SOC102A Report: Meritocracy and Educational Outcomes in Australia

This report, prepared for SOC102A, explores the concept of meritocracy within the Australian education system. It critically examines the argument that meritocracy is a myth, focusing on how non-merit factors such as inheritance, unequal educational opportunities, and discrimination influence a learner's educational outcomes and contribute to inequality. The report delves into the historical context, current practices, and societal implications of meritocracy, providing a comprehensive analysis of its impact on students' success and social mobility. Furthermore, the report highlights how these non-merit factors can suppress, neutralize, or even negate the effects of merit, thereby creating barriers to individual mobility and challenging the fairness of the system. It also discusses the influence of surveillance models of benchmarking, assessment, and testing on the organization, goal, and evaluation of education. The report concludes by synthesizing the arguments and providing insights into the ongoing debate about meritocracy in Australia.

Running head: MERITOCRACY 1
Meritocracy
Name
Institution

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MERITOCRACY
Introduction
According to McNamee and Miller, Meritocracy denotes a vision, in which privilege and
power would be assigned by the merit of individual, not by social roots. It refers to a social
system in which status in life and success depends mainly on individual effort, abilities, and
talents (Whalen, 2015). It remains a social system in which individuals progress depend on their
merits. Inspired by the ideal of meritocratic, many individuals these days remain dedicated in a
view that status in life and success relies on the effort, abilities, and talents of individuals in
Australia (Frank, 2016). A meritocratic system differs with aristocracy, for which individual
advance on the basis of their titles and status family as well as other relations. Many societies in
Australian are generally deliberated to be meritocracies. This means that these Australian
societies are created on the belief that an individual can only make it with dedication and hard
work. In the Meritocracy Myth, many people in Australia argue that meritocracy is the idea that
resources of the society remain distributed solely or mainly on the basis of merit of individuals is
a myth (Watkins, Ho & Butler, 2017). It remains a myth due to the effects of other factors for
example inheritance, unequal educational opportunity, cultural and social advantages, as well as
discrimination. This paper will discuss the issue of meritocracy in Australian educational system.
This paper also discusses the non-merit factors which may influence a learner’s educational
outcomes.
It is currently commonplace that as from the year 1990s so ubiquitous surveillance
models of benchmarking, assessment and testing become that they all shape the organization, the
goal, the evaluation and the delivery of education in Australia (Mijs, 2016). The arguments have
been created that all these factors have shape the way most institution acts to position the

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teachers, children, and their parents (Teo, 2019). This remains specifically so where national as
well as standardized tests as a mechanism of policing to keep all children attentive. This
meritocratic argument has influence schooling and education in Australia. Today, many people
assumed that the conditions of the market accurately reveal merit and that embracing ideology of
the market will contribute to a better system of schooling and education as well as to a new
meritocratic society. with enterprise, market, choice and freedom the clarion calls in Australia,
schooling and education have been strongly positioned in the market as items that stress the
significance of competition, individualism as well as enterprise key features of the myth of
society of meritocratic. Just like the economic system, the education system in Australia has been
decontrolled. Most schools in Australia stress the themes of competitive individualism, anti-
statism, and self-interest.
In Australia, the concept of a meritocracy remains spoken in that ultimate of values of
Australian, the just go’, a view that individuals ought to have an equal chance of improving their
lives as well as to pursuit rewards upon their hard work and talent (Lardier et al. 2019).
Australian remain enthusiastic about fairness of opportunity as a method of guaranteeing a fairer
as well as more fair society but not as enthusiastic to hunt goals of equality. While the principles
of meritocracy remain being questioned, meritocracy is the essential feature of the Australian
dream where it remains a central ideology profoundly embedded within the beliefs and practices
of Australian culture (Sjoquist & Winters, 2015). In Australia the philosophy of the meritocracy
remains a foundational myth established in all facets of society and it also remains an important
element of political culture.
The education system in Australia is based upon core curriculum models that mainly
emphasize student’s cultural, social and political socialization within acute milieus, it is not

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based upon system of rewards that sees student shepherded into different pens. Many schools in
Australia are generally presented as institutions of meritocratic, after all, every learner remains
treated equitable. Also, all students have equal opportunity to prosper if they possess ability as
well as make the effort (Jones, 2018). The main aim of education in Australia is to generate a
more equitable as well as socially just society that mainly looks at social inclusion and
democratic participation, a society that solve the issues of social injustice, exclusion and
marginal citizenship (Jones, 2018). Most researchers argue that a meritocracy is not helping
Australia in achieving the goals stated above. They affirm that a meritocratic society provides a
suitable environment for the creation of inequality, it fails to challenge it. This argument is
supported by some researchers who argue that people are not only evaluated according to their
education and their intelligence, their power and their occupation, but according to their courage
and their kindness, their sensitivity and imagination, their generosity and their sympathy. In
Australia, the important elements of the student’s education mainly takes place outside
institution in sites for example the neighborhood, family, the workplace, clubs, churches, through
new technologies and media.
Members of Liberal and democratic societies normally believe that meritocracy exists in
Australia system of education (Ho, 2017). And that the basis of stratification relies mainly on
what is known as non-merit factors for example inheritance, unequal educational opportunity, as
well as discrimination.
First and foremost one of the main non merit factors that may influence a learner’s
educational outcomes is the influence of inheritance, broadly described as the effects of first
class placement of individuals at birth on their future life chances (Reay, 2018). This inheritance
is not merely bulk assets that are transmitted upon the parents’ death. Inheritance is a situation

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where individuals inherit favorable traits from their parents. Inheritance also offers several
cumulative non merit benefits that remain available to individuals in varying degrees. Some of
these non-merit benefits include high living standard from birth, inter vivos gifts for example
infusions of property and cash bequeathed by parents to their kids at critical stages in the course
of life, access to educational motilities, better health care and healthier and longer lives (Gale,
Molla & Parker, 2017). Another benefit of inheritance remains access to forms of cultural and
social capital. For example, students who are born into high powered circles have qualities that
may favor them in classroom as compared to those individuals who are born in low powered
circles.
Unequal educational opportunity is another factor which may influence a learner’s
educational outcomes. In Australia, education is seen as the main means of upward mobility.
This is because education remains perceived as a doorkeeper institution which sorts and sifts
people according to the merit of individual (Samuels, 2017). Credits, Grades, degrees,
certificates, and diplomas are plainly earned not appropriated or purchased. But, research has
showed that education system is not distributed equally in the population. Some researchers
argue that upper class students tend to access upper class educations and middle class student
tend to access middle class educations. They also argue that poor individuals tend to access poor
educations. The quality of educational opportunity and the quality of institutions in Australia
differ according to where an individual lives, and where an individual lives relied on race and
familial economic resources. Most public institutions, for example, are reinforced by native
property taxes. In this context, students from wealthy communities have higher tax base and
students from poorer communities.

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Besides Unequal educational opportunity, self-employment is commonly perceived as the
main origin of upward mobility. The decline of self-employment such as restaurant and retail
stores may make many people to work for other employers in rapid increasingly setting of
bureaucratized. This may cause the mobility to decline.
Discrimination is the most evident and widely known non-merit barriers to achievement.
Discrimination mainly suppresses merit. Sex and race discrimination are the most obvious forms
of discrimination in Australia. The good news remains that these forms of discrimination is
declining. Most people in Australia agree that sex and race discrimination are not morally right
and that individuals should be provided with equal level playing ground in order to ensure that
there is equality of education in Australia (Elford, 2016). Other forms of discrimination include:
discrimination on the basis of religion, sexual orientation, and physical appearance.
Conclusion
This paper mainly discussed issues that are linked to Meritocracy. According to some
researchers Meritocracy refers to a social system in which status in life and success depends
mainly on individual effort, abilities, and talents. It remains a social system in which individuals
progress depend on their merits. There is also a discussion of the non-merit factors for instance
inheritance, unequal educational opportunity, and discrimination which may influence a learner’s
educational outcomes. From this paper, we can say that a meritocracy can promote people and
uplift them to positions of authority, power and influence.

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