What Is an Elite Boarding School?

Abstract

This article brings attention to the rarefied world of elite boarding schools. Despite their reputation for excellence, these unique educational institutions remain largely outside the gaze of educational researchers and the scope of public debates about education. One reason for this absence is a lack of knowledge about what exactly defines an elite boarding school and the characteristics that stand them apart from other schools in significant ways. Drawing on a review of the relevant literature, the article outlines five criteria by which elite boarding schools can be identified: typologically elite, scholastically elite, historically elite, geographically elite, and demographically elite. Although the “elite” status of any given school in any of these criteria may be open to debate, it is the particular combination of these five dimensions that defines an elite boarding school. After a discussion of these five characteristics, the article outlines some implications for future research that considers elite boarding schools as an integral part of the educational system in the United States and presents some of the challenges facing the study of privilege.

Gender power in elite schools: methodological insights from researcher reflexive accounts

“…Forbes and Weiner 2008;. We are cognisant of the specific social, economic, cultural and historic contexts of elite schools, for example, that they are not homogeneous but have differentiated characters and ethos (Howard 2008;Gaztambide-Fernández 2009;van Zanten 2010). This is also the case for Scottish independent schools which cannot easily be characterised or categorised.…”

Messy Ethics: Conducting Moral Participatory Action Research in the Crucible of University–School Relations

“…Given that, it is at least arguable that setting up the contest and inducing the student body to objectify girls was not only sexist—and, as it turned out, racist—but also a bleak demonstration of young men exercising power over young women. African American girls suffer more, as they rest at the bottom of the parallel but subordinate female social hierarchy in such schools (Gaztambide‐Fernandez, 2009). Sadly, the African American boys participated in maintaining this hierarchy.…”

Thinking relationally about studying ‘up’

“…A review of 'studying up' In this section, we examine select scholarly works that we believe to be representative of the growing body of literature that focuses on elite educational experiences, contexts, and knowledge (Gaztambide-Fernández 2009a, 2009bHoward 2008;Khan 2011;Lingard, Mills, and Weaver-Hightower 2012;Martin 2012;Meadmore and Meadmore 2004;Reay, Crozier, and Clayton 2009;Saltmarsh 2007;Steinberg 2002;Stevens, 2009;Williams and Filippakou 2010). The books and articles highlighted here represent a small fraction of the work related to elite schools and students; a great deal of research is currently being conducted around the globe.…”