Educating Elites: Class Privilege and Educational Advantage

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.

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.
Rubén A. Gaztambide-Fernández 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.