1. Introduction
Singapore chooses to invest heavily into its education system, overseen by the Ministry of Education (MOE), as it is seen as one of the most important pillars of Singapore society. With no natural resources, Singapore understands that its people are its most valuable resource and thus places great emphasis on ensuring a quality workforce is available to drive Singapore’s economy.
1.1 A Meritocratic Culture
Meritocracy, explained as a “value system by which advancement in society is based on an individual’s ability, performance and achievement”, is a core principle of governance in Singapore (Prakash 2014). Meritocratic principles of rewarding individual merit are strongly upheld by the People’s Action Party (PAP), filtering down at every level of its organization, from the civil service, armed forces, government agencies, to schools (Koh 2014). Meritocracy finds widespread application in Singapore’s education system, with students put through streaming mechanisms to sift out exceptional students identified by their good grades. The ‘merit’ of hard work opens gateways to prestigious scholarships and ‘elite’ schools’. Rewarding merit based solely upon academic results has been problematized as being too ‘narrow’ and has since given rise to recognition of talent in the arts or in sports. In addressing this problem, the government introduced the Direct School Admissions (DSAs) systems allowing students with exceptional talents to be ‘rewarded’ with entry into elite schools.
Criticism of Singapore’s meritocratic system does not stop there. Increasingly, meritocracy has come under fire for causing inequality and elitism. As Moore (2000) finds, Singapore’s discourse of meritocracy fails to perform fairly and equitably. It operates by means of procedural equality, meaning all students are subjected to similar rules and standards of measurement. With this, the MOE argues that students are on equal playing field, judged and stratified fairly based on their abilities. Meritocracy thus overrides accusations of discrimination based on class, race, or ethnicity. Consequently, the argument becomes such that those who work hard are deserving while those who do not are under-deserving of reward; people who rise to the top of the class system are smart, talented, or hardworking. However, despite inherently implying that equal opportunities are available to all, that individuals are rewarded entirely based on the amount of effort they invested, and that the class system works by achieved rather than ascribed characteristics, (McIntyre 2011) the reality is that the meritocratic framework ignores structural conditions that privilege certain individuals over others, allowing them greater chances of achieving success. As a result, there has been a growing congregation of socially and economically privileged students in ‘elite’ schools , a visible widening income gap, and increasing social stratification (Tan 2010).
Despite mounting repercussions, the national doxa of meritocracy still manages to sustain in Singapore as “the doctrine of meritocracy overrides any attempt to pry open issues of class and educational privilege in its education system” (Koh 2014). Meritocratic discourse justifies stratification and leads to a normalisation of elitism which the government puts forward as an unavoidable consequence of PAP nation-building, made necessary so as to sieve out and groom the best students to lead the country in the future (Koh 2014). This national ideology of meritocracy has become accepted and deeply ingrained into the consciousness of Singaporean citizens.
1.2 Research Objective
However, to what extent do Singapore’s university students perceive the education system to be truly meritocratic? How is the meritocratic doxa able to sustain itself and in so doing help to obscure structural inequalities? It is the amalgation of such questions that leads us to this study’s research question: “How do Singaporean students from different class strata experience university differently?” In other words, how does class affect the educational experiences and attainment of students?
This study seeks to give Bourdieu’s concept of habitus due recognition, understanding that habitus plays a role in naturalizing class differences as individual narratives, causing class inequalities to be obscured. As will be further explained in later sections, habitus refers to internalized dispositions that assist in decision-making processes of individuals (Lemert 1991). Individuals embody disparate dispositions due to having been socialized differently by families of varying income levels. A deconstruction of students’ university experiences and an elucidation of unequal class experiences of university students will help us better understand how the meritocratic ideology has been so subsumed into the consciousness of Singaporean individuals, causing class inequalities to become obscured, and in turn, encouraging the continuous reproduction of class inequalities.
This study is sociologically significant as it reveals how internalized dispositions and unwavering belief in the state-espoused meritocratic ideology aid the naturalization of privilege and individualization of outcomes. Class advantages are interpreted as individualistic strategies, revealing individuals’ lack of class-consciousness. Ultimately this allows inequalities to amass and be continuously reproduced.
This study serves to add to current literature on education and inequality in Singapore. By conducting in-depth interviews with individuals from different class backgrounds, gathering personal recounts of their university experiences, this study can proceed to analyze for similarities and differences between students from different class strata.
The research question’s significance lies in the fact that there is great emphasis placed on the individualization of life chances within Singapore’s competitive education system, with successes and failures often attributed to the choices made by individuals alone. With the revelations made in this study, the research hopes to instigate educators and policy makers to improve equity within the educational system, allowing students equal opportunities at getting ahead regardless of class background. The economic imperative of this is best articulated by discourses of globalization and of a rapidly changing knowledge economy. Seeing as Singapore’s economy depends largely on a well-educated citizenry, removing structural barriers, ensuring fair and equitable access to higher education, and sifting out the best and brightest to contribute to Singapore’s nation building should be highly prioritized by the Singaporean government.
In the sections that follow, a review of past literature will be covered. This will include how previous studies have attempted to pin down how class affects students’ educational experiences. Following that, a brief outline of the theoretical framework that guides this research, Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, will be provided. Next, the methodology of this study will be expounded upon in detail. Finally, results from the in-depth interviews conducted will be critically analyzed and discussed.
2. Literature Review
This research paper is a contribution in the sociology of education. This section firstly covers common debates being done in the area of meritocracy within the sociology of education – what have previous studies uncovered about the link between class and students’ educational experiences? Then, an explanation of how a persisting meritocratic doxa makes it difficult to do class analysis in Singapore will be provided. We recognize that there is an unequal playing field for Singaporeans students due to existing structural inequalities, but that this inequality is often rendered invisible in Singaporean society. Bourdieu’s concept of habitus will be taken up to elucidate the role schools and families play in reproducing social inequalities.
While plenty of research has been done on the unequal affective aspects of class experiences within elite schools, there is a lack of research done in university settings to reveal how meritocratic talk is normalized, ultimately rendering invisible any hint of educational inequality pertaining to class differences. As discourses of globalization and of a fast-moving knowledge economy suggest, receiving higher education is granted greater importance than ever. This study is then particularly relevant as there is a need to discover whether there are disadvantages faced by lower income students studying in higher institutes of education. There needs to be a greater understanding as to whether leveling out the playing field is required. The study will find that there is a need to make competition between students a fair one, that individuals currently do not have equal access to life chances or equal chances at getting ahead.
2.1 Class in the Sociology of Education – Structural Explanations of Inequality
Within a research field that examines the relationship between social background and educational attainment, a wide range of theoretical explanations has been advanced to explain how educational systems and institutions perpetuate social hierarchies and class inequalities. The most common understanding is how wealthier families are able to provide more for their children’s education. Tangible advantages in the form of higher levels of economic capital enable the rich to provide more for their children’s education (Teng 2015). In Singapore, a common gripe within the research field of educational inequality is how the rich are financially able to send their children to extracurricular tuition classes thereby giving their children an added advantage. The competitiveness of Singapore’s education system has bred a circle of ‘elite schools’. This itself has led to a connected field of research on the role elite schools has to play in breeding inequality and elitism in Singapore, perpetuating inequality along class lines (Koh 2014).
Another line of reasoning follows how working-class students are structurally disadvantaged. Nikolai and West (2013) contribute to the literature on structural perspectives by elaborating on how parents of different backgrounds navigate institutional features of different school systems differently. While their actions affect the educational attainment of their children, the existence of different school systems attenuates or intensifies the influence of parents’ social background. Parents have to consider the school’s rules and regulations when making important educational decisions for their offspring, and parents may be faced with particular difficulties or restrictions that go on affect their children’s level of access to education, and thereafter, level of educational attainment.
While Nikolai and West focus on institutional arrangements and rules, Reay (2004) investigates parents’ cultural capital as a factor that causes educational inequality. Reay points out how working-class and middle-class mothers’ involvement in children’s schooling harbour differences that can be traced back to the type of cultural capital they have. Middle-class mothers themselves performed well in school and grow to have a sense of entitlement and confidence that assists them in negotiating with teachers. In contrast, working-class mothers lack self-certainty and are less able to argue their case when pitted against teachers. Consequentially, they are unable to access the same range of options as the middle-class mothers, unable to support their children’s schooling or intervene in their children’s educational trajectory adequately, and this impacts the quality of education their children receive (Reay 2004).
2.2 Class in the Sociology of Education – Individualised Narratives
This study now moves away from factors that fall external to the individual in explaining class-based educational inequality.
In a study of adolescents in St Paul’s school, Khan (2011) determines how persistent class structures are obscured in our social world today. His study shows how privilege of ease is an embodied interactional resource, and in being embodied, habits work to obfuscate inequalities in a meritocratic system. This is what he introduces as the “trick of privilege” concept: embodiment of privilege in an open society helps to uphold meritocracy. Individuals themselves internalize successes and failures as their own. However divergent the results are between members of higher and lower income classes, obtained results are perceived as normal and creditable outcomes. Hierarchies become accepted as normal and become naturalized. Structural inequalities become obscured or overlooked via this embodiment of privilege by individuals. Khan’s research reveals how lived experiences matter in perpetuating inequalities; how dispositions are shaped on an everyday basis; how the disadvantaged work alongside the advantaged in allowing inequalities to exist (Khan 2011).
Lehmann (2013) further elaborates on how individualised narratives can assist the perpetuation of class inequalities. His study shows that the relationship between social class and educational opportunities is mediated by individual students’ own narrative constructions. An individual does this by evoking class origins, drawing up classed moralities, in order to explain situations the self finds itself in. Lehmann investigates how working-class university students evoke their working class origins to explain their situations, taking up class-adaptive strategies such as strong work ethic, maturity, and responsibility, to overcome structural disadvantages. The students’ narratives lack class consciousness, and thus may be interpreted as individualistic narratives, but their moral dispositions are rooted in their upbringing as working-class subjects. Just as importantly, Lehmann’s findings of how class affects the experiences of those who make it to university suggest that widening access to higher education is not enough, and that reducing inequality requires understanding students’ diverse needs for support.
Similarly, Reay, Crozier, & Clayton (2010) highlight the creative adaptations and multi-faceted responses of nine working-class students at elite universities in response to unfamiliar challenges. Students display dispositions of self- scrutiny and self-improvement – almost ‘a constant fashioning and re-fashioning of the self’ but one that still retains key valued aspects of a working-class self. The study’s findings reveals both the advantages and tensions experienced by working-class students who draw on aspects of their working-class backgrounds to achieve academic success in an elite higher education institution.
Evoking class to manage difficulties as a strategy to navigate university life is also explored in Moreau & Leathwood’s (2006) study of working(-class) students in higher education and how they balance paid work and studies. Similar to the above, students from different social classes create different meanings of paid work and pick up different strategies of managing work and education. The extent and impact of paid work reflect the students’ social class differences. The study highlights that engagement in paid work during term time impacts students, with the most negative impacts experienced by working-class students, and this risks exacerbating inequalities. The study also highlights the importance of looking beyond academic achievement and into the quality of student experiences in university in analysing class differences.
2.3 Class Inequalities in Singapore’s Education System
Koh (2014) rides on Khan’s work in his study of elite education and ‘meritocratic talk’ in Singapore. Koh (2014) argues that doing class analysis in Singapore is complex as Singapore’s ideology of meritocracy overrides criticisms of education inequality in Singapore. He shows how unhappiness regarding increasing class stratification and elitism in Singapore are compounded by the government’s normalization of elitism. The government normalized elitism as an unavoidable consequence of meritocratic practices that can otherwise be regarded as talent selection, which is critical as it helps sieve out forerunners to govern the nation. The national doxa of meritocracy creates a belief environment in Singapore that leads to and is perpetuated by institutional practices that echo this dogma of meritocracy. ‘Doxa’ refers to a set of core values and discourses that has come to be regarded as inherently true and necessary (Lemert 1991). Meritocracy has become not only a national ideology but a commonsense truth so embedded in the consciousness of Singaporeans, that it can be said to be a national doxa. Koh argues that this national doxa helps obscure the inequalities prevalent in Singapore’s “meritocratic system”.
By highlighting that there is a “belief environment” where meritocracy is perpetuated constantly; that individuals themselves accept meritocracy as commonsense; that elitist practices are naturally produced consequences, Koh’s study (2014) parallels that of Khan (2011), suggesting that a “trick of privilege” exists within Singaporean society. However, Koh’s study is limited as it fails to delve into the everyday lived experiences of individuals. As elaborated in section 2.2, individuals show creative abilities, constructing individual narratives to explain their successes and failures. Individual narratives then help to naturalize inequalities in society. Individuals are able to justify their privilege with the help of their internalized dispositions and constructed narratives. The importance of individual narratives in obscuring the pertinence of structural inequalities and further perpetuating class inequalities in society is a point for further investigation.
It is in this study’s interest to further investigate how such class inequalities are being obscured today. Using Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, this study seeks to find out how inequalities are rendered invisible in Singapore’s universities. How do Singaporean students from different class strata experience university differently? How do educational experiences and attainment of students differ based on class lines? How are these differences and similarities explained away and made justifiable by individual constructions of personalized narratives, ultimately rendering inequalities invisible?
3. Theoretical Framework – ‘Habitus’ by Bourdieu
Bourdieu argues for habitus to be the most important mechanism that causes social reproduction of inequalities (Lemert 1991). As he explains, habitus “naturalizes itself and the cultural rules, agendas and values that make it possible” (Webb, Schirato and Danaher 2002:40). In explaining habitus, it is pertinent to note that Bourdieu’s concept of habitus is not a deterministic one. Neither does it support rational-choice theory. Rather, it serves to bridge the dualisms of agency and structure, the objective and the subjective.
Habitus is best understood as an internalization of dispositions, a process that allows habits to be formed. Internalised dispositions affect subsequent courses of action. But while a key function of habitus is that it “predisposes” individuals to act according to what they have internalised from past experiences, it does not “determine”. Habits are a driving force of people’s actions, yet not an exclusive factor, as humans have the ability to be critical, reflexive, and adaptive.
Habitus alone does not explain human action. Other than internalised dispositions, Bourdieu talks about the concepts of ‘field’ and ‘capital’. Habitus is linked to a field, functioning in the present. The field, with its constraints and opportunities, mediates the dispositions of habitus. The individual has valued resources, or what Bourdieu terms as ‘capital’, which can exist in economic, cultural, social, or symbolic forms. Levels of capital differ according to one’s social class, and this affects what possible consequent courses of action are open to the individual.
In Singapore, the most pertinent advantage of having greater economic capital is that students can afford access to extracurricular tuition services. Cultural and social capital are the less tangible advantages wielded by higher income students. Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital covers “a broad array of linguistic competencies, manners, preferences and orientations, which, Bourdieu terms ‘subtle modalities in the relationship to culture and language’ (Reay 2002). Bourdieu identifies three variants of cultural capital: first, in the embodied state incorporated in mind and body. This embodied state is shaped by primary caregivers such as parents, other family members, and hired professionals. The second form of cultural capital exists in institutional forms such as educational qualifications. The third form of cultural capital exists in objectified forms. This refers to cultural products such as books or paintings (Reay 2002). It is to the first form of cultural capital that this research paper seeks to argue as a great mitigating factor, affecting the educational opportunities and life chances of students that come from divergent economic backgrounds and inherit and embody different types of cultural capital.
To elaborate upon the first form of cultural capital, that of an embodied state incorporated in mind and body of a young child, shaped by influencers within the immediate environment such as the family, it is pertinent to note that working-class families and middle-class families take up different parenting styles, thereby inculcating in their offspring different skills and capabilities (Lareau 2002). Middle-class families manage to impart to their children a more valuable set of skills and capabilities. “Value” is decided by sole virtue of the fact that these skills and capabilities are held in greater esteem within the social world. In educational institutions, these skills and capabilities are recognised and rewarded over that of working-class skills and capabilities. This is reflective of systemic inequality, and with working-class habitus accumulating and reproducing over generations, how the working-class is disadvantaged within the educational system is a cause for concern. (Tan 2016; see also Lareau 2002)
In sum, habitus allows us to understand how human conduct can be both regular yet unpredictable, for actions taken up by individuals depend on the interaction of an individual’s habitus, fields, and type and levels of capital. (Swartz 2002)
Following this, the study hopes to deconstruct the naturalness of students’ university experiences, to better understand how class differences are naturalised as individual narratives. In so doing, this will help uncover how the myth of meritocracy is perpetuated and class inequalities obscured consequently. Investigating this concept allows us to break away from the typical notion as perpetuated by a sustaining myth of meritocracy: that success or failure is based on the amount of hard work and effort invested by an individual, or innate ability such as intelligence and giftedness.