Assessing Meritocracy

Scholars examine how meritocracy functions across societies and how it shapes inequality and opportunity.
Conference | One-Time Event
Location The University of Chicago John W. Boyer Center in Paris 41 rue des Grands Moulins 75013 Paris, France
Organizers Steven Durlauf, Geoffrey Wodtke
Featured Speakers Aaron Reeves, Alexander (Sasha) Shapoval, Andrei Markevich, Debopam Bhattacharya, Fabian Pfeffer, Jahel Queralt, Agnès Van Zanten, Daniel Markovits, Harry Brighouse, Kristina Butaeva, Zachary Bleemer, Steven Durlauf

Assessing Meritocracy will bring together international academics to explore normative and positive dimensions of meritocracy, with some focus on comparative aspects of meritocratic institutions across regions. We aim to develop work on meritocracy that employs commonalities and heterogeneities between countries in order to understand how different societies have operationalized meritocracy and how this operationalization has realized meritocratic goals and affected inequality. This conference is the second in a series and will generate long-term collaborations with interdisciplinary scholars interested in evaluating the positive and normative aspects of meritocracy.

Participation is by invitation only.

Schedule

Thursday, February 26

Start Time End Time Session Session Leader
9:30 a.m. 10:00 a.m. Breakfast & Registration  
10:00 a.m. 10:10 a.m. Opening Remarks  Michele Lowrie
10:10 a.m. 11:00 a.m. Meritocracy and Equality of Opportunity Harry Brighouse
11:00 a.m. 11:50 a.m. Accidents of Affluence: Sibling Correlations in Wealth Fabian Pfeffer
11:50 a.m. 12:05 p.m. Coffee Break  
12:05 p.m. 12:55 p.m. Meritocracy Misunderstood: Ideological Critiques and the Normative Core Jahel Queralt
12:55 p.m. 1:55 p.m. Lunch  
1:55 p.m. 2:45 p.m. Work and School in the Age of Growth

Daniel Markovits
2:45 p.m. 3:35 p.m. Social Mobility and Persistence of Elites in Times of Regime Change: Evidence from the 1917 Russian Revolution Andrei Markevich
3:35 p.m. 3:50 p.m. Coffee Break  
3:50 p.m. 4:40 p.m. Intergenerational Mobility in Late Qing Dynasty (1783–1909) Kristina Butaeva
4:40 p.m. 5:30 p.m. The Meritocratic Consensus and Stratification in Higher Education Zachary Bleemer
7:30 p.m. 9:30 p.m. Private Conference Dinner  

 

Friday, February 27

Start Time End Time Session Session Leader
9:30 a.m. 09:50 a.m. Breakfast   
9:50 a.m. 10:40 a.m. Common People? The Elite Market for Ordinariness and how it Legitimises Income Inequality Aaron Reeves
10:40 a.m. 11:30 a.m. Inferring Trade-offs in University Admissions Debopam Bhattacharya
11:30 a.m. 11:45 a.m. Coffee Break  
11:45 p.m. 12:35 p .m. Assessing Merit in French Affirmative Action Programmes Agnès Van Zanten
12:35 p.m. 1:25 p.m. Inclusion or Exclusion? Arguments Involving Meritocracy

Steven Durlauf

Alexander Shapoval
1:25 p.m. 1:25 p .m. Boxed Lunches To Go  

This program is jointly supported by the Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and the International Institute of Research in Paris.