Elitism?

There are a variety of ways of valorizing individuals too institutions inwards our society. We tin value contribution too productivity; e...

There are a variety of ways of valorizing individuals too institutions inwards our society. We tin value contribution too productivity; effectiveness; talent too merit; honesty too integrity; too "elite status". Just sentinel the credits for Masterpiece Theater, including the promotions for a luxury cruise business too a luxury fashion house, too yous volition teach a pretty proficient experience for the concluding category of value mentioned here, elite status. These promotions are clearly aimed at selling the production past times selling the marks of elite standing with which they associate themselves. "If yous likewise wishing to count yourselves with the elite, purchase our clothes too move on our cruise ships."

Many individuals look to go motivated past times the wishing to go perceived every bit existence exceptional, high-status, and, well, elite. This has a connotation of wealth too power, but it also connotes other forms of access too privilege inwards companionship -- able to gain the ear of elected officials, able to teach a corner tabular array at Elaine's, able to gain membership inwards exclusive clubs too organizations. So what is "elite"?

To start, "elite" is a social characteristic of important attributed to individuals past times other individuals. And pretty clearly, it is a socially engineered characteristic. It is the production of specific social actions too institutional arrangements. The fact of a grouping of families possessing concentrated wealth too ability doesn't automatically do an "elite" inwards society; rather, features of these individuals too families require to go marketed to the world inwards ways that Pb others to recognize, admire, too observe them. Hierarchy needs to go cultivated.

But "elite" also applies to institutions too practices. Institutions tin go perceived every bit existence elite inwards too of themselves; too they tin go perceived every bit the kinds of places where wannabes tin gain the marks of the style too membership that volition permit them likewise to go classified every bit "elite". Private schools inwards New York too Philadelphia compete for both forms of elite status. The New York Yacht Club is elite; the Brooklyn Bowling League is non-elite. Princeton University is elite; LaGuardia Community College is non-elite. Medical schoolhouse is elite; cosmetology schoolhouse is non-elite. And, similar the cruise business too the fashion household mentioned above, the elite condition of the institutions is something that is deliberately cultivated too marketed. Princeton, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, too Berkeley are all real concerned nigh maintaining their elite condition too reputation.

Status too privilege are social products; thus it is an of import chore for sociology to decode their workings inwards contemporary society.

Pierre Bourdieu's theorizing of various forms of social too cultural working capital missive of the alphabet is straight relevant here. Bourdieu is specially sharp inwards tracing the markings too features of various kinds of privilege inwards French society, too the workings of the institutions that reproduce those features. Having elite condition is a real tangible cast of ability too influence, independent from the personal qualities of talent, education, too experience that the private may possess. Bourdieu traces how this machinery industrial plant inwards French Republic inwards The State Nobility: Elite Schools inwards the Field of Power. The markers of elite condition -- school, manners, dress, clubs, friendship circles -- are forms of social working capital missive of the alphabet that greatly contribute to the influence too ability of the immature people who are introduced into these practices. Here is a brief declaration of Bourdieu's approach:

One cannot teach an accurate motion-picture demo of the educational establishment without completely transforming the epitome it manages to projection of itself through the logic of its functioning or, to a greater extent than precisely, through the symbolic violence it commits insofar every bit it is able to impose the misrecognition of its truthful logic upon all those who participate inwards it. Where nosotros are used to seeing a rational educational enterprise, sanctioning the acquisition of multiple specialized competences through certificates of technical qualification, nosotros must also read betwixt the lines to run across an authorisation of consecration that, through the reproduction of the technical competences required past times the technical segmentation of labor, plays an ever-increasing purpose inwards the reproduction of social competences, that is to say, legally recognized capacities for exercising power, which are absolutely essential if the social segmentation of labor is to endure. (116)

Bourdieu uses the linguistic communication of "consecration" -- the quasi-religious anointment of immature men too women into the ranks of the elite holders of ability inwards twentieth-century France.

The processes of social separation that Bourdieu describes for French Republic look to accept unopen counterparts inwards North America every bit well. Elizabeth Armstrong too Laura Hamilton, Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality and Shamus Rahman Khan, Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School offer sociological studies of how real dissimilar educational institutions function to do the distinction betwixt elite too non-elite. Armstrong too Hamilton report a mid-rank Midwestern enquiry university, too Khan studies the St. Paul's School, an ultra-elite boarding school in New England. Armstrong too Hamilton's central finding is that the establishment they report embodies institutional arrangements too practices that "track" students into outcomes that are closely correlated with the socioeconomic condition of their families. Students from affluent families accept a high likelihood of attaining degrees too futurity opportunities that back upwards their ain affluent careers upon graduation, whereas students from mid- too low-socioeconomic condition families are led into educational pathways that final result inwards lower rates of completion, less marketable degrees, too less career success. Here is the diagram they furnish describing the menses of their argument:

What they hateful past times "class projects" is a packet of activities too educational goals that characterize dissimilar groups of students. They observe iii large cast projects at function with the women students whom they study: reproduction via social closure; mobility; too reproduction via achievement (table I.1). And they observe that the institutional arrangements of the academy too the organizational imperatives that embody these arrangements function fairly good to bring dissimilar socioeconomic groups onto dissimilar outcomes. The pathways that lucifer to these projects include the political party pathway, the mobility pathway, too the professional person pathway; too they observe that the cast resources too assumptions of the immature women they report accept a powerful behave upon on the choices they brand across these various pathways.

Khan's reading of St. Paul's School emphasizes a dissimilar fix of processes, at a to a greater extent than elevated bird of the American upper crust. And he uncovers an of import characteristic of the past times 50 years: the elitist institutions accept go simultaneously to a greater extent than various too to a greater extent than inegalitarian. It is what he calls a democratic conundrum:

All of this is to say that the 'new' inequality is the democratization of inequality. We mightiness telephone telephone it democratic inequality. The aristocratic marks of class, exclusion, too inheritance accept been rejected; the democratic encompass of individuals having their ain fair milk shiver is nearly complete. (conclusion)

The fundamental behave upon of this institution, Khan believes, is to increase the concentration of wealth too ability inwards America, fifty-fifty every bit a sure reveal of non-traditional candidates are incorporated.

And thus my optimism is heavily tempered. If our economical trends continue, if the spoils produced past times the many are increasingly claimed past times the few, thus the transformations with the elite may go durable. That is, nosotros may accept a various elite class. And this I imagine volition no dubiety go trotted out past times the elite to advise that ours is an opened upwards companionship where i tin teach a fair shake. But multifariousness does non hateful mobility too it surely does non hateful equality. Ours is a to a greater extent than various elite inside a to a greater extent than unequal world. The final result of our democratic inequality is that the production of privilege volition go along to reproduce inequality patch implying that ours is a simply world; the weapons of the weak are removed, too the blame for inequality is placed on the shoulders of those whom our democratic hope has failed. (Conclusion)

These are of import features of the contemporary social world. But they enhance an of import parochial interrogation every bit well: tin world universities genuinely serve the democratizing purpose that is thus deeply of import inwards our highly unequal Blue Planet today? Or is at that topographic point a creeping elitism across many top world universities that undercuts the democratizing effects they ought to accept for people on the bottom iii or 4 quintiles of the population?