Educating Elites: Class Privilege and Educational Advantage

(Paperback)

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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.

Reviews

A great collection. Elite schooling is important not only because it defines the ladders others must climb to move up in the world, but also because it represents powerful families' best guess about the future their children will inherit. Educating Elites quickly will become required reading for any serious student of inequality in America. -- Mitchell L. Stevens, associate professor of education and sociology, Stanford University School of Education and author of Creating a Class: College
A fresh and interesting collection that contains a number of pieces by talented young scholars....highly recommended. -- Annette Lareau, Stanley I.Sheerr Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Class counts, and it counts in crucial ways in education. Adam Howard and Rubn Gaztambide-Fernndez have provided us with a set of important and nuanced analyses of how elite class institutions and understandings work in a system that is riven with class relations. This is a significant book for anyone who cares about elitism in education in this society. -- Michael W. Apple, John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison; author,

Author Bio

Adam Howard is an associate professor of education at Colby College. He is author of Learning Privilege: Lessons of Power and Identity in Affluent Schooling.
Rubn A. Gaztambide-Fernndez is an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. He is author of The Best of the Best: Becoming Elite at an American Boarding School.