1 - Introduction: Aristotle’s curse

Summary

Hierarchy and privilege in education: an old story in new language?

Anya Kamenetz (2022) observed: ‘For the majority of human history, most people didn't go to school. Formal education was a privilege for the Alexander the Greats of the world who could hire Aristotles as private tutors.’ Aristotle (384–322 bce) is widely regarded as one of the greatest philosophers in human history. His thinking continues to shape our social and educational world views over two millennia later. In modern society what is called ‘the invention of childhood’ has made public education at primary and secondary levels compulsory up to the mid-teens (Aries, 1973). But at least half the Western population are left behind when it comes to participation in higher education, creating a new form of stratification in society that reflects the durability of hierarchical classical social and cultural attitudes towards access to the knowledge.

Meritocracy during modernity has replaced aristocracy in the perpetuation of an elite society, creating a conflict with the core republican values of liberty, equality and solidarity, which are the foundation principles of modern democracy. Access programmes help to redress educational inequality, but they do not fundamentally change the social structure and meritocratic culture that characterises higher education in an elitist world. As one former disadvantaged student, who achieved a PhD, has asserted (The Irish Times, 18 September 2021):

I’m what is commonly known as an ‘access’ student: I come from ‘an under-represented group’. I am a charity case, an experiment. I am one of the students that was allowed in because someone fought hard against the elite education system that believes that intelligence is measured by school performance. Someone recognised that people like me also had the potential to be people like you.

Widening participation in higher education is arguably the greatest challenge facing democracy in building a ‘knowledge society’ during the 21st century. The renowned Brazilian educationist Paulo Freire explains why: ‘Education … is the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world’ (CivicEducation.org, 2021). Professor Linda Doyle (Provost, Trinity College Dublin) has stated, ‘I think access and excellence are not opposing things’ (Doyle, 2021).