The Double Contradiction - Education Gospel and Education Penalty
Abstract
The wishful thinking of education-jobs-development promise has formed within the emergence of the trinity of the knowledge economy, meritocracy and human capital theory embedded in education ideology. The take-for-granted promise is idealized and deceptive, which largely ignores the interplay of other variables. The education arms race, credential inflation, overeducation, the dilemma of liberal arts and humanity subjects, and education penalties for employees, especially student workers, have exposed another side of the seemingly promising trinity. In this sense, the absolute goodness of education has gradually tilted toward relative or positional goodness, suggesting an alienated structure which simultaneously constrains individuals. Focusing on the paradoxes of the trinity specifically, allows people to not only scrutinize the overall picture and interconnection of those educational settings but also how education shapes and reshapes different stakeholders. This essay expounded the traps of the trinity, indicating meritocracy reproduces inequality and its premise on ability-based placement is also flawed. Heavily human-capital-based-idealogy alienates education. People with knowledge do not necessarily gain high-income jobs. The paper suggests a reconnection and review on education purposes for education stakeholders and the construction of a working environment legal protective framework to embrace the increasing student workforce.
References
- OECD. (2020). Education at a Glance 2020: OECD Indicators. Paris: OECD Publishing.
- Littler, J. (2017). Against meritocracy: Culture, power and myths of mobility. Routledge.
- Plato. (2009). The Republic. Cambridge University Press.
- OECD. (1996). The knowledge-based economy. Paris: OECD.
- Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J. C. (1990). Reproduction in education, society and culture. Sage Publications.
- Young, M. (2001). Down with meritocracy. The Guardian.
- Sukarieh, M., and S. Tannock. (2009). Putting School Commercialism in Context. Journal of Education Policy, 24 (6), 769-786.
- Kariya, T. (2011). Credential inflation and employment in "universal" higher education: enrolment, expansion and (in)equity via privatisation in Japan. Journal of Education and Work, 24(1-2), 69-94.
- Araki, S. (2020). Educational Expansion, Skills Diffusion, and the Economic Value of Credentials and Skills. American Sociological Review, 85(1), 128-175.
- Bills, D. B. (2016). Congested credentials: The material and positional economies of schooling. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 43, 65-70.
- Hanushek, E. A., Guido, S., Ludger, W. and Zhang, L. (2017). General Education, Vocational Education, and Labor-Market Outcomes over the Lifecycle. Journal of Human Resources, 52(1), 48-87.
- Vogtenhuber, S. (2018). The Institutional Conditions of Inequality in Credential and Skill Attainment and Their Impact on Occupational Placement. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 55, 13-24.
- Araki, S. and Kariya, T. (2022). Credential Inflation and Decredentialization: Re-Examining the Mechanism of the Devaluation of Degrees. European Sociological Review, 38(6).
- Webber, D. (2018). Is College Worth It? Going Beyond Averages. Third Way.
- Thurow, L. C. (2017). A Job Competition Model. 17–32.