Not only expected, but actually forced. In many places, a streak of a few years with no publications in prestigious journals can unrecoverably sink a researcher career.

A typical PhD dissertation these days is 3 publications in high-quality journals. It is explicitly required at most schools.

so there is "prestige" in getting in a reputed journal and not the fact that the paper is peer reviewed by good scientists. the reputation of the journal matters. cool.

isnt there a need of change in the "social ideology" of such schools and this whole elitism would go away?

journal prestige does not correlate with review quality. Usually it does, but then there's always reviewer 3...