Solving Inequality by Acculturating the Poor? Mexican Elites’ (Un)Faltering Adherence to Education Under Changing Social and Political Conditions

First Shock

The first shock refers to a discursive transition toward a new modality of social policy, which regards inequality as a political problem that can be addressed and social program beneficiaries as deserving regardless of work or school performance, initiated by the arrival of AMLO to the presidency of Mexico in 2018. Long anticipated and feared by the elites—“Prioritize the poor” read AMLO’s campaign slogan—during his mandate AMLO expanded welfare programs for the elderly, youth, and people with disabilities.

AMLO’s presidency transformed the education system significantly: elementary school textbooks were reformulated, compulsory education was expanded to include the tertiary level, the new Benito Juárez Welfare Universities were created, and scholarships were issued for students of all levels (Instituto Mexicano para la Competitividad, 2023). Notwithstanding, although the budget proposal for education in 2024 exceeds that of 2023 by 2.9%, it is 8.2% lower than in 2015 (Moreno & Cedillo, 2023). Therefore, the last increase is insufficient to reverse the lag accumulated in past years (Moreno & Cedillo, 2023), increasing the relative weight of discursive changes.

Second Shock

The other shock is related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the concomitant decrease in the population’s learning. In the spring of 2020, the country transitioned to remote education, which was kept until fall 2021. Even assuming that one day of distance education is qualitatively equivalent to one day of in-person teaching, the national estimate of schooling years missed is 0.3 (0.4 for the country’s south), increasing substantially if quality is assumed to be worse (Monroy-Gómez-Franco et al., 2021). While these lags affect students of all levels and across units, the effect is particularly acute for low-income students in public institutions, given their limited ability to offset these effects by private tutoring or homeschooling.

Knowledge About Inequality

Interviewees both before and after the shocks in Mexico are broadly aware of social inequality, and as opposed to those in other countries (like Finland or the United Kingdom) tend to consider it a predicament. Thus, they offer explanations about its foundations and consequences, identify its manifestations and imagine, depending on the expected returns, strategies to combat it. Although some frame it as not necessarily negative, even “to a certain degree just” (A17), in the experienced subsample, most of them (all of the upcoming) agree that it is a serious problem that is related to other phenomena particularly harmful to society such as drug trafficking, insecurity and poverty. While few of them consider their own involvement in this problem, the majority does not hesitate to condemn it.

I think that Mexico’s inequality problem is complicated because it is an inequality of income, access [to opportunities], and circumstances in every sense. . .it is very complex. Definitely, my opinion is that it is not good. . . (B1).

This condemnation is presented in different degrees. It almost disappears when the outcomes that inequality causes at the top of the socioeconomic distribution are taken into account. Several interviewees commented explicitly that, in reality, the problem of inequality is not that a few hands accumulate most of the country’s income and wealth because some of them generate the greatest part of social “well-being” (B4). However, the condemnation is strong when considering the effects that fall on people with limited resources: lack of education, insufficient access to quality food, among others. Thus, interviewees disapprove of but tolerate inequality, although they rarely (never in the upcoming subsample) openly justify it. Their moral judgment changes depending on the population segment in which they see the consequences of inequality.

Interviewees primarily locate inequality in the lower part of the socioeconomic distribution. In line with this conflation of inequality with poverty, their reduction proposals, instead of considering the establishment of higher tax rates for the rich, aim at expanding opportunities for people at the low end of the distribution. Thus, those at the bottom should be allowed, or even pushed, to improve their situation, leaving unchanged the means that allow those at the top to improve their social position. From this follows the type of equality they prefer: one of opportunities, but not of results. Their ideal world is one where everyone can become rich, regardless of whether only some do it.

It is regrettable that other people lack the opportunities to grow their assets. I am not against people with money, because in the end they create jobs. I am against [the fact] that opportunities, as it happens within companies, are very limited in the country (B2).

Framings diverge when considering the paths out of inequality. The focus of interviewees in the experienced subsample on individual responsibility as the main determinant of outcomes means that as long as “the poor” do not “starve to death” (A7) inequalities need to be resolved by “working one’s own luck” (A18). Conversely, assuming little agency among individuals at the lower end of the wealth distribution, members of the upcoming subsample believe that inequality promotes a vicious cycle that hampers upward mobility processes of disadvantaged people. The cycle operates as follows: having scarce opportunities, individuals are pushed to go for “easy money” (mainly through crime) instead of the more sensible but harder road of education, which in the long run prevents them, as will be shown next, from improving their situation.

All things considered, both subsamples are highly aware of social inequality. They see it as a problem experienced mainly by the poor and to be resolved via an expansion of opportunities. However, their respective perceptions diverge in two fundamental ways: only the members of the upcoming subsample refrain from justifying inequality and are engaged in a framing style that stresses the weight of structural obstacles. This switch from just to unjust and from individual to structural conditions might be owed in part by the far-reaching changes in public discourse that normalized the concern over inequality both due to the governmental slogan of priority access for the poor and a broader (global) paradigm change regarding inequality perceptions, as reflected in the quotations below. After the shocks, young members of the Mexican elite seem to share the spirit of the government whose measures they openly oppose.

Education and Inequality

Interviewees from both subsamples consider that education contributes to social inequality through two mechanisms. The first fosters a kind of vicious circle: people who accumulate greater disadvantages cannot study because they have to work. Moreover, they cannot get well-paid jobs because, not having gone to school, they lack the skills necessary to be attractive workers for employers. Thus, their lack of education condemns them to remain outside the labor market and to reproduce or fall below their original social position:

[People] do not see the vicious circle that is behind it, in which if there is poverty you cannot study nor think about [economically] overcoming yourself. . . (B3).

The second mechanism consists in the “virtuous circle”: people with greater advantages can pay for their access to the best private schools, which allows them to gain knowledge that is relevant in the labor market and, consequently, sell their labor force at a good price. Such knowledge refers to both technical and social skills, including cultural signaling behaviors necessary to “improve [oneself]” (B6), which cannot be learnt at public institutions. With a few exceptions, in those places only deficient or irrelevant contents are taught. The latter helps elites reproduce their original social position, while hampering disadvantaged people’s chances to improve theirs. To illustrate this dynamic, interviewees use themselves as examples: in the experienced subsample, they narrate their own success in terms of the “great value” their families “always saw in education” even if they had to cut corners to send them to the best schools, and how they “complied by being good student[s]” with the expectations placed on them (A20). In the end, their hard work and dedication pays off in terms of distinguishing them from the masses because they “studied four degrees—almost nobody in this country has four degrees” (A14). This distinction is what makes them privileged and hence earn more in return:

My father is very acculturated; since I was little, he taught me poetry, philosophy, literature—many things. And going to a good school, or several good schools, I have had the opportunity to live [abroad] for 4 years because my parents sent me there—that opens up your perspectives a lot; having studied at one of the best law schools, having been able to go abroad to study, work where I work now—all of this makes me very privileged (A15).

For the upcoming subsample, the story goes the other way around: because they can pay the highly restrictive tuition fees of the “best” MBA in Latin America, they will be able to experience a process of upward social mobility via job promotions, industry changes, opening of ventures, or collaboration, now at a senior managerial level, in the company of their respective families.

According to the interviewees, the last mechanism rests on a preferential treatment for the privileged. Before being tested, those who hail from higher classes and go to highly prestigious private schools are seen as having important knowledge. Hence, when competing for a job position, they have to demonstrate less than their disadvantaged peers. For them, competence is not a hypothesis to be proven through rigorous scrutiny, but rather a (class-based) assumption that is rarely questioned. This convention paves the way for wealthy students of elite institutions to reach the highest positions in the occupational hierarchy, which, in turn, allows them to remain in their original social position:

I feel that. . .if life is a marathon, I am already at [kilometer] 21. And I believe that they [disadvantaged people who do not have university education] are at 0 or 5. They would have to demonstrate many skills [to occupy a management position]. I feel like when you have an MBA or are from the same socioeconomic level as me, people assume that you have certain skills or that you are of a certain type (B5).

This conflation of education and class (having an MBA from an elite institution and being of a certain socioeconomic level) makes both elements interchangeable proxies for having the skills required to reach senior positions within the corporate world. Hence, to reach the top it is convenient to come from the top as it is, according to the interviewee, a good indicator for being the right kind of person.

From the above, a representation of the social hierarchy and a proposal emerge. For interviewees, the distribution of economic resources reflects the differences in cultural capital. People at the top are the ones who concentrate the most and best knowledge. People at the bottom are the ones who have irrelevant or deficient knowledge. Allegedly, if the dispossessed received the education of the rich, they could experience upward social mobility. Here, education functions as the independent variable that determines the social position of people at the two poles of inequality: it is the explanatory and, as we show later, corrective factor.

. . .the population in harsh economic conditions or poverty never have the opportunity to travel, study or prepare themselves. Thus, the rich become richer while the poor remain poor (B7).

Despite their age gap, both subsamples are connected through their lifecycle social trajectory: the first subsample is made up of those for whom education already fulfilled its promise, while the second subsample consists of individuals that wish to reach education’s promise of social mobility. While participants in the experienced subsample present themselves as privileged due to their (exceptional) educational attainments, those in the upcoming subsample understand themselves as well-educated because they can afford it. Either way, both will be further compensated for their commitment, and those that start off without capitals are unable to improve their position after the shocks either.

For both the experienced and upcoming subsamples, education plays a pivotal role in the reproduction and diminishing of inequality. When it is deficient, according to them, education prohibits processes of upward social mobility. Conversely, when it is of high quality, it constitutes an ideal tool for improving individuals’ life conditions. To illustrate the latter, interviewees cast themselves as examples, linking their current or future elite social positions to their education. This exposes a slight yet important discrepancy between interviewees. Members of the upcoming subsample attribute greater weight to education’s potential for surpassing positions of disadvantage. This shift is in line with AMLO’s discursive change, which represented inequality as changeable and education as a cornerstone of his social policy benefiting the poor to that end. However, young Mexican elites and their former president only superficially share the same paradigm of education. Ultimately, young elites do not advocate for the kind of education provided by the Mexican state. The educational model they wish to run throughout the country is the one they experienced at the institutions where they studied. Such a model is in stark opposition to the one provided by the Mexican state: while the latter is public and free of charge, the former is restricted to elite institutions with unreachable fees for most of the population. Furthermore, given its entrepreneurial orientation, its goal is alien to public education: the training of business owners and top managers.

Solutions Provided by Education

Interviewees thus consider that an essential step toward reducing social inequality is to expand access to high-quality education. For them, this would deconcentrate employment opportunities, sprinkling them from the upper part of the socioeconomic distribution to the entire population. The above occurs through a threefold transformation of disadvantaged people.

First, a transformation toward independence. It is achieved through the acquisition of relevant school knowledge that allows both to compete for a position in the labor market and cut dependence on social programs. It is not about giving pensions, said an interviewee (B10), but to teach useful things. Speaking of the (to him regrettably) high probability that AMLO were going to win the upcoming election, an interviewee from the experienced subsample explained:

I do not support this position, I believe that it is not by giving them [unfavored classes] bread but by teaching them to fish that the gap can be closed, and his [AMLO’s] position is to give them fried fish, even though everyone pays for the fish, right (A18).

Second, a financial self-management transformation. Here, the goal is for people to become competent economic subjects who organize their expenses based on the relevance they have for the well-being of their families. The latter is complicated for cultural reasons: low-status workers are accused of usually wasting their money on alcohol, sexual services or vacations, instead of using it to pay their houses’ mortgages or their children’s school. Speaking of a bonus she received because of the company’s annual profits, an interviewee said:

. . .the first thing I did was keep the money in a bank account [. . .]. But to most of the construction workers, [the company] sent an email that read something like ‘learn to take care of your money’ because it is well known that they spend it in a table-dance establishment. . . (B6).

Third, a moral transformation. Interviewees assume that the education to have “correct” behavior is not equally distributed. Although they consider that corruption and disinterest in social problems is not exclusive to the rich or the poor, they do make moral quality dependent on socioeconomic position. Therefore, some mentioned that the imaginary of disadvantaged people is populated by reprehensible ideas that incite violence and that they do not collaborate in the effort to transcend their original social position:

. . .why are there so many femicides? Because they do not have access to culture nor education. And here I return to the same point. Why am I not someone who mistreats women? Because in my socioeconomic environment they taught me that you do not do that. And I believe that the economic dimension strongly shapes your cultural and social behavior (B8).

Therefore, interviewees envision an educational solution to social inequality that targets less privileged individuals. From their perspective, education has a different function for the rich. First, it can provide the means for “fulfilling a dream” of pursuing a doctorate (A11) when you do not have to “work for the money but for the fun of it” (A4). This way it further optimates already privileged individuals for a labor market that prices extraordinary (educational) achievements. Second, it can promote a more committed involvement in fixing social problems. Sharing the experienced interviewees’ concern for “civic education,” members of the upcoming subsample advocate teaching wealthy individuals about the implementation of measures that could benefit subordinate workers: increasing salaries, donating to charity, among others. Uniting this pedagogical effort from above with education projected downwards is how social inequality can be reduced, claim the interviewees. Hence, they are strong defenders of a solution that relies on cultural change.

The concern about education at the top of society changes when the referent is not social class, but gender. For interviewees, women, regardless of their social position of origin, should be granted the opportunity to develop the required skills to reach senior management positions through in-company educational programs; the professional support—coaching—needed for not falling prey to the imposter syndrome; and the correct career guidance, both before and after their entrance to the labor market, so that they know that paths of entrepreneurship and top managerial positions are within their reach. Just as in the case of economically disadvantaged people, the issue here is creating good conditions for future egalitarian competition.

Are there programs for women? They must be conducted so that these women can aspire to and have the possibility of competing equally with other men, so that as a result, it [gender representation within senior management positions]is 50–50 (B9).

Interestingly, this emphasis on the need to support women came from the significantly more gender-balanced upcoming subsample. Women in the latter highlighted the need to outperform men to reach similar positions, but were confident about their abilities to do so. This shift between cohorts is remarkable given that power dynamics between genders have not gone through major changes in the upper part of the business realm: most company owners and top executives are men (Camp, 2006; Zabludovsky, 2020) despite the fact that women now are overall better educated than men (Zabludovsky, 2020). It may be a consequence of younger interviewees being influenced by proliferating quasi-feminist discourses that question an allegedly natural association between gender and labor roles, or easier access to alternative role models beyond the immediate context through social networks. Either way, just as poor people, it is women who, once they are granted opportunities, will have to compete (on equal terms) with the wealthy men, and no further structural adjustments would be required to reach equilibrium.

For both the experienced and upcoming subsamples, social inequality can be reduced by implementing educational measures targeted at the poor. Allegedly, the goal of those measures is a financially, morally, and academically subjective transformation. On this matter, young interviewees depart slightly from their experienced peers. For them, educational measures must include a broader spectrum of people under vulnerable conditions at different levels of the Mexican social hierarchy: prioritizing women who historically were rejected from leadership positions, followed by meritorious poor that show behavior considered “appropriate.” This change is congruent, albeit not completely in line, with AMLO’s universalist discourse that, compared to past administrations, focus on a wide array of subjects beyond the category of “the poor”: students, elder people, etc. However, what remains constant despite COVID-19’s impact is education’s appeal as a means toward progress, bringing individual and social improvement by civilizing the uncultivated.

Education Versus Other Solutions to Social Inequality

Interviewees therefore sustain that education is the best means to reduce social inequality. To support their stance, they use four arguments, three positive and one negative. First, they consider that increasing access to quality education diminishes the currently unequal distribution of opportunities to acquire relevant knowledge and skills to compete in the labor market. Indeed, they highlight the transformative potential of education for the intergenerational improvement of society:

When people have several generations of education in their family, they have a different vision of life. Surely their grandparents cared about having a certain position, about marrying a certain person, and starting a beautiful family. Three generations later in that same line: what do they think about? They are automatically in contact with beautiful families already, own what they own, have already seen the world, are already at a different educational level, and for me, they have a different consciousness. That is why today there is so much help for people at the bottom. Although the distances remain enormous! Because we are talking about many generations of education (A3).

Second, they believe that education is the main tool for social mobility. Therefore, the experienced subsample connects their current position of privilege to their education, and the upcoming subsample makes their MBA education a portal for future elite positions in the corporate sector. Third, they maintain that the education of people, particularly their own, directly benefits Mexico. By pursuing an MBA, they will be able to create jobs that, ultimately, will have positive consequences such as the expansion of the middle class, as an interviewee highlights:

I think, at the outset, [by] preparing myself. I think education is extremely important. And seeking to generate employment, closing this gap of inequality of opportunities, growing our middle class, reducing our lower class in economic levels. That is something that I would love to do and give information to those who have much less (B7).

The fourth argument refers to the comparison with other measures. Unlike increasing taxes on the richest, education does not scare away foreign investment, does not encourage capital flight, and does not cause price increases. On the individual level, contrary to “handouts to the poor” (A18), it also does not create dependencies on the state that would foster behavioral impediments to social mobility, like laziness, drug consumption, and neglect of family obligations.

Furthermore, contrary to what happens with increasing taxes, education is not oriented toward a barren terrain. For interviewees, what is collected through taxes has two destinations: the pockets of politicians and wasteful social programs. Here emerges an image of the government as a corrupt and inefficient agent (and the state as generally invasive and to be kept in check), who “takes” well-earned money from the rich to keep a portion and waste the rest on programs whose purpose is to get voters for the next elections. For this reason, such programs lack adequate planning and are aimed at “non-deserving” people such as the unemployed youth. The problems described here, framed as injustices, do not figure in the initiatives that seek to increase access to more and better education.

The government can pass a stupid law where it takes 40% of the salary of people who earn more than 150 thousand pesos, yes, but what are you going to do with that? Where are you redistributing it? Don’t take so much away from them if you don’t have a plan. . . (B2).

Education is the best tool to reduce social inequality, claim the experienced and upcoming subsamples. To support their stance, they project catastrophic representations of the future: if taxation increases for the rich, the Mexican economy would undergo a process awash with turmoil, whose consequences were to affect people under vulnerable conditions. In addition, both experienced and young interviewees underpin their preferences with an unquestioned assumption: Mexico is a country of abundance, where everyone can become rich were an “upwards equalization” (“igualar hacia arriba”) pursued. Hence, for them, the desired outcome is not to lessen the resources of the rich, but to elevate those of the poor.

Regardless of their similarities, both subsamples’ perceptions distance in a fundamental way. While the experienced interviewees represented inequality as a problem to be managed, their younger peers portrayed it as a phenomenon to be resolved via education. For the latter, inequality, instead of being an unchangeable condition, is a political matter that concerns leaders from both the private and public sector. This change is in agreement with AMLO’s emphasis on the symbolic value of his presidential mandate, namely, one that inaugurates a fourth national transformation due to a set of policies that are not implemented to manage but to uplift the poor.

The Positioning of the Elites

When it comes to confronting social inequality, interviewees position themselves as agents of change. At no time do they consider that their current or future income levels will contribute to the worsening of inequality. In fact, many take direct responsibility for making a positive difference, whether inside or outside companies. Leading by example is a recurrent and explicit desire among both subsamples. Their education is framed as the crucial factor enabling them to do so and inspire others:

I believe that we are in a privileged sector—because I had the opportunity to pursue my studies, and the vision that I have of what I see, what happens. I know this because I have seen people who don’t have it. And I believe that this privilege gives rise to an obligation that you have towards the country, but above all, to [work with] responsibility and commitment (A6).

Regarding education as a tool for reducing social inequality, it is worth highlighting the case of an interviewee who, once he has accumulated a good amount of financial resources and his company is financially sustainable, will create a foundation for disadvantaged youth to receive information about their possible career futures. He aims to educate them to make good educational choices, taking advantage of the knowledge and experience that he has accumulated living in different countries around the world.

I would say “I already have money, I’m going to give something to society.” I’m going to [place] to help high school kids choose the right career. Do you want to develop yourself? Here it is. Ask me because I have already experienced all of that. . .and I know universities in different parts of the world, and I already know a lot about careers. Do you want X in life? Don’t aspire to X because you want it just because of the superficial things they sell you, look for what you really want (B9).

Responsibly supporting your community (with the added benefit of making more money) also reflects a desire to justify their wealth and cater to a self-perception of moral goodness amidst inequality. The above and similar strategies shared by interviewees have two foundations. First, the idea that the profit of companies and the improvement of Mexico are compatible and complementary objectives. Second, the notion that interviewees are occupying or will occupy positions powerful enough for their acts to significantly alter Mexico’s reality. It is not surprising, then, that instead of representing themselves as witnesses, they rather assign themselves leading roles in the future fight against inequality. The important thing here is the verticality of the previous representation. Interviewees will be able to donate, participate, propose, and educate because they are above those they intend to help. And from above, at least in the educational case, they extend their hand to give what they consider others need, regardless of what those others may think.

Both the experienced and upcoming subsamples consider themselves to have a protagonist role in fighting social inequality. Given what they frame to be their exceptional educational profile, some claim to have the moral responsibility to teach individuals that cannot afford quality education. Their selected mechanisms to do so are behaving exemplarily and providing career development insights. Claiming to have what is needed to be role models, experienced and young interviewees frame themselves as above the poor: they are what the latter should aspire to become. Ultimately, the physical distance separating them is reinforced by a symbolic boundary based on knowledge. On this account, we detected no deference between the subsamples.

Elites’ will to reach a solution to social inequality is harmonious with AMLO’s expansion of education. It seems like for both of them, a real solution relies on a subjective transformation endowing knowledge and keeping a tight public spending. Once again, COVID-19’s shock did nothing to reduce interviewees’ confidence in education. This sustained confidence relates to it being a way to leave untouched the material conditions that allow the rich to accumulate more wealth and their preferred argument to explain (while justifying) their current and future elite social positions.