Abstract

RAMOS ARCOS, Víctor Hugo. Meritocracy, segregation and agency: differential access to educational opportunities among young people of Mexican origin in Los Angeles, California. Inter disciplina [online]. 2019, vol.7, n.18, pp.81-102.  Epub Dec 11, 2020. ISSN 2448-5705.  https://doi.org/10.22201/ceiich.24485705e.2019.18.68457.

Based on the analysis of differential access to the structure of opportunities as well as to the cumulative processes of advantages/disadvantages, this article explores the educational trajectories in the high school of young people of Mexican origin in Los Angeles, California, both in privileged educational spaces as well as disadvantaged in high school.

The school institution in the United States is analyzed as a reproductive space of social inequalities, through mechanisms such as meritocracy and school intra-segregation, but also as a social space where the emergence of social agency is possible. It shows how some young people achieve better access to the structure of opportunities, either through school inter-segregation and intra-segregation that makes social boundaries more flexible for outstanding students or through the alternate routes that the social agency opens, and how this is especially relevant in disadvantaged educational spaces.

Keywords : social inequalities; undocumented students; education; meritocracy; migration; Mexico-United States.

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