Personal Essay: What´s Meritocracy?

Mark, you pointed out a few things. You first stated that if you are intelligent and work hard you can make it in society. This is the ideology of meritocracy that you are referring too. Meritocracy, meaning that through hard work you can achieve success. However, this is just an ideology, a belief system that we as a society have incorporated into our structure as a sense of reality. There are factors that go against this belief such as, economic, cultural, and social. For one, in the economic aspect, both of your parent’s work which means you did not need feel the pressure of getting a job in high school or being a provider after. This lead you to focus more on your education. This is not the case for most low income or working class families. For instance, in an
Even if they get a job throughout their college life, it is extremely difficult to balance academics when you work long hours to maintain a way of life. You might say that there is financial aid that can reduce the stress. According to Thomas B. Edsall, “In 1979-80, the maximum Pell Grant covered 99 percent of the cost of a community college, 77 percent at a public four-year college and 36 percent at a private four-year college. By 2010-11, these percentages had dropped to 62, 36 and 15 percent respectively, according to Education Week. If this is the case, the fact that you were able to get a full scholarship is not just due to your hard work, it is related to the amount of cultural capital you have. Cultural capital goes beyond economic means, it refers to cultural knowledge that helps you navigate society. For instance, how you dress and what kind of education you have can reflect how you behave which can alter your experiences and the opportunities that become available to you. You can also switch cultural capital for other kind of capital such as economic or social