Diploma Disease: Rethinking the Pursuit of Higher Education as a Mediation for Upward Mobility

This paper is rooted in the sociology of education and focuses on the following question: Can a higher degree contribute to upward mobility and resolve class inequality? Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to analyze the meaning and implication of credentialism and social functions, and to attempt to understand what kinds of hidden factors contribute to and construct the meanings of the “diploma disease” in everyday life. As discussed in the literature review, the positions that are argued in this paper agree, to a significant extent, with Bourdieu’s arguments about the distinctions, based on class taste, between the middle and working classes—distinctions that result from habitus, capital, field, and so on; however, Bourdieu’s holistic viewpoint for class distinction seems very problematic in answering the question of why the working class has a dual logic in their everyday lives. That is, working class parents still do their best to offer resources for their kids by using all possible strategies, much as the middle class does when faced with similar educational concerns. Thus, whether we belong to the middle class or the working class, all of us struggle with a diploma disease, which in turn gives rise to different implications. Higher-degree diplomas for the middle class are—rather than operating as a source of upward mobility for the working class—representative consciously and unconsciously of class-based entrenchment. Paradoxically, the priority that the working class sets on gaining paper credentials hypostatizes the idea that a diploma is the best chance for their children’s upward mobility. This suggests Bourdieu’s concept of allodoxia: that the working class could cross the socio-economic boundaries to arrive at the “new” class location through either educational mechanisms or great economic transformations; but it is particularly difficult to cross moral and cultural boundaries. Although it is possible for some working-class people to complete the “objective” requirements for upward mobility into an upper-middle-class location, they still perceive themselves as situated in an “alien” cultural location: they cannot come to be culturally comfortable in their new educational homes. In conclusion, this paper argues that developing a response to the perpetual question of how to break away from the social construction of credentialism may become a new mission in the pursuit of social justice.本研究所關切的是問題為：是否追求更高的文憑可以促成階級的向上流動，並且解決階級的不平等？因此，本研究的主要任務就是分析文憑主義的意義以及其社會運作機制，並且理解是什麼樣的隱藏因素促成並且建構社會普遍存在的文憑病。透過相關的文獻分析，本研究泰半同意Bourdieu關於中產階級與勞動階級之階級品味秀異關係說法，但是他的整體觀點顯然在回答為什麼勞動階級在其日常生活中存有著雙元邏輯時產生了困難。也就是，或許在其他的議題上有著顯著的秀異，但在教育議題上，有時候勞動階級父母仍盡其所能提供子女任何可能的教育資源，就像是中產階級在面對教育關切時所使用的各種策略一樣。因此，不論是中產階級或勞動階級，本文認為全部階級皆患了文憑病，但呈現不同的症狀：更高的學位文憑對中產階級而言，代表著階級地位的維持，但對勞動階級來說，這是一種向上的社會流動。雖然許多的批判理論或批判教育學論述已經指出學校本質上偏袒中產階級背景的學生，但弔詭的是勞動階級卻深信文憑是最好向上流動的機會，就本文看來，這正是Bourdieu所謂的誤認（allodoxia）。換句話說，或許勞動階級能夠透過教育機制或經濟的大變動而跨越社會—經濟的界線而達到新的階級位置，即便如此，勞動階級仍舊難以跨越道德與文化的界線。縱使對某些勞動階級的人有可能完成向上流動的客觀要求，而達到上層－中產階級的位置，但是他們的生活仍是處在疏離的文化位置。因此，本文認為下一步需要從批判教育學所彰顯的精神，來打破文憑主義的社會建構。