Educating Elites

This collection of groundbreaking studies breaks with the tradition of gauging inequality by looking 'down' at at-risk or poverty-disadvantaged schools and shifts the gaze of inquiry 'up' toward the experiences of privilege in educational environments characterized by wealth and the abundance of material resources.

The gaze of educational researchers has traditionally been turned 'down' toward the experiences of communities deemed at-risk, presumably with the purpose of improving their plight. Indeed, theorizing about the relationship between education, culture, and society has typically emerged from the study of poor and marginalized groups in public schools. Seldom have educational researchers considered class privilege and educational advantage in their attempts at understanding inequality and fomenting social justice. This collection of groundbreaking studies breaks with this tradition by shifting the gaze of inquiry 'up,' toward the experiences of privilege in educational environments characterized by wealth and the abundance of material resources. This edited volume brings together established and emerging scholars in education and the social sciences working critically to interrogate a diversity of educational environments serving the interests of influential groups both within and beyond schools. The authors investigate the power relations that underlie various contexts of class privilege. They shed light into the ways in which the success of a few relates to the failure of many.

Chapter 1 Foreword
Chapter 2 Introduction: Why Study Up?
Chapter 3 Preparing for Power: Twenty-Five Years Later
Chapter 4 Educating for Hegemony, Researching for Change: Collaborating with Teachers and Students to Examine Bullying at an Elite Private School
Chapter 5 A Part and Apart: Students of Color Negotiating Boundaries at an Elite Boarding School
Chapter 6 Stepping Outside Class: Affluent Students Resisting Privilege
Chapter 7 Getting In: How Elite Schools Play the College Game
Chapter 8 The Effects of Parents' College Tier on Offspring's Educational Attainments
Chapter 9 Class Dismissed?: The Social Class Worldviews of Privileged College Students
Chapter 10 Pageantry, Pedagogy, and Pandorea: Literacies of the Southern Belle
Chapter 11 On Not Seeming Like You Want Anything: Privileged Girls' Dilemmas of Ambition and Selflessness
Chapter 12 Outlining a Research Agenda on Elite Education