Meritocracy and its servant inequality: a justification of privilege by merit

Abstract

It could be said that regarding the foundations of a theory of symbolic violence that Bourdieu and Passeron introduce in the first book of their theory on Reproduction: Elements for a theory of the education system, it is required for the School Authority, as an institution within the Educational System, to offer an explanation of the introduction of certain rules for its operation. However, as showed by Alatorre, the formulation of the reader's experience is what is going to be put into words regarding the fact of doing philosophy or what may seem like a whole scientific system. From the above, the article presented here is based upon one fundamental question: that of questioning the Colombian educational system and the pedagogic and epistemic principles that orient it, starting from the analysis of the Gesis and Structure of the Bureacratic Field of Pierre Bourdieu, on the relation between the educational system and the system of classes. To carry out this task, and as a strategy to guarantee quality and excellence, we present some of the narratives of both students and teachers from the public university in Bogotá who have differential access to the system.