A Culture of Moral Superiority

April 13, 2025

As I mentioned in my first blog post that discussed the lack of socioeconomic and ethnic diversity at The Croft School, one of my main worries was that Croft students are not able to experience this diversity therefore creating a superiority mindset. This has in fact resulted in larger societal outcomes such as further class reproduction with elites holding the top power positions in Chilean society. Thus, students at The Croft School, as a result of a lack of experiences with people from diverse backgrounds, has led to a misunderstanding about the value of money and hard work thereby developing a “culture of moral superiority” (Ilabaca & Corvalán, 2023).

So what does a “culture of moral superiority” mean, and how does it manifest in elite schooling? Moral superiority is defined as a feeling of being “higher up” and more valued than others in society (Ilabaca & Corvalán, 2023). This feeling may stem from the jobs that elites hold, or the schools, such as The Croft School, that they attend. However, it is within the hidden curriculum of these elite schools where one finds moral superiority being preached to their students. For example, one of the ways that elite schools do this is through some of the messaging they give to their students such as “Serve the Country” or “Be the best in all areas” (Ilabaca & Corvalán, 2023).

This idea of being the best in all areas or going and serving the country, while it can look nice on the surface, actually has a lot more meaning. While many elite schools, such as the Croft School, pride themselves on global citizenship education and engagement with those in their community, this can cause more harm than good. Throughout the course of reading the interviews many students touched on how they felt as though the community service was superficial. It almost felt as though the community service was more so benefiting the students and their resumes then it was actually helping those in the community who they were “serving.” The positionality of these elite students, who are in positions where they can create a social change, and yet aren’t really doing so, goes to show how “minimal” these acts of community service can be.

One of the students interviewed spoke about how the activities they were doing felt minimal, and while they have the resources to make a substantial impact in these communities they still aren’t doing so. I think that the “minimalist” effort that is being made with community service in these schools is reflective of how elites interact with other groups in society who may be from different socioeconomic backgrounds. This “culture of moral superiority” is bred from the fact that they are “too good” to contribute at a high level and be highly contributing to these communities. I think that if these schools who pride themselves on global citizenship education actually want to make a change in the world then the first step should be to actually make the community service meaningful. This would be a way of addressing and diminishing this superiority mindset.

One of the other ways in which this “culture of moral superiority” is fostered is through the students’ and their families’ transformation of economic capital into social capital. The economic capital of these families to even gain access to these prestigious schools sets their children apart and gives them an advantage from the get go. Roughly 60% of students from elite schools in Chile will go on to access four of the most prestigious careers – economics, engineering, law or medicine in two of the most elite universities in Chile (Ilabaca & Corvalán, 2023). Thus, the economic capital is transformed into the social capital by gaining entrance to these elite universities (Bourdeiu, 1996). Aside from the economic and social capital that the students hold, the school also fosters symbolic capital. Upon walking into elite schools in Chile one of the first things that you will see are displays of former students from the school who then went on to hold prestigious positions within society (Ilabaca & Corvalán, 2023). Therefore, not only is this a mindset of superiority, it is an expectation that is promoted by the schools. When things such as success in society are an expectation, students will then begin to view it as a right- anything less than the utmost success is viewed as a failure, and that is a problem.

Ilabaca, T., Corvalán, J. (2023). The School Segregation of the Chilean Elites and Its Consequences in the Socialization of Class Subjectivities. In: Dupriez, V., Valenzuela, J.P., Verhoeven, M., Corvalán, J. (eds) Educational Markets and Segregation. Evaluating Education: Normative Systems and Institutional Practices. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36147-0_11

Bourdieu, Pierre: The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.