Private schools typically boast of their incredible academic resources, intensive curriculum, and professional faculty. While they may not be necessarily wrong, students and their families do not always choose their private education on the basis of academics. Through researching Everdeen in Australia, it has become more apparent that there may be a difference between what schools advertise and what students seek in their private or elite education.
MoreParents play a significant role in perpetuating privilege and social divisions by placing their children in elite institutions among other things that will ensure their children remain at an advantage. More often than not, parents of students at elite schools come from an affluent background and have access to these elite spaces. Families that are able to afford elite schools, especially those that offer no financial aid, have a certain amount of economic capital in which they are able to invest in education in order to give their children the means to acquire cultural capital. However, not only are these institutions chosen by these parents to provide their child with tools for a successful future, but having their children attend elite schools is a way to maintain their own elite status in society. These parents have shown that they will stop at nothing to make sure their class and status continues to grow.
Access to elite education does not come easily to just anyone. In order to even be considered to enter these elite spaces, individuals must have the means to do so. Parents who are able to afford these high costs to attend these elite schools are most likely doing it to secure a solid future for their children. However, along with securing their child’s future comes maintaining their own status in society. In “Cosmopolitan Learning, Making Merit, and Reproducing Privilege in Indian Schools,” Gilbertson discusses this notion that the reason parents send their children to these elite schools is because they want to “improve their class status” (p. 298). This decision made by the parents contributes to preserving their privilege and social hierarchies as Gilbertson alludes to when explaining this concept of “cosmopolitan learning” (p. 297). Elite schools in India use cosmopolitan learning environments that have been manipulated to reinforce social hierarchies and divisions. So, parents choosing to place their children in these types of elite spaces is only furthering the divide to keep themselves at the top and allow them to continue to create distinctions socially and economically.
Due to the parents of these children in these elite environments wanting to maintain their status to a great extent, they put a lot of pressure on not only their own children but the institutions themselves. Parents “put tremendous efforts into ensuring their child accesses a particular elite school,” so they have high expectations for how these schools plan to provide their children with sufficient tools for the future (Howard & Maxwell 2021). With that in mind, elite parents employ high demand for growing their children’s knowledge through rigorous academics. By disagreeing with the school if the academics are not setting up their child for success, from their perspective, they are demonstrating first hand their power and capital. Nonetheless, these elite schools often play into this because they want elite families to be happy so that these individuals continue to attend these elite schools, provide financial help, and eventually grow the elite school’s image. With that being said, parents apply extreme pressure so that their power, as well as the schools, continues to expand and reproduce.
The amount of parents with a privileged background that see elite institutions as one of the main contributors in maintaining elite status makes it seem like the cycle of reproducing elites through elite education will never end. Not only that, but parents have a significant amount of influence on their children’s decisions and it makes me question even more if these elite parents are truly doing it for their children’s future or more so for their own appearance. Ultimately, families with enough capital and connections that choose to send their children to these elite schools will continue to do so if the understanding of what an elite institution can provide their children and themselves remains
At the Everdeen school, there is a complex relationship that is based on the duality of competition and collaboration that is instilled in the culture of elite institutions. Students are required to be involved in a variety of extracurricular activities, including athletics and community based service clubs. Athletics hold an essential role in the development of competition, as well as providing a basis for elitism to be perpetuated through the success of the teams. By having success, the school is able to obtain more capital. Since Everdeen requires students to participate in athletics, they maximize their potential for success by ensuring that they are utilizing the talents of the students. With the requirement that students are supposed to be engaged in many different activities, there emerges a culture of competition and collaboration that influences the way that the students experience their education at Everdeen. In nearly all of the interviews of current students and alumni, they mentioned their involvement in school sanctioned activities or sport. Specifically in one student interview, they explained that “…there is a lot of opportunity for us to be a part of programs that help charities or …we have different house teams like we will split into different houses and have competitions”, which furthers this idea of involvement and the emphasis that they school has on creating an environment that is rooted in the culture of constant improvement through competitive practices. The implementation of competition among the houses promotes the inter-school challenges, which creates an environment in which students are trying to demonstrate their ability to be the best. Community programs allow for students to practice leadership skills to a variety of different people with varying socioeconomic status, but they also provide a structure where elite students are able to demonstrate their cultural capital over another social group. Bourdieu explains “…power is primarily wielded invisibly and anonymously, through “mechanisms” such as those that achieve the reproduction of economic capital through the apparently anarchical, yet structured actions and reactions of networks of agents and institutions…” (Bourdieu, 386). These “mechanisms” are the avenues in which the elite are able to perpetuate their elite status through education and utilization of people who belong to lower socioeconomic classes.
Within the elite educational institutions, competitive practices are utilized as a method to perpetuate the idea of globalization to the students. Globalization in itself, is fundamentally ingrained in the practice of international influence which is practiced (at the school level) through modes of competition and collaboration. By requiring students to partake in school activities and athletics, Everdeen is able to ensure that students are obtaining the skills that are necessary to become successful global citizens. Extracurricular and community orientated service projects are used to provide students with collaboration skills that are needed to have global influence, as well as giving them the skills to thrive amongst those of elite status and those who belong to lower socioeconomic classes. Athletics provide a basis for competition that is crucial for the establishment of globalization and influence that is needed for global impact.
I question how non-elites in elite spaces endure their everyday lives in an elite space. Recently, I have researched elite spaces and the types of things that contribute to and help define ‘elite status’. Studies have focused on non-elites in elite spaces, including the work of Anthony Jack and Shamus Khan who each performed ethnographic studies on elite spaces within another elite college and an elite American prep school, respectively. Furthermore, the work of Lauren Rivera speaks extensively on how elites are advantaged and non-elites are disadvantaged through the job hiring processes, even if they are coming from the same spaces (an Ivy League school). Underlying their work, Bourdieu’s theory of capital explains these socioeconomic and cultural differences that individuals face when thriving, or in this case, learning how to navigate such a space. In relation to my research, our focus is based solely on elite students and families where we have extensive data on the advantages they have in school and in society, similar to the works I mentioned. By using these works and our research we can come to the conclusion about what a disadvantaged student might look like at the Croft School.
Advantaged individuals means those who are in economic and social positions that provide them with more advantageous opportunities than their peers without those opportunities. They use their social, economic, and cultural capital, allowing them to approach tasks with ‘ease’. Khan explains that elite students still have to work hard in school, but they still have underlying privileges and opportunities that benefit them. He uses the term “ease of privilege” which is how elite students embody their upper-class capitals and use them as guides to success. This is shown through our research where one student discussed her experience of being in an advantaged social position by having access to an elite education and economic advantage to secure other opportunities. Similarly, Rivera discusses the advantages that students face when landing entry-level jobs through relating to their interviewers by way of their elite experiences and cultural capital. Howard (2020) references advantage, “there is considerable ideological value to seeming diverse and therefore accessible and open. Ahmed (2012) has pointed out that the ideological function of diversity efforts creates the impression of more diversity than actually exists, and masks the realities that elite universities continue to mainly serve wealthy elites” (pg.84). These outside works are also representative of the students at Croft and parallel our findings through analysis of our interviews by replicating the advantages and unmatched opportunities that elite students face at the Croft schools versus those who are in public schools across Chilean society. These advantages take the forms of school admissions, job opportunities, economic positions, and other knowledge capitals within an elite circuit.
On the other hand, disadvantaged students are individuals who are in elite spaces despite not possessing capital that helps them propel forward, land a top job, or navigate the hidden curriculum. Instead, these students must use other tactics and learned behaviors to find their success in an elite-dominated space. Furthermore, Jack calls this group the privileged poor. He describes them as “students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds but spend time at elite high schools before entering college” (Jack, 2020). He says they know what it’s like to be under the poverty line but at the same time know what it’s like to be in the top 1% (Jack, 2020). Although our research does not focus on disadvantaged students, I think it’s crucial to consider this group of students to fully understand the advantages that come from Croft. By analyzing data that exemplifies privilege, the ‘ease’, and the opportunity, we can contextualize what Croft students privilege really is. We can understand the broader societal impacts that Croft might have and the way that it reproduces elite students by restricting access by not offering financial aid, resulting in less disadvantaged student enrollment. Kids who are admitted into the Croft school and come from disadvantaged backgrounds may turn to these practices to blend in with their advantaged peers. Additionally, it shows how students who are not a member of the global elite, struggle to gain access and equality among their peers.
Disadvantaged students must adopt other forms of behavior to fit in with their affluent peers. Some of these tasks might include things like insider coaching, mimicry, caricaturing difference, or by getting involved with organizations that promote diversity and inclusion (Rivera, 2016). Within these spaces, as Jack describes, disadvantaged students are forced to adapt to the dominant culture of wealth which entails learning a new set of behaviors, dress codes, and manners in both formal and informal settings. At the Croft school, without the possession of the correct forms of capital, there is a slim chance of achieving the same success as those who do possess it. Non-elites in elite spaces face drastic inequalities and disadvantages that are covered by the greater successes of the academic institutions.
Sources:
Bourdieu, Pierre, et al. The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power. Stanford University Press, 2010.
Jack, Anthony Abraham. The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students. Harvard University Press, 2020.
Jane Kenway & Adam Howard (2022) Elite universities: Their monstrous promises and promising monsters, Curriculum Inquiry, 52:1, 75-96, DOI: 10.1080/03626784.2021.1994837
Khan, Shamus. Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School. Princeton University Press, 2021.
Rivera, Lauren A. Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs. Princeton University Press, 2016.
At Croft, their teachings surround four pillars that are central to students’ experience and education. These pillars include sports, academics, arts, and service. Croft believes that the combination of these four pillars promotes “citizen participation, self-discipline, Fair Play, and consideration for others.” Croft prides itself on preparing their students for life after school and setting their students up for a successful, influential position in society. With that said, Croft’s pillars along with a futuristic perspective demonstrate a connection to the Bourdieuian concept of habitus and Philip Jackson’s theory of the “hidden curriculum.” Thus, in this blog post, I focus on Croft’s pillars, mission statement, and strategic plan (“Our Manifesto”) to analyze how these components of their school display their elite status.
