Bryn Mawr Professor of Sociology David Karen gave a lecture titled "From Harvard to the Olympics: Engaging and Overcoming Meritocracy in the Pursuit of Fairness in Education and Sport" at Aalborg University in Denmark on May 25. He was introduced by Professor Lars Hvilsted Rasmussen, dean of the Faculty of Medicine.
Karen is currently an adjunct professor at Aalborg and has served as a Ph.D. advisor for a student there. He will give a number of lectures at the university during his five-year appointment.
Abstract:
Though Michael Young’s The Rise of the Meritocracy was written as a satirical cautionary tale, his notion of meritocracy has come to be seen as referring to a system that objectively rewards talent. Indeed, compared to what Turner called “sponsored mobility systems,” in which children—sons!—of the upper class were sponsored through elite educational channels into elite positions in the social structure, “contest mobility systems” were supposed to yield outcomes based on an individual’s demonstrated achievement. Over time, these contest systems—based on meritocratic criteria—became associated with fair outcomes and seen as an advance over the kind of aristocratic/ascriptive social closure that had previously been in place. In this talk, I will explore the role that meritocratic ideology plays in both education and sport. Talcott Parsons, the father of American sociology, argued that, as we move from traditional to modern societies, we move from patterns of ascription to achievement. Such a change was supposed to make ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, and, according to Parsons’ students (but not Parsons), gender factors irrelevant in the distribution of societal resources and, especially so, with respect to intergenerational transfer. Examining access to Harvard College and access to elite sport, I discuss the ways that meritocracy is both a goal to be attained and a hurdle to be overcome. After articulating four specific dimensions of fairness (Karen and Washington, 2015), I suggest that social policies can be tailored to specific societal constraints and opportunities in order to maximize the attainment of fair processes and outcomes.
Professor Karen's research and teaching focus on sociology of education, political sociology, sociology of sports, and social stratification.