{"id":5589,"date":"2018-12-09T16:08:04","date_gmt":"2018-12-09T21:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/?p=5589"},"modified":"2018-12-09T16:08:04","modified_gmt":"2018-12-09T21:08:04","slug":"the-purpose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/2018\/12\/09\/the-purpose\/","title":{"rendered":"The Purpose"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my final blog post for the semester, I wanted to look at major takeaways from my involvement in this project. For the\"\"<\/span>\u00a0duration of my semester-long involvement, I\u2019ve been confused by one important piece of this project: the purpose. In talking with oth<\/span>er people in my group, I\u2019ve found that a similar question emerges; not that this aspect is super important for gauging the impact of such a project, as both interviewees and those involved on the research end have expressed how this project has bettered their perceptions of their schooling and their position in a global field of power (Howard 2018). That I\u2019m not questioning, and I feel as though I\u2019ve experienced similar results from working with the data; however, Adam Howard told us early on in the semester that this was framed as a \u201csocial justice project,\u201d so with this in the back of my mind throughout the semester, I struggled to wrap my head around how what we were doing qualifies as a social justice project.<\/p>\n

When I think of social justice work, the thing farthest from my mind might just be elite schooling. I think instead of working in schools in impoverished areas, or working in a soup kitchen, a shelter, etc. In any case, not performing a case study on one of South America\u2019s most prestigious secondary schools. I guess for a while I kind of just accepted that this was a social justice project; only when I began really going through the interviews in depth and seeing the privilege they possess that I started questioning how exactly this is social justice. And I think the answer to that question lies in the connection between elite students and their surroundings. Often times in settings such as these, students struggle to see outside the bubble of eliteness in which they live. This became quite prominent through reading the data: almost every student mentioned the \u201cCroftian Bubble,\u201d usually using it as a crutch to fall back on when questioned about their privilege; this I found especially relatable, as Colby students are quick to reference the \u201cColby Bubble\u201d with a similar end in mind. Both of these examples share the quality that students at these schools don\u2019t engage as much and don\u2019t really experience reality across socioeconomic lines despite, in some cases, claiming to have a deep commitment to social justice ideals.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is here that I believe the true social justice aspect of this project lies. Although at the end of the day this project is elites researching other elites, through the questions posed and the themes discussed in interviews, students at the Croft School (and, I would assume, other schools too) as well as those who were part of the research were able to reflect on their privileged position in ways they hadn\u2019t done before. In seeing this in a new light, it could open students\u2019 eyes to the inequities in society in ways they hadn\u2019t thought of before, and could lead students on a path to more justice-oriented lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

As for what I gained from this project, I feel that the largest aspect of that isn\u2019t what I have just said, but instead the ability to work with actual data on a real project. I\u2019ve never done work like this before on this grand a scale, and I feel that, moving forward, it will better prepare me for life in academia.<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/goo.gl\/images\/4JYh9v<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/goo.gl\/images\/F4G2gA<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Howard, Adam. \u201cMaking it Political: Working Towards Transformation in the Study of Internationalisation of Elite Education.\u201d <\/span>Elite Education and Internationalisation<\/span><\/i>, Claire Maxwell, Ulrike Deppe, Heinz-Hermann Kr\u00fcger, Werner Helsper, 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my final blog post for the semester, I wanted to look at major takeaways from my involvement in this project. For the\u00a0duration of my semester-long involvement, I\u2019ve been confused by one important piece of this project: the purpose. In talking with other people in my group, I\u2019ve found that a similar question emerges; not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8305,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5592,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5589\/revisions\/5592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}