at reducing achievement inequality (Batruch, Jetten, et al, 2023; Darnon, Smeding, & Redersdorff, 2018). Also, if teachers see schools as meritocratic, they may believe that some students are more meritorious (e.g., intelligent) than others.…”

Section: Origins Of Socioeconomic Disparities In Children’s Self-viewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unequal selves in the classroom: Nature, origins, and consequences of socioeconomic disparities in children’s self-views.

Brummelman,

Sedikides

2023

Developmental Psychology

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Children from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds often have more negative self-views than their peers. How are these self-views shaped by teacher-student interactions in the classroom, and what are the consequences of these self-views for achievement inequality? We present a developmental framework addressing these questions by bridging insights from the psychological, educational, and sociological literatures. We show that children from low-SES backgrounds perceive themselves as less intelligent, less able to grow their intelligence, less deserving, and less worthy, independent of their actual abilities and achievements. We demonstrate how negative intellectual stereotypes-expressed through daily interactions with teachers in classrooms, such as teachers' expectations, feedback, and attention-undercut the self-views of children from low-SES backgrounds. We also show how this process can be exacerbated by institutional and cultural values reflecting a belief in meritocracy (e.g., schools that encourage competition, emphasize raw ability, and attribute achievement inequality to intrinsic factors), which are common in countries with high income inequality and rigid between-school tracking. The ensuing more negative self-views introduce psychological barriers that undermine the academic achievement of children from low-SES backgrounds, thereby reinforcing achievement inequality. This represents an enormous loss of potential and perpetuates harm into adulthood. Socioeconomic disparities in self-views can emerge early in life and widen with age, underlining the need for developmental research and timely intervention. We discuss implications for studying the nature, origins, and consequences of socioeconomic disparities in self-views, and for designing interventions to reduce achievement inequality. Public Significance StatementChildren from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds often have more negative self-views than their peers. How are these self-views shaped by teacher-student interactions, and how do these selfviews affect academic achievement? We show that these self-views emerge, in part, because children from low-SES backgrounds are exposed to denigrating messages about their ability, even when their achievements and abilities are equal to those of their peers. Their self-views, in turn, undermine academic achievement, reinforcing achievement inequality.

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Belief in School Meritocracy and the Legitimization of Social and Income Inequality

Cited by 22 publications

References 51 publications

The differential impact of socioeconomic status indicators on values and self-mastery ( El impacto diferencial de los indicadores del nivel socioeconómico en los valores y el autodominio )

The differential impact of socioeconomic status indicators on values and self-mastery ( El impacto diferencial de los indicadores del nivel socioeconómico en los valores y el autodominio )

A socioecological approach to explaining how economic inequality and psychological tendencies mutually constitute each other.

Unequal selves in the classroom: Nature, origins, and consequences of socioeconomic disparities in children’s self-views.

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