Educación y privilegio: percepciones de los socios en el Cuenca Tenis y Golf Club

Abstract

This article examines how members of the Cuenca Tennis and Golf Club construct meanings around formal education in relation to professional success and social position, approaching education not only as an academic training process but as a symbolic device of legitimation and distinction in elite contexts. From a critical sociological perspective, the study problematizes the tension between meritocratic discourses that present education as the result of individual effort and the structural conditions of privilege that facilitate access to educational credentials, social networks, and labor opportunities. The research was conducted using a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews with Club members, which were analyzed through thematic categorization. This methodological strategy made it possible to explore the experiences, beliefs, and narratives through which participants assign meaning to formal education and its relationship with success. The findings show that education is simultaneously valued as a requirement for social legitimacy and as a resource articulated with social capital, family networks, and spaces of sociability. In addition, generational tensions emerge regarding the meaning of success: while views associated with status and the continuity of privilege persist, alternative perspectives incorporating values such as social responsibility, empathy, and self-realization also appear. The study concludes that, in the context of Cuenca, formal education continues to play a central role in the symbolic reproduction of privilege, while at the same time undergoing a process of resignification linked to cultural and generational transformations within local elites.