Study: belief in the meritocracy leads to worse outcomes

[monstro]

I find it interesting the study focused on middle-school students. That’s when kids start getting sorted into “ability” tracks. Presumably the smarter kids get placed on tracks geared towards college prep (all honor and advanced classes), while the weaker students get set up for voc ed and general courses. But what often happens in racially and socioeconomically integrated schools is that race and socioeconomics are used as markers for who belongs where. Poor black kid gets put in the remedial track regardless of whether he should be there, since there are only so many seats in the “good” tracks and the white kids of means (and angry parentage) are prioritized for those seats and the remedial teachers need SOMEONE to teach, and the poor black kids’ parents aren’t likely to raise a fuss, especially if he’s being bussed into the school in the first place.

This situation happened to me, even though I wasn’t a poor kid. But I was black and my zip code was “black”. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that on the top of each student’s schedule, beside their name, was their race and home address. Such information makes it real damn easy for an unscrupulous registrar to play 3D chess with the student body. In my seventh grade year, I was placed in the remedial track. The home room number was a dead giveaway, but I kept my mouth shut because I didn’t really know…and besides, why would I be placed in “dumb” classes when I was smart? But I eventually told my mother what was up when the shame got to be too much to bear (I couldn’t tell my friends what homeroom I was in without being embarrassed). She immediately came down to the school and got me switched to a “good” track. She didn’t accuse anyone of being racist. She didn’t scream or holler. But she did let the school know that they had made a horrible mistake and she didn’t want to see it happen again.

Well. Fast forward to the eighth grade. I look down at my schedule and lo and behold, I’m in a “bad” homeroom again. This time, my mother did flip out a little. Because at that point, it was hard to see how they weren’t intentionally jerking me around. How does a kid who tests well and makes As and Bs get labeled “remedial” two years in a row?

I was fortunate, iiandyiiii. My mother is political conscious and not the type of parent you want to fool around me. As a professional social activist, she wasn’t afraid to make a fuss. Most parents aren’t like my mother. Most minority parents are especially not like my mother. I think about the kids who were stuck in those remedial classes, and I suspect most had parents who were just glad they were in a good school, not a “ghetto” one. My mother didn’t have that mentality.

So as you can guess, I did not grow up thinking this is a meritocratic society. But I was also raised with a strong work ethic and to always pair whining/complaining with action. Throughout my life, I have heard variations of this theme: “Yes, often people will downgrade their expectations of you because of who you are and what you look like, but that just means you have to work harder than everyone else. It also means you need to cultivate a thick exterior and an attitude that lets people know you ain’t the one to be messed with.”

So it does not surprise me at all that belief in meritocracy leads to disappointment in life. The belief in meritocracy is likely why so many “economically anxious” white people right now are mired in depression. You spend your whole life hearing that only lazy losers do menial work and of course you’re going to take it hard when that ends up being what you have to do.

Besides the whole racial/class thing, I think kids need to learn that success doesn’t come down to any one thing. You can have mad skillz, but if people don’t like you for whatever reason, then you’re going to have a difficult time. It doesn’t make sense not to teach kids that they can’t just “be themselves”, as nice as that sounds. They actually do have to put some work on developing the intangible qualities that are frequently more valued than objective “merit”.

[Revenant_Threshold]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

That’s how people’s minds work. (Not just kids either.)

Then is not the same true for the teacher? You say, when you went to the teacher in your example, “it invariably turned out that there was more to the story than the kids’ versions”. You don’t seem to have applied your “people’s versions tend to be very self-serving” position there; to the contrary, from your phrasing you seem to have just accepted it.

IME the one scenario is much more common than the other.

Could you be more specific as to which scenarios you’re talking about here? I’m not sure if this is meant as a response to the “100% sure” options, or the “wrongly believing onself to be at fault/not at fault” options.

It’s not irrelevant, but you can’t always solve all the problems in the world and some suffering is inevitable. That itself is also a useful lesson for life, and those who learn this early are better off for it.

You yourself have already said that it is irrelevant (my bolding);

Also, whether you encourage kids to see every failing as the result of an injustice on someone else’s part. I can tell you from personal experience that 100% of the times my kids have gotten in trouble at school, their story have been either that they were completely innocent of all charges or (more commonly) that they were guilty of some minor infraction while one or more other kids did a lot worse and the teacher did nothing to those kids - bottom line that THE TEACHER IS PICKING ON THEM. My response has been open-minded skepticism in the first case (I generally offer to discuss it with the teacher) but to dismiss the second as irrelevant.

That aside, your reasoning has some very big flaws. For starters, you can quite literally use the “some suffering is inevitable” argument to dismiss any kind of suffering. For another; these are problems which ARE solvable, and by responding to them by saying that many aren’t, you teach kids to not worry about solvable problems - including, ironically, their potential bad behaviour. “Why should I change? Suffering is inevitable, and many problems aren’t solvable.” As previously pointed out, this line of thinking actively dismisses unjust punishment and so invites worse behaviour; your reasoning here further backs up that response.

Some suffering is inevitable; that’s true. The fundamental truth, however, about teaching kids that some suffering is inevitable and that people, even parents, do not care to do anything about it is that unless you apply it fairly and accurately, what you teach is this; No-one cares to do anything about the suffering I’ve undergone. No-one will care to do anything about the suffering I cause in others. That person did me wrong, and my concerns were dismissed. If I do someone wrong, their concerns will be dismissed.

[iiandyiiii]

@monstro

I find it interesting the study focused on middle-school students. That’s when kids start getting sorted into “ability” tracks. Presumably the smarter kids get placed on tracks geared towards college prep (all honor and advanced classes), while the weaker students get set up for voc ed and general courses. But what often happens in racially and socioeconomically integrated schools is that race and socioeconomics are used as markers for who belongs where. Poor black kid gets put in the remedial track regardless of whether he should be there, since there are only so many seats in the “good” tracks and the white kids of means (and angry parentage) are prioritized for those seats and the remedial teachers need SOMEONE to teach, and the poor black kids’ parents aren’t likely to raise a fuss, especially if he’s being bussed into the school in the first place.

This situation happened to me, even though I wasn’t a poor kid. But I was black and my zip code was “black”. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that on the top of each student’s schedule, beside their name, was their race and home address. Such information makes it real damn easy for an unscrupulous registrar to play 3D chess with the student body. In my seventh grade year, I was placed in the remedial track. The home room number was a dead giveaway, but I kept my mouth shut because I didn’t really know…and besides, why would I be placed in “dumb” classes when I was smart? But I eventually told my mother what was up when the shame got to be too much to bear (I couldn’t tell my friends what homeroom I was in without being embarrassed). She immediately came down to the school and got me switched to a “good” track. She didn’t accuse anyone of being racist. She didn’t scream or holler. But she did let the school know that they had made a horrible mistake and she didn’t want to see it happen again.

Well. Fast forward to the eighth grade. I look down at my schedule and lo and behold, I’m in a “bad” homeroom again. This time, my mother did flip out a little. Because at that point, it was hard to see how they weren’t intentionally jerking me around. How does a kid who tests well and makes As and Bs get labeled “remedial” two years in a row?

I was fortunate, iiandyiiii. My mother is political conscious and not the type of parent you want to fool around me. As a professional social activist, she wasn’t afraid to make a fuss. Most parents aren’t like my mother. Most minority parents are especially not like my mother. I think about the kids who were stuck in those remedial classes, and I suspect most had parents who were just glad they were in a good school, not a “ghetto” one. My mother didn’t have that mentality.

So as you can guess, I did not grow up thinking this is a meritocratic society. But I was also raised with a strong work ethic and to always pair whining/complaining with action. Throughout my life, I have heard variations of this theme: “Yes, often people will downgrade their expectations of you because of who you are and what you look like, but that just means you have to work harder than everyone else. It also means you need to cultivate a thick exterior and an attitude that lets people know you ain’t the one to be messed with.”

So it does not surprise me at all that belief in meritocracy leads to disappointment in life. The belief in meritocracy is likely why so many “economically anxious” white people right now are mired in depression. You spend your whole life hearing that only lazy losers do menial work and of course you’re going to take it hard when that ends up being what you have to do.

Besides the whole racial/class thing, I think kids need to learn that success doesn’t come down to any one thing. You can have mad skillz, but if people don’t like you for whatever reason, then you’re going to have a difficult time. It doesn’t make sense not to teach kids that they can’t just “be themselves”, as nice as that sounds. They actually do have to put some work on developing the intangible qualities that are frequently more valued than objective “merit”.

Thanks for your input, monstro. There’s so many things like this that I probably don’t know (since I’m an upper-middle-class white guy). Further, while my wife is black, she didn’t grow up in this country, so there are likely some experiences common for African Americans that she didn’t have but that ideally we would want to make sure our kids are ready for. At the very least, for their own safety, especially if I have a son, we’ll need to make sure they can talk to some successful black men and women about how to keep themselves safe in various situations (around law enforcement and elsewhere).

We plan to continue to have a diverse group of friends – hopefully that, plus good judgment and intentions (and being upper middle class ourselves) will be enough. Exciting and scary to think about!

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@Revenant_Threshold

Then is not the same true for the teacher? You say, when you went to the teacher in your example, “it invariably turned out that there was more to the story than the kids’ versions”. You don’t seem to have applied your “people’s versions tend to be very self-serving” position there; to the contrary, from your phrasing you seem to have just accepted it.

It’s true of the teacher to a much lesser extent. There’s a natural tendency of people to believe that they’re less culpable than they really are. There’s not the same natural tendency to pick on any specific kid (though it no doubt happens on occasion).

Could you be more specific as to which scenarios you’re talking about here? I’m not sure if this is meant as a response to the “100% sure” options, or the “wrongly believing onself to be at fault/not at fault” options.

It’s more likely that the kid is favorably judging themselves to be less culpable than they really are than that the teacher is judging them to be more so.

You yourself have already said that it is irrelevant (my bolding);

You said three things are irrelevant: “It’s irrelevant if other people are doing wrong, it’s irrelevant if you’re being treated unjustly, it’s irrelevant if you’re being truthful”. Of these, I would agree that the first is irrelevant (as a practical matter), which is what I said earlier. The second two are not irrelevant, but even there there’s something to acceptance of the fact that not all suffering can be alleviated or all problems solved. So you alleviate what you can and solve what you can, but sometimes as a practical matter it can’t be done and when that happens you learn to suck it up and make the best of it.

That aside, your reasoning has some very big flaws. For starters, you can quite literally use the “some suffering is inevitable” argument to dismiss any kind of suffering. For another; these are problems which ARE solvable, and by responding to them by saying that many aren’t, you teach kids to not worry about solvable problems - including, ironically, their potential bad behaviour. “Why should I change? Suffering is inevitable, and many problems aren’t solvable.”

See above. In these types of school situations, it’s generally unsolvable, since the teachers and kids will inevitably have different versions of events.

The fundamental truth, however, about teaching kids that some suffering is inevitable and that people, even parents, do not care to do anything about it is that unless you apply it fairly and accurately, what you teach is this; No-one cares to do anything about the suffering I’ve undergone. No-one will care to do anything about the suffering I cause in others. That person did me wrong, and my concerns were dismissed. If I do someone wrong, their concerns will be dismissed.

Kids will have to judge you based on how you do when their suffering is solvable, and there will inevitably be many situations like that over the years. If you invariably take the position that there’s nothing you can do, then that’s a problem. But if you intervene when you can and don’t when you can’t, then eventually they’ll see that, and probably be of stronger character to boot.

[Bone]

I’m not seeing any support for the conclusion. Namely: “Study: belief in the meritocracy leads to worse outcomes” Does it show that? Worse outcomes than lack of belief in meritocracy?

[iiandyiiii]

@Bone

I’m not seeing any support for the conclusion. Namely: “Study: belief in the meritocracy leads to worse outcomes” Does it show that? Worse outcomes than lack of belief in meritocracy?

Yeah, I wish the study wasn’t behind a paywall. The article seemed incomplete to me.

[Revenant_Threshold]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

It’s true of the teacher to a much lesser extent. There’s a natural tendency of people to believe that they’re less culpable than they really are. There’s not the same natural tendency to pick on any specific kid (though it no doubt happens on occasion).

Isn’t that the wrong comparison, then? If the teacher is to be judged by how likely they are to pick on any specific kid, then shouldn’t the kids be judged on how likely they are to do something bad?

It’s more likely that the kid is favorably judging themselves to be less culpable than they really are than that the teacher is judging them to be more so.

On what basis?

You said three things are irrelevant: “It’s irrelevant if other people are doing wrong, it’s irrelevant if you’re being treated unjustly, it’s irrelevant if you’re being truthful”. Of these, I would agree that the first is irrelevant (as a practical matter), which is what I said earlier.

If you’re replying to three things, one of which is irrelevant, two of which are irrelevant, I’d suggest you don’t go with “It’s not irrelevant”, purely on readability grounds (and yes, I’m well aware I’m far from great at that myself )

Anyway, I’ve already said that being treated unjustly is extremely relevant, both for judging what’s actually happening, and because being treated unjustly is wrong.

The second two are not irrelevant, but even there there’s something to acceptance of the fact that not all suffering can be alleviated or all problems solved. So you alleviate what you can and solve what you can, but sometimes as a practical matter it can’t be done and when that happens you learn to suck it up and make the best of it.

See above. In these types of school situations, it’s generally unsolvable, since the teachers and kids will inevitably have different versions of events.

That means nothing in and of itself. Punishment has an effect. In my case, I got sent out of the classroom to run errands repeatedly; other teachers would certainly be able to confirm that, if the word of kids isn’t trusted. I was given more homework than other kids; again, this is something that can be confirmed. Even if the only response from the teacher was, “Oh, I send everyone to run errands” or “They must have misunderstood what I told him”, it’s unlikely they’d be able to continue to get away with those things. And if it’s purely a he-said/she-said, you can still ask for them to get switched to a different class, if there is one.

Kids will have to judge you based on how you do when their suffering is solvable, and there will inevitably be many situations like that over the years. If you invariably take the position that there’s nothing you can do, then that’s a problem. But if you intervene when you can and don’t when you can’t, then eventually they’ll see that, and probably be of stronger character to boot.

Kids will judge you when you tell them that unjust behaviour towards them is irrelevant, and when you don’t act to curtail their suffering when you could. And the very worst outcome of that is that they might judge you to be correct.

[WillFarnaby]

“The System” for kids is school, parents, and maybe police. I wouldn’t be surprised if two of those things are crushing the souls of these poor kids.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@Revenant_Threshold

Isn’t that the wrong comparison, then? If the teacher is to be judged by how likely they are to pick on any specific kid, then shouldn’t the kids be judged on how likely they are to do something bad?

No, I think the valid comparison is the one I made.

On what basis?

I wrote “IME”, both of human nature generally and experience with this specific situation in particular.

If you’re replying to three things, one of which is irrelevant, two of which are irrelevant, I’d suggest you don’t go with “It’s not irrelevant”, purely on readability grounds (and yes, I’m well aware I’m far from great at that myself )

I assume the second “irrelevant” should be “relevant” or “not irrelevant”.

That means nothing in and of itself. Punishment has an effect. In my case, I got sent out of the classroom to run errands repeatedly; other teachers would certainly be able to confirm that, if the word of kids isn’t trusted. I was given more homework than other kids; again, this is something that can be confirmed. Even if the only response from the teacher was, “Oh, I send everyone to run errands” or “They must have misunderstood what I told him”, it’s unlikely they’d be able to continue to get away with those things. And if it’s purely a he-said/she-said, you can still ask for them to get switched to a different class, if there is one.

I’m talking about where a kid brings home a note from the teacher that s/he is talking during class and the kids’ response is that they talked a bit but that other kids are talking more and the teacher only picks on them.

Kids will judge you when you tell them that unjust behaviour towards them is irrelevant, and when you don’t act to curtail their suffering when you could. And the very worst outcome of that is that they might judge you to be correct.

OK, I guess we’ll have to leave it at that.

[Scumpup]

RE: Teachers and kids
Teachers do, in fact, quite often dislike this or that kid.
IME, it is virtually never for no reason.
Also IME, it is vanishingly seldom because the teacher is racist or classist.
Parents often seem quite shocked to find that their kid is capable of acting like an asshole, especially in the middle school years. This despite their own memories of asshole classmates.
The big advantage the teacher has is that they get to see how your kid acts when you’re not around.

[Revenant_Threshold]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

No, I think the valid comparison is the one I made.

A valid comparison would be between either “kid’s stories tend to be self-serving” and “teacher’s stories tend to be self-serving”, or “kid’s tendency to behave badly” and “teacher’s tendency to pick on a particular kid”. But it would be unreasonable to base a judgement on the specific behaviour for one, and the general behaviour for the other. That’s a double standard.

I wrote “IME”, both of human nature generally and experience with this specific situation in particular.

That seems problematic - IME, things are very different, and I at least have the advantage of experiencing this particular kind of situation directly.

I assume the second “irrelevant” should be “relevant” or “not irrelevant”.

Case in point!

I’m talking about where a kid brings home a note from the teacher that s/he is talking during class and the kids’ response is that they talked a bit but that other kids are talking more and the teacher only picks on them.

You didn’t actually specify that in your broad statement of how you’d handle these situations.

Which leads me to ask; do you, then, feel that in the kind of situation I’ve described, feel like your “an unjust punishment is irrelevant, just do better” approach would not be a good idea?

[TriPolar]

I don’t get the question. Young kids grade in the sixth grade believe that life is fair, then a year later, puberty and reality show them that it’s not. The more they believed in the fairness of life beforehand the more disillusioned they will be. It’s pretty likely to happen any time on that treacherous road between childhood and adulthood.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@Revenant_Threshold

A valid comparison would be between either “kid’s stories tend to be self-serving” and “teacher’s stories tend to be self-serving”, or “kid’s tendency to behave badly” and “teacher’s tendency to pick on a particular kid”. But it would be unreasonable to base a judgement on the specific behaviour for one, and the general behaviour for the other. That’s a double standard.

You can’t isolate any one component and compare it to any one other. They need to be looked at in total. The teacher picking on an innocent kid can happen but is less likely than the sum of “kid misbehaved” + “thought he didn’t”.

You didn’t actually specify that in your broad statement of how you’d handle these situations.

I did. In my first post in this thread, I described it as “the times my kids have gotten in trouble at school”, where the question was the extent to which they were guilty of what they were being accused of. You’re describing a situation where the kid did not get into trouble at school and there’s no question of guilt, and the question is whether the kid is being punished at all (or the teacher does it to everyone etc.)

Which leads me to ask; do you, then, feel that in the kind of situation I’ve described, feel like your “an unjust punishment is irrelevant, just do better” approach would not be a good idea?

In that situation it seems like everyone - including the teacher - agrees that no punishment at all is appropriate.

[squidfood]

@TriPolar

I don’t get the question. Young kids grade in the sixth grade believe that life is fair, then a year later, puberty and reality show them that it’s not. The more they believed in the fairness of life beforehand the more disillusioned they will be. It’s pretty likely to happen any time on that treacherous road between childhood and adulthood.

My daughter is in the middle of the 6th to 7th transition, and oh boy the near-instantaneous transition from “basically elementary school innocence” to “the world is falling apart and it’s the grown-ups fault” has been remarkable and correlated with obviously puberty-related mood swings.

Of course, recent political events sure haven’t helped (or maybe they really have helped her burgeoning feminism and environmentalism…)

[Dr.Crap]

The study is available in full here.

[BigT]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

But beyond that, my position is that if someone doesn’t like you, then your job is to make that person like you. At some point in your life you’re going to deal with people who don’t like you, and you won’t have parents to back you up. Your boss might not like you. Your in-laws might not like you. What are you going to do in that circumstance? Focusing on winning over people who don’t like you as opposed to just writing them off is a very good habit to get into.

You can’t make someone like you. You can just try to be likable. People will hate you even though it isn’t your fault at all. Many people will hate you for doing “the right thing.”

I don’t think being liked has anything to do with the scenario you pose, though. If the kid doesn’t want to face the consequences of breaking the rules, they shouldn’t break them. Complaining that other people break the rules will not prevent you from getting the consequences. Maybe you can bring that up to the teacher later, but first you need to not break the rules.

(Do note I’m not promoting a “just follow the rules” behavior. If there’s an unjust rule and you break it, fine. But expect to face the consequences.)

[BigT]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

Well good luck with that. Meanwhile, I’m focused on helping my kids be best prepared for life in the real world.

That seems a myopic view, though. You’re looking at preparing them for a bad world, but, if that’s all you do, then you’re also telling them to embrace the bad world rather than try to fix it.

Both parts are important. You need both to teach your kids what the real world is like, and how to fix it. If you just embrace bad things, then they never get better. But if you act like the world is just, you will get mistreated.

It’s not a dichotomy, in my opinion. You can do both.

[BigT]

Note: “how to fix it” sounds like I mean they can make the world just, which isn’t what I meant to convey. It’s more “what to do about things that are unjust.” It even includes determining if something is important enough to fight. Generally speaking, getting in trouble for talking outside of class is not something like that.

I also want to add that there is an importance in making sure your kid actually thinks you believe them. Which is why I say there’s no reason to bring up any idea that the kid is mistaken about their own culpability. The kid needs to feel you believe them so they will continue to come to you with things, so that you can decide when it becomes more likely that there really is a problem.

Of course, this also means raising trustworthy kids so you can eliminate lying to you. And teaching your kids about their own biases. But I still think it’s important. I’ve met kids who think their parents would never believe them and it hurts their relationship with them.

And, given that F-P says he did sometimes talk to teachers, I assume he did believe his kids sometimes. I would hope he’d believe his kids if they were in the situation RT was in. Though I do think it would be better if F-P would make this clear, as it otherwise leads you to talk cross purposes.

[Ambivalid]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

But beyond that, my position is that if someone doesn’t like you, then your job is to make that person like you. At some point in your life you’re going to deal with people who don’t like you, and you won’t have parents to back you up. Your boss might not like you. Your in-laws might not like you. What are you going to do in that circumstance? Focusing on winning over people who don’t like you as opposed to just writing them off is a very good habit to get into. And as a kid in a class, it’s generally not that hard. If instead of going along with your troublemaking pals and expecting the teacher to punish you less than them you focused on behaving better to begin with, you can generally win them over.

This is wrong-headed. You have no ultimate control over whether someone likes you or not. Thankfully my parents didn’t raise me with this belief. Rather, they raised me to understand that the only thing that was in my control was myself and how a person sees me can be influenced by factors that I can never know, much less work to change. Trying to make someone like you seems to encourage phoniness and superficial relations. By being a genuine, good person, I encourage the right kind of people to like me.

@k9bfriender

I don’t have kids, so I will be focusing on making the world a better place for yours.

You know, you are fast becoming one of my favorite posters.

[msmith537]

Maybe it’s the combination of belief in the meritocracy and the realization that they don’t have adequate skills? A true meritocracy means only the best and brightest and hardest working will achieve success. And that’s fine, but what about the people who are just mediocre?

Even in (or especially in) a pure meritocracy, everyone can’t get into an Ivy League school or land a job at a top law firm or tech company.

Also, “meritocracy” means unrelenting competition. Fall behind and you’re out. Have a couple of bad quarters and you’re out. Some kid shows up with more knowledge of the latest and greatest tech and you’re out. And once you’re out, it’s very hard to get back in because a true meritocracy doesn’t want to put energy into “losers” who couldn’t keep up.