Revision summary
Affirmative action uses group criteria to repair unequal starting lines. Rawls, Sen, and Ambedkar supply justice arguments. Critics allege reverse discrimination; radicals call it too thin. Indian reservation and US admissions are the cases. Bourdieu: merit already hides cultural capital.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Affirmative action is a public correction of historical exclusion by using group criteria in education, jobs, or contracts. It treats equal treatment as inadequate when starting lines differ. India names much of this as reservation.
Body
The idea
- Formal equality ignores accumulated caste, race, and gender disadvantage. John Rawls’s difference principle is a cousin: inequalities must help the least advantaged.
- Amartya Sen’s capability approach asks whether people can actually convert a right into a functioning.
Theoretical positions
- Liberal compensatory: repair past discrimination, then return to colour- or caste-blind rules. Time-bound reservations argue this.
- Social justice and representation: B. R. Ambedkar treated political and educational safeguards as ongoing against a graded inequality.
- Critique from the right: reverse discrimination and efficiency loss, a Davis–Moore style talent worry.
- Radical critique: without land and capital reform, seats in a college are a thin patch.
Examples
- Indian reservations in legislatures, public jobs, and higher education.
- United States affirmative action in university admissions, later constrained by courts.
- Gender quotas on some panchayats show descriptive representation without an automatic end to unpaid care.
Substantiation
- Bourdieu explains why “merit” already encodes cultural capital. Affirmative action names that bias.
- Exclusion in higher education, as Census graduate gaps show, is the empirical warrant.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD EXC[Historical exclusion] --> AA[Affirmative action] AA --> SEAT[Seats jobs contracts] MER[Formal merit] --> BLIND[Blind rules] AA --> JUST[Corrected chances]
Conclusion
Affirmative action is structured preference to equalise chances after group exclusion. Rawls, Sen, and Ambedkar support it as justice; merit-only critics deny the group cut. Indian reservation is the large example. It is necessary and incomplete without wider redistribution.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Feminist scholars argue that 'New media' is masculine and hence reinforces structural hierarchies rather than reconfiguring them. Comment
Next question on this syllabus topic (2019 · Q7(b)). View answer →
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Is affirmative action the same as welfare?
Welfare transfers resources. Affirmative action reallocates scarce positions of voice and credential.
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Does it freeze identities?
It uses the categories that already organised exclusion. The long aim is still equal capability.
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