Justifying Meritocracy

The theoretical aim of this paper is to articulate a novel analytical framework that makes sense of our interlocutors’ apparently conflicting claims about the reality of meritocracy in China. The theoretical argument is rooted in ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a Chinese high school, where teachers and working-class students live under the shadows of the demanding and high-stakes university entrance exam (the gaokao). How is it possible to preserve the outwardly inconsistent positions (1) that the gaokao is egalitarian and, thus, fair and (2) that students’ much wealthier counterparts have significantly higher probabilities of success when compared to poorer students? This article argues for the possibility of dynamism in epistemic standards, suggesting that belief in structural systems like meritocracy might be founded in cognitive attempts to maintain the aims of ethical life. Keywords: China, epistemology, ethics, meritocracy, metacognition