Transcript Ghent 2013 values and social mobility – meritocracy

Can Social Science Tell
Us Whether A Society
Is Meritocratic?
A Weberian Critique
Martyn Hammersley
The Open University
UK
University of Ghent, October 2013
Focus of the paper
A great deal of research on social mobility, and
on educational and social inequalities more
generally, has claimed to document respects
in which particular societies are not
meritocratic.
I want to raise some questions about whether
sociology, or social science more generally,
can answer the question of whether or not a
society is meritocratic or is inequitable.
I also want to highlight some important limits on
the knowledge that sociology can produce
about inequalities.
Why Max Weber?
• I believe that his methodological position is
largely correct.
• Much work on social mobility has drawn on his
substantive work, but it has not taken proper
account of his methodological views.
• Indeed, despite his status as a founding figure,
much the same is true of the rest of sociology.
• So, my general argument here applies to many
other sociological fields, not just the study of
social mobility or of educational and social
inequalities.
Weber’s position
Value neutrality. Social science can only validate
factual claims, not value conclusions. It must
therefore be carried out in a way that is, as far
as possible, neutral towards practical (i.e. nonepistemic) values: those concerned with what is
good or bad, how society ought to be, etc.
Value relevance. Unlike natural science, social
research focuses upon individual phenomena,
rather than aiming at universal laws, and these
phenomena must be selected for investigation
on the basis of practical values, and studied
within a particular value-relevance framework.
Epistemic and non-epistemic values
Social scientists are, by the very nature of their
task, committed to epistemic values: to the goal
of producing knowledge, and therefore to the
value of truth.
However, the practical, that is non-epistemic,
values to which they are committed should not
constitute their operational goal, nor must these
values distort pursuit of that goal. The only
legitimate role they can play is in furnishing a
value-relevance framework (and in operating as
ethical constraints on how the research is
carried out).
An outline of my argument
• If we adopt this Weberian position, it is not
possible for sociology to answer the question of
whether or not a society is meritocratic, or to
identify inequities, since this relies upon
practical value judgments.
• What it can do is to study society within a
particular, and explicit, set of assumptions
about what would be meritocratic or equitable,
one that is inevitably open to challenge.
• This places important limitations on the nature
of the conclusions that can be presented on the
basis of the research.
The meritocratic model
Most research on this topic adopts a particular
meritocratic model, with the following features:
It is generally concerned with whether the
chances of attaining high-level occupational
positions are affected by social class origin or
the income level of parents.
It documents deviation from this ideal, and
explains this in terms of discrimination (within
the education system, in occupational
recruitment, etc) and/or depression of the
aspirations of working class people caused by
material or cultural factors.
Limits operating within this model
• What is treated as in need of explanation is
discrimination and low aspirations, as defined
by the meritocratic model. Absence of
discrimination and high aspirations are treated
as normal and not in need of explanation.
• These types of deviation from the meritocratic
model are explained as the product either of
vested interests (in the case of discrimination,
usually) or factors acting behind the backs of
actors (in the case of depressed aspirations).
Oversimplification?
• Why should everyone aspire to be an
investment banker, top civil servant,
government minister, etc? Is the reason why
people do not have these aspirations because
they have been caused not to (Murphy 1981)?
• What exactly counts as discrimination? How to
decide what is relevant or should be rewarded?
The peculiar case of educational discrimination:
the award of privileges on the basis of ‘an
individual’s intellectual achievements, formal
credentials, […] or native academic ability’
(Tannock 2008).
The meritocratic model as ideal type
• What we have here is a model that is an ideal
type in Weber’s terms, one that not only
simplifies reality but also views it from the point
of view of a particular value-relevance
framework.
• In this respect it has the same character as that
much-maligned species homo economicus.
• But the response to the limitations of such
models should not be to demand a model that
captures the full complexity of social life, but
rather to recognise their limitations, as well as
what they enable us to understand.
My argument in summary
• It is not that this body of research is defective in
its substantial findings; though there are of
course many questions that can be asked about
the validity of particular findings.
• My points are more limited, but also more
fundamental, ones – that this research:
a. typically exceeds what is legitimate by drawing
evaluative and prescriptive conclusions; and
b. fails to be explicit about the assumptions on
which it relies, about the limits these impose,
and about the fact that different assumptions
would often produce quite different findings.
Conclusion
• Research on meritocracy, and on social class
differentials in social mobility and educational
achievement more generally, tells us a good
deal less than is usually claimed or assumed.
• It cannot tell us whether there are inequities,
except relative to a particular value-relevance
framework.
• And it cannot provide explanations that are
independent of all value-relevance frameworks.
• If we claim otherwise we turn sociology into
ideology.
Bibliography
Allen, A. (2011) ‘Michael Young’s The Rise of the Meritocracy: a philosophical critique’,
available at:
http://www.shef.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.155163!/file/philosophicalcritique.pdf
Bruun, H. H. (2007), Science, Values and Politics in Max Weber’s Methodology
(Second edition), Aldershot, Ashgate.
Bruun, H. and Whimster, S. (eds) (2012) Max Weber: Collected methodological
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Hammersley, M. (1995) The Politics of Social Research, London, Sage.
Hammersley, M. (2000) Taking Sides in Research, London, Routledge.
Hammersley, M. (forthcoming 2014) The Limits of Social Science, London, Sage
Murphy, J. (1981) 'Class inequality in education: two justifications, one evaluation but
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Swift, A. (2004) ‘Would perfect mobility be perfect?’, European Sociological Review,
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Tannock, S. (2008) ‘The problem of education‐ based discrimination’, British Journal of
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