Education-Based Meritocracy Is The Importance Of Education

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Recommended: Relevance of sociology of education

When talking about education system sociologists are referring to forms of education where people experience secondary socialisation which is the relearning of the norms and values learned during primary socialisation in the family. It is also viewed as an agent of social control where children are taught to conform to societies expectations and they are taught this through the hidden curriculum which is lessons which are not part of the national curriculum which the government says are needed to be learnt but are lessons such as be punctual to your classes and how to be obedient.
The term meritocracy refers to a society that is governed and led by the best and brightest, and in which opportunities in education, employment, social mobility, political office …show more content…

An Oxford mobility study suggests that if more people became middle class in recent years, it may have happened due to the creation of more room in the upper classes rather than an actual improvement of their class. In other words, it is not that the majority of middle class climbed into upper classes or slid into lower ones, instead, what happened was that middle class preserved their position and working-class families or individuals filled certain middle-class spaces that were open due to the restructure of the market. For meritocracy to be, it need an unequal society, in which the best and brightest - normally from the higher classes - are able to climb up the "greasy pole of success" (Sennett 2002) while the rest can be left behind.
Saunders (1998) suggests that not only do brighter people tend to perform better in exams but they also tend to continue performing better once they enter the labour market. This assumption led Saunders to conclude that people can work his/her way out of their low social and economic class position if they are able and motivated

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