The Meritocratic Legitimacy of Social Mobility: Social Reproduction and Methodological Individualism in the Moroccan Context

Abstract

The Anderson paradox refers to the weak correlation observed between the level of educational attainment achieved and the social position ultimately occupied, independently of that of one’s parents. Based on a documentary analysis and a critical review of the French sociological literature, this article examines the persistence of this paradox through two competing explanatory paradigms. Pierre Bourdieu explains it through social reproduction, operating through the intergenerational transmission of cultural capital. Raymond Boudon explains it through the aggregation of rational individual choices, which collectively produce substantial inequality of educational opportunities. Daniel Bertaux’s earlier contribution, which distinguishes between structural mobility and net mobility, sheds light on the genesis of this opposition. A theoretical framework developed from Weber and Rosanvallon then makes it possible to recast this debate as an issue of political legitimacy specific to systems founded on the promise of meritocracy. These two paradigms are finally confronted with recent empirical evidence from Morocco, where social origin continues to shape the position attained despite educational expansion. The analysis shows that Bourdieu and Boudon converge in their empirical diagnosis while differing in the institutional reforms implied by each paradigm, before identifying two common limitations: the subjective perception of downward mobility and institutional legitimation strategies.