When social destinies are closely linked to diplomas, competition increases at the doors of the most sought-after sectors, academic pressure is reflected in families and inequalities between young people widen. Should we not then rethink our vision of merit, monopolized today by school?

Few policies are as consensual as the educational policies implemented in France in recent decades: even if their concrete modalities are debated, no voice is raised against the considerable expansion of schooling to which they lead. Since the 1950s, the rate of baccalaureate holders has increased more than 15-fold . In 1970, 44% of 17-year-olds were in school; today, almost all of them are (96%).

A consensus seems to have been established on the fact that school education would be the best way to instruct and educate a child, to train skilled workers and active citizens. Spreading education more widely would also tend towards more equality of opportunity.

To ask whether these promises have been kept is in no way to contest the value of education. But the same is true of the explosion of schooling as of the development of science and industry which have so enriched our societies but which, by their very dynamic, have damaged nature, produced new inequalities, to the point that we question their infinite expansion… Always more of a good is not necessarily beneficial.

Concerning education, one may wonder whether we are not at the end of a cycle, given that diplomas now punctuate social life, from the daily lives of families to the organization of work, as shown by our survey L’Emprise scolaire – Quand trop d’école tue l’éducation (ed. Presses de Sciences Po, 2024).

A more learned society?

Certainly, opening up access to education has made it possible to significantly raise the level of education of the population, and this was indeed the desired objective. In Europe, France has been a good student , even reaching a higher education graduate rate of over 50% today, higher than the OECD average.

To do this, students, even those with somewhat limited skills, have been actively encouraged to continue their studies. With paradoxical effects today. Of course, since there are more graduates, the level of knowledge has generally increased, but the level of graduates (especially high school graduates) has not increased and, above all, it has become considerably more diverse.

From the end of primary school, the Ministry of Education itself notes a decline in the achievements of the weakest in calculation as in French and an increase in inequalities between students . Similarly, INSEE surveys reveal that if the adult population, who have stayed in school longer, are undoubtedly more “learned”, at the same level of diploma, the older generations are more so .

It is therefore easier to extend the curriculum than to ensure that everyone has acquired the skills they need, in particular to compensate for the difficulties that students encounter in the first years of school. This would require strictly pedagogical investments, aimed at quality rather than quantity.

More qualified workers?

Deeply influenced by the theory of human capital, we believe that more diplomas mean more “profitable” skills for the economy. But graduates would still have to exercise their skills. However, contrary to the “adequacy” prevailing in France, the correspondence between training and employment only exists for a minority of workers. In addition, the flow of young graduates far exceeds the flow of highly qualified jobs to which they aspire, so that many of them find themselves downgraded compared to their hopes and those of their parents .

Furthermore, the notion of qualification tends to be reduced to the diploma held, whereas exercising a profession clearly mobilizes a much more open range of qualities.

Clearly, the promise of equal opportunities has not been kept. While the most selective diplomas continue to “pay”, young people with few or no qualifications are relegated, while the mass of average-level graduates, such as high school graduates and graduates, are swept up in an inflationary process generating a continuous feeling of downgrading.

The triumph of competition and utility

When everything is played out at school, utilitarianism prevails. We first study what is useful for the continuation of studies and for selection. And this tendency is more and more pronounced when mass schooling mechanically accentuates competition. Thus the educational and cultural value of studies counts less than their selective value.

From then on, families choose, sometimes very early, the training and establishments that are considered the most effective and the most selective. When sufficient resources are available, everyone, regardless of their convictions, chooses the best establishments and the best courses in the public and private sectors. In the long term, educational separatism increases with ghettos of the rich and ghettos of the poor.

This logic affects students’ relationship with their studies when they choose what is perceived as profitable rather than what interests them. Surveys show that students are increasingly stressed, as are their parents who put pressure on the school when they can and resort to academic support that can make a difference.

Finally, when all destinies seem to be played out at school, we observe a schooling of family education. Parents are increasingly focusing on academic success. They become “coaches”, and as this mobilization is unevenly effective, it in turn increases educational inequalities, without children and young people seeming to be more fulfilled.

Winners and losers

When schools have a monopoly on sorting and defining merit, they transform the nature and experience of inequality. School careers, even if they remain socially determined, replace the destinies of classes that are undoubtedly unjust but for which individuals were not held responsible. Meritocratic discourse distinguishes the winners, who deserve their successes, from the losers who deserve their failures since they could have succeeded. In this case, either the latter internalize their indignity, or they oppose the school that would have humiliated them.

Over the last thirty years, the nature of electorates has been profoundly transformed and qualifications play a determining role. In a large number of countries, starting with our own, the working class and popular vote, traditionally left-wing, has shifted towards abstention and the extreme right because it has become the vote of non-qualified people who feel scorned by arrogant and haughty elites since they owe their success only to themselves. The electorates of Trump, Brexit and the National Rally are dominated by this rejection of qualified elites.

The dystopia imagined more than sixty years ago by Michael Young, The Rise of the Meritocracy , is coming true. Because it monopolizes the definition of merit, mass education, which promotes democratic values, also engenders self-hatred and hatred of others, distrust of culture and reason, and contempt becomes the most widely shared social emotion.

Do it differently

The exclusive valorization of meritocratic equality of opportunity leads, legitimately, to promoting access for the most deserving students to the best schools and to combating all the subtle discriminations that block the upward mobility of students from modest backgrounds. This policy is hardly contestable, but it is focused solely on access to the elite and leaves out the vast majority of students. However, to be bearable and fair, equality of opportunity requires giving priority to the weakest and those defeated in the competition. This is why common education, in France elementary school and middle school, should ensure the level and education expected of all citizens, and especially the weakest.

If we accept that meritocracy is the least unjust of systems, it is neither fair nor effective for a single institution, the school, to have a monopoly on the definition of merit. Academic skills should not crush those of work itself and it is the whole of society that should take charge of education: businesses of course, but also unions, associations, popular education movements, the media… in order to lighten the burden that crushes the school.

It is neither a question of going backwards with the return of early selection and traditional authority nor of limiting ourselves to putting more resources into education, but of questioning the influence that school is gaining on our society.

Author Bios: Marie Duru-Bellat is Emeritus University Professor of Sociology, Center for Research on Social Inequalities (CRIS) at Sciences Po and Dubet Francois is Emeritus University Professor at the University of Bordeaux