Mackenzie Wenner #6

Discuss a current case of “an anticipatory strategy adopted by dominant groups which are threatened with marginalization or exclusion from an emerging nationally-imagined community.

Education. This is a current case, though not at all a new strategy of maintaining dominant status and position. Throughout most of history receiving an education said much more about your lineage and pedigree that innate intelligence. Today a lot of that is gone, but not nearly all – and because education is so important in market based, service based economies, it is still probably the single largest determining factor of future success and class.

With an eye towards social democracy we as a society have taken steps to level the playing field through government action. These include a mandate on public education levels, public funding of education at every level, government backed student loans. In individual institutions one can find need and merit based financial aid, and scholarships in nearly every subject matter imaginable.

With all this of course still remains the ability to leverage financial assets into educational ones in the interest of investing in future generations. I, for instance, am not sure whether I would have gotten into William and Mary had I gone to a public rather than private high school. Similarly I’m positive if my prep school had been a tad more elite I might have attended UPenn or Dartmouth instead.

With all our current attempts to create an egalitarian academic utopia there are of course now means through which family history and wealth affect ones credentials, and I believe they are likely to stay. As long as education remains a valuable commodity in achieving other goals (namely wealth and status), barriers to it will continue to be set up by dominant groups threatened by newcomers.