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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Further, I rather suspect that the author of the piece understood that full well, and was rather disingenuously trying to avoid copping to the most obvious reason for the "ceiling".

Of course it's "clever" in that it sort-of acknowledges the source of the discrimination but still makes it sound like the targets are primarily somehow victims of some sort of subtle deficiency in their upbringing, and if they'd only conformed to the 'superior' culture better they'd have no issues. IIRC the term of art for this sort of tack is "crackpot realism".

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Joseph Hertzlinger's avatar

The upper-class students at a mid-rank school are downwardly mobile (otherwise they would be at a prestige school) and the lower-class students are upwardly mobile (otherwise they would not be in college).

If the upper-class students at a mid-rank school party and the lower-class students study, that does not mean partying is the way to get ahead.

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