Is there any social mobility - Left?

An Educational Reflection by the hand of Antonio Gramsci -

Since Trump assumed his first term as president of the United (?) States, the world has started a difficult conversation and trend. Right-wing movements are proliferating across different continents and countries, and politics close to the left or even the center of the scope are losing traction in terms of voters. Even young people are jumping in mass to vote for these projects, such as Milei in Argentina, Trump in the US, several examples in Europe, etc.

Now, the answers are in politics, that is true, but education reflects political ideas in place and the system to perpetuate them. Education is the answer to this issue. Focusing on education and providing it with essential changes might give the center or left movements a chance to fight back. To provide a brief theoretical framework, I want to bring an Italian thinker; sadly for him, Italy is also going through a similar process; however, even though it will be sad, it will not surprise him. I am referring to Antonio Gramsci.

Gramsci wrote about education, and for him, two kinds existed. On the one hand, education for the rich clasess, and on the other hand, education for the poor. The first one would be called a disinterested education, for the sake of nourishing the soul and mind, the latter, just an instrumental education, destined to train the second class citizens on how to fulfill a mechanic work. The educational systems were in place by the political power to function in this way and perpetuate the status quo towards these two kinds of education. The intellectuals, including teachers, had an enormous power in their hands to change this. However, the school's structures were in place to prevent them from doing so. So politics, educational systems, and even within the classrooms, everything was in place to keep the different social classes doing what they were supposed to do by the book... one with nourished souls and the others with skilled hands.

However, after liberal reforms and a massive expansion of access to higher education, many people believed that meritocracy had won the fight and that education was not as elitist as Gramsci described so long ago. Nonetheless, that was a momentary mirage. In the beginning, with the creation of thousands of new universities, people believed the poor were finally entering to compete with the rich. However, after a while, we discover that among all those institutions, we have the universities for the rich and the universities for the poor.

The result is evident. We have poorer and richer degrees, and thus, people from different social classes, whether they enter higher education or not, find themselves relegated to places where society planned to put them in the first place. In other words, even after time and resources are invested in the promise of social mobility through its supposedly ideal vehicle—education—they find themselves with ever more useless degrees, concerning debts, and robust frustrations.

Returning to our times, what happens when the meritocratic promise is broken? What happens when the ideal vehicle for social mobility, that is to say, education and hard work, is no longer strong enough to perpetuate the oasis of the nineties? Well, the answer is simple... The population gets far away from the new 'leftist' elites and starts doubting all the establishments without distinction... "I studied hard," they tell themselves, "I believed them"... "I put my money into my education."... Nonetheless, why are only politicians the ones with social rewards and not us? Why are our jobs ever more precarious, our ideas ever less heard, and our neighbors ever more dangerous?

After those types of questions, the answer is simple: "Give me whoever wants to go against the establishment, not because I am stupid, as some media want to say, but because I am mad, and I don't believe the old story anymore."

If we want to make a change, let us re-read great thinkers, philosophers, and politicians... those who bet on education as a powerful tool for social mobility. Let us give people a fair chance to improve their circumstances with their effort and knowledge, and let us stop the two kinds of education. Let's make education a fair game. Let us strengthen education with proper social mobility. Only then can we expect to regain the people's trust and try to regain the agenda of future challenges.

#Education #SocialMobility #HigherEducation #PoliticalTrends #EducationalEquity #SocioeconomicInequality #Meritocracy