Academics looks on the concept of "merit"

Abstract

Merit is a popular social and cultural leitmotif in neoliberal society. It promises justice, equity, and social mobility for all by promoting the ethos that with the right skills, hard work and creativity, anyone can 'climb' the market-based social ladder. The aim of the study is to determine how academics conceptualize and perceive the concept of merit through metaphors. Phenomenological design, one of the qualitative research methods, and easy accessibility technique, one of the sampling methods with unknown probability, were used in the selection of the study group. The study included 101 academics working at Bingöl University in the 2020–2021 academic year. The metaphor sentence was sent to academics online. "Content analysis" technique was used to analyze the data. In the research, gold and justice metaphors were produced the most. As a result of the research, it was determined that merit is valuable and necessary because it provides justice as it should be given to those who deserve it and is closely related to the development of society. It was also concluded that it is a source of success and productivity because it provides a healthy functioning.