(Re)production of the Contemporary Elite Through Higher Education - A Review of Critical Scholarship

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Mary Man

This article examines how elite status in the United States is (re)produced through higher education institutions, especially highly selective ones. It reviews critical, interdisciplinary scholarship on socioeconomic inequality, elitism, and higher education. Using neoliberal ideology and meritocracy as analytical frameworks, it explains how prestige-focused trends intensify inequality and foster class reproduction, including the shift toward treating wealth derived from income as fair, deserved, and natural when reinforced by prestigious universities.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages18

Reading Time45 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Core argument and framework (elite reproduction, neoliberalism, meritocracy)

Income/wealth inequality patterns and empirical background

Hypermeritocracy and the link between inheritance and income

Implications for education and institutional practices

UC Berkeley Berkeley Review of Education Title (Re)production of the Contemporary Elite Through Higher Education: A Review of Critical Scholarship Permalink [https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6bq2x6r7](https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6bq2x6r7) Journal Berkeley Review of Education, 8(1) Author Shamash, Rebecca Publication Date 2018 DOI 10.5070/B88134482 Peer reviewed [eScholarship.org](eScholarship.org) Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Available online at [http://](http://eScholarship.org/uc/ucbgse_bre)[eS](http://eScholarship.org/uc/ucbgse_bre)[cholarship.org/uc/ucbgse_bre](http://eScholarship.org/uc/ucbgse_bre) (Re)production of the Contemporary Elite Through Higher Education: A Review of Critical Scholarship Rebecca Shamash 1 University of Minnesota Abstract This article addresses how the elite class in the United States is (re)produced by and through institutions of higher education, especially the most selective institutions. Through a review of critical, interdisciplinary research on socioeconomic inequality, elitism, and higher education, this paper begins with an overview of contemporary economic inequality and a description of the “new elites” that benefit from this inequality. Using neoliberal ideology and meritocracy as frameworks, I then discuss how recent and current trends in higher education have allowed colleges and universities, particularly those considered most prestigious, to intensify inequality and contribute to class reproduction. Specifically, as the role of income supersedes that of inheritance in fueling inequality, outsized wealth can be much more easily claimed as fair and deserved and simply a natural byproduct of a system—supported by prestigious institutions of higher education—that rewards individual drive, intelligence, and virtue. Keywords: social class, higher education, meritocracy, neoliberalism, inequality Despite a period of historically low levels of socioeconomic inequality between the wake of the Great Depression and the 1970s, the distribution of income and wealth in the United States has now diverged to mirror levels of inequality not experienced since the early 20th century (Piketty & Saez, 2003) . As of 2010, the top decile of Americans took home 48% of the national income, with the top 1% earning 20%, and the top thousandth receiving 7.5%(Piketty, 2014) . This consolidation at the top has been fueled by an unprecedented correlation between inherited wealth and income, a relationship that has strengthened since its emergence around 1980 when the top hundredth claimed 10% of the national income, and the top thousandth claimed just over 2% . Piketty (2014) argues that the coupling of inherited wealth and income can be explained by the rise of a hypermeritocratic society, a system of extreme inequality developed in the United States over the last couple of decades that exchanges a bourgeoisie of rentiers, whose wealth is primarily inherited, for one of supermanagers, which includes “top executives of large firms who have managed to obtain extremely high, historically unprecedented compensation packages for their labor”(p. 302) . Whereas overall inequality has been as great in the past as it is today, the highest earners have never garnered such a large percentage of the national income. For example, from 1977 to 2007, three-quarters ofthe 1 Correspondence regarding this article should be sent to Rebecca Shamash, 975 Sutter St. Apt 8, San Francisco, CA 94109. Email: [shama011@umn.edu](shama011@umn.edu). Berkeley Review of Education Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 5–21 6 Shamash national growth in income went to the wealthiest 10% of Americans, and 60% was captured by the top one percent alone. Accordingly, in 1928, income from returns on capital—as opposed to income from employment—was the primary financial resource for the top 1%, whereas in 2007 it was only the top tenth of a percent who relied primarily on ca

FAQs

What central question does the article address?

How the U.S. elite class is (re)produced through higher education institutions, with emphasis on the most selective colleges and universities.

Which frameworks does the article use to analyze elite reproduction?

Neoliberal ideology and meritocracy are used as the main frameworks to explain how education trends intensify inequality and enable class reproduction.

How does the article describe the role of wealth derived from income versus inheritance?

It argues that as income becomes a more prominent driver of inequality, outsized wealth can be framed as fair and deserved—supported by prestigious higher education institutions that reward individual drive and virtue.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Mary Man