Merit as an interpretive framework: A systematic review of meritocratic subjectivity in higher education

Abstract

This article identifies and synthesizes scientific literature on the meritocratic ideology in its subjective dimension over the last 10 years in America and Europe. From the sociology of education, the theoretical analyzes of how individual merit is one of the contemporary values that legitimizes different social positions and deepens social inequality. The PRISMA protocol was used to review empirical studies that addressed merit and meritocracy in Higher Education, published in the last decade (2015-2025) in WoS and Scopus databases. The analysis of 29 articles indicates that merit is presented as an objective value; however it is a subjective social construct articulated through internal attribution off success/failure (individual agency), the influence of habitus on aspirations, and its use as an identity strategy for protection or personal validation. In the context of higher education, it is symbolically reproduced through discourses, narratives, and metaphors, which generates certain tensions within individuals -such a questioning, ambivalence, and rejection- in facing the challenges of contemporary life, as well as difficulties in imagining alternatives.