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The Social Class Bubble

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At Olive Grove academy, social class plays an interesting role in the students’ lives. In the variety of interviews from students and alumni, many of the students noted that they were not able to recognize other students’ social class. Although the school is considered elite and has a demographic of many elite students, that is not the sole demographic of the student body. There are students from lower income families and students from some of the wealthiest families, so what is it about Olive Grove that makes students unable to recognize other students’ social class?


In an article, Elite international schools in the Global South: transnational space, class relationalities and the ‘middling’ international schoolteacher, by Tarc and Tarc, they wrote about how many students used to form friend groups based on social class, as this was a large identifying factor. Although not the case at Olive Grove, how were they able to break down this barrier of social class? In many other educational settings, especially those of public institutions that may not be considered elite, social class is a large identifying factor between students, and therefore something that is influential in the formation of friends. Similarly, in an article done about a study in Germany, the authors found that social class does have an effect on interpersonal relationships, in which they also spoke about Bourdieu said “the environment in which people grow up inscribes itself deeply into their identity” (Goethe University Frankfurt am Main). As Bourdieu explains and as this study has found, social groups are extremely influenced by class status, which is then interesting how at Olive Grove, students in this environment do not seem to be influenced by class, and are in a type of bubble where social class is not noticed.

As Olive Grove can be seen as a social class bubble, how does Colby compare? After talking to a few of my peers about Colby and social class, they had a few different opinions. One of them believed Colby is a bubble – she feels as though social class is not noticeable in her opinion because so many of the people she surrounds herself with are of the same level social class, which therefore exhibits what was written in Tarc’s article in how social class is influential in friendships. All of her friends were of the same level social class as her, which is why she felt she didn’t ‘notice it’ because they all shared similar backgrounds and experiences. On the other hand, another student felt as though at Colby she was hyper aware of social class and in a different type of bubble – a bubble where the drastic difference in socioeconomic status was very present and exacerbated by the Colby environment. In a New York Times article from 2017 entitled “Some Colleges Have More Students From the Top 1 Percent Than the Bottom 60. Find Yours”, Colby ranked number 4 for having more students from the top 1 percent than the bottom 60 percent, which equated to 20.4% of students coming from the top 1 percent ($630K+ annual household income) and 11.1% of students coming from the bottom 60 percent (<$65K annual household income). This stark difference of wealth on campus alludes to what this Colby student was saying – that because there is such a large presence of socioeconomic differences on campus, she feels extra aware of social class at Colby, and thinks we as students are in a different type of bubble unlike the real world. Despite how Colby students see social class, there still may be some kind of ‘bubble’ element to it, whether similar to Olive Grove or not. So, as both are elite private schools, does every elite private school have some kind of social class bubble? With variations of how they can exist, does the environment of a school like these greatly affect how social class is perceived by the student body, and how is it comparable to a public, non-elite school?

 

After hearing from both of these Colby students, I am conflicted on how I see the Colby bubble myself. At times I feel like I see both of these bubbles- both the stark difference in status and then a bubble where all my peers come from similar backgrounds. And maybe that is a factor that is very present in elite schools, and what perpetuates elite institutions to maintain their status in society.

Does Mandatory Equate to Meaningful?

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As we are continuing to go further into the research project on Olive Grove Academy in Jordan, it is clear that the school emphasizes the importance of community service. After reading the interviews with the students and alumni, many took part in a few different community service projects that the school emphasizes, such as Habitat for Humanity or other local volunteer organizations that helped refugees in Jordan. Community service is a big part of the student life at Olive Grove, and many students say that it is integrated into the social life of the student body. From an interview with a student, Sara, at Olive Grove, she said, “…And so if the school doesn’t emphasize how important it is to care about your own community, then a lot of those people might not come back to build their community”. This is one of the main ways that the school emphasizes community service, through teaching their students how important it is to give back to their community. In an interview with alumna, she spoke about how the community service she completed at Olive Grove shaped her experiences in college in terms of what she participated in on campus, and now has influenced what she wants to do post graduation by returning to Jordan and using her economic skills from college to improve the community of Jordan. 

In comparison to Olive Grove, many high schools (both public and private) in the United States require community service or volunteering for a graduation requirement. While my high school in particular did not, I knew students from other towns or other schools that had to complete multiple hours of community service per year in order to graduate. I remember one school in particular that a friend of mine attended required 80 hours of community service per year. While this shakes down to about two hours per week during a regular academic calendar, the 80 hour requirement may sound like a lot for students at the beginning of the year. I remember speaking to my friend at this school about the requirement, and how many of the other students complain about completing it and tend to look for the easiest ways to fulfill the community service requirement, without truly meaning what they were doing. 

Looking back on this, doesn’t this almost defeat the purpose of completing community service? Community service does good for yourself and others, and teaches students how to be an active member and help those within their community. But if students at this school were just looking for the easiest ways to get their hours without caring about giving back to the community, I believe it may be setting the wrong mindset for the students –  that the only reason they are doing these good deeds is for the sake of graduation rather than encouraging students to make a difference within their community. In a New York Times article, this exact debate was brought up about how meaningful community service is if high schools require it. Some educators strongly believe that it should not be mandatory, and one educator from Port Washington specifically said, ‘’I want to emphasize to students that excellent citizenship and giving to others not only helps others but makes you feel better about yourself… ’” These schools that did not make it mandatory still had many students do volunteer work throughout their high school career, so is it necessary for it to be mandatory if students don’t value the work they are doing?

At Olive Grove, while there are no community service hour requirements necessary for students to complete, the school emphasizes the importance of giving back to one’s community so much that nearly all students partake. So if Olive Grove can get their students involved and truly care for the community around them even post graduation, do high schools need to make community service mandatory for students? Schools around the world can emphasize the importance of students making a difference within their communities, and do so in a way that allows students to recognize the importance of service on their own. 

https://images.app.goo.gl/cXXV2oWmg8PywRRBA

An Overwhelming Start to Research

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When I sat down with my group to analyze the data we had from Olive Academy in Jordan, I had no idea what I was going to find. After reading the interview with my student and alumni, I wasn’t sure what I should be looking for and what was relevant enough to do an entire research project on. After sitting down with my group members it was clear that we all felt one thing after looking through all of the data: overwhelmed. There were so many different directions we could go, but luckily we identified some common themes throughout the interviews which helped narrow down our topic for our proposal including community service, global citizenship, social class, and more. However, what stuck with me the most were the values that Olive Grove Academy held their students to.

Each value holds a different meaning, but together, they make up “five universal values that best express what we strive to impart to our students.” When my group and I spoke about our interviews from the alumni and the students, the interesting thing was that almost all of our students were not able to recite the five values, let alone recognize how many values the school had. Some of our students knew that there were 5 values, but some thought that there were 6 or 7 values, and were unable to name all of them. Most of the students were able to identify global citizenship as a value because this is something that Olive Grove stresses very adamantly, but the rest of the values were hit or miss if students could name them. 

Noticing that global citizenship was the most recited value, we decided to focus our research on how this specific value affects students’ perception of the school overall and the students’ role in the community during high school and beyond. Because this value is extremely emphasized by the administration of the school, it carries extra weight with the students and teachers- showing that global citizenship is something that most students take with them. 

When reading and thinking further about these values, I thought back to my high school experience. My public high school also had 5 ‘values’ that were used to describe a Fairfield Warde student, and everyone basically had these ingrained into their memory. We even had a spirit chant involving these 5 characteristics that the student section would cheer at football and basketball games. Even now, two years post my high school graduation, I could recite the five Fairfield Warde student values at the drop of a hat: Welcoming, Academic, Respectful, Dynamic, and Ethical. As an alum, I believe that I still carry many of the five values with me through my college experience, both as a student and as a member of society. Our five characteristics may be easier to remember as they make up an acronym for our school, but hearing that students at one of the most elite private schools in the world could not name their five values came as a shock to me. I would have expected the students to know the ins and outs of every single value and how they relate back to Olive Grove, but clearly the data showed the opposite. As I’ve said before, the value of global citizenship has overshadowed the values of the others, which was clearly the standout value to the students we looked into. As my group and I continue into our research project and examining the role of global citizenship on the students of Olive Grove Academy, I want to continue looking into the effects of the other four core values of the school and see how these resonate with students in their time at Olive Grove and beyond. 

http://www.wardefocus.com/2017/03/ 

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