1st Edition

World Yearbook of Education 2015 Elites, Privilege and Excellence: The National and Global Redefinition of Educational Advantage

    272 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    272 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This latest volume in the World Yearbook of Education Series focuses on educational elites and inequality, focusing particularly on the ways in which established and emergent groups located at the top of the social hierarchy and power structure reproduce, establish or redefine their position.

    The volume is organized around three main issues:

    • analyzing the way in which parents, students and graduates in positions of social advantage use their assets and capitals in relation to educational strategies, and how these are different for old and new and cultural and economic elites;
    • studying how elite institutions have adapted their strategies to take into account changes in the social structure, in policy and in their institutional environment and exploring the impact of these strategies on educational systems at the national and global levels;
    • mapping the new global dynamics in elite education and how new forms of 'international education' and 'transnational cultural capital' as well as new global educational elite pathways shape elite students’ identities, status and trajectories.

    Making use of a social and an institutional approach as well as a focus on practices and policies, the volume draws on research conducted on secondary schools and on higher education. In addition, the global contributions within the book allow for a comparison and contrast of situations in different countries. This results in a comprehensive picture of common processes and national differences concerning advantage and excellence and a thorough examination of the impact of globalization on the strategies, identities and trajectories of elite groups and individuals alongside more general cultural and economic processes.

     

    Introduction

    Educating Elites: The Changing Dynamics and Meanings of Privilege and Power

    Agnès van Zanten

     

    Part 1

    Class and Family Educational Strategies

    1. Elites: Some Questions for a New Research Agenda

    Claire Maxwell

    2. A Family Affair: Reproducing Elite Positions and Preserving the Ideals of Meritocratic Competition and Youth Autonomy

    Agnès van Zanten

    3. Elite Families and Schools in Buenos Aires: The Role of Tradition and School Social Networks in the Production and Reproduction of Privilege

    Victoria Gessaghi and Alicia Méndez

    Part 2

    Elite Institutions in National and Local Contexts

    4. Changes in Elite Education in the United States

    Shamus Rahman Khan

     

    5. The Changing Strategies of Social Closure in Elite Education in Brazil

    Ana Maria F. Almeida

    6. Germany’s Hesitant Approach to Elite Education. Stratification Processes in German Secondary and Higher Education

    Ulrike Deppe, Werner Helsper, Reinhard Kreckel, Heinz-Hermann Krüger and Manfred Stock

    7. The Boundaries of Privilege: Elite English schools’ Geographies and Depictions of a Local Community

    Rachel Brooks and Johanna Waters

    Part 3

    The Impact of Globalization on Institutional and Student Identities

    8. Globalisation and Elite Universities in China

    Tien-Hui Chiang, FanHua Meng, Fugui Ye and Luo Yan, Tsinghua University

     

    9. The Discourse of 'Asia Rising' in an Elite Indian School

    Fazal Rizvi

    10. National and International Students’ Definition of Merit in French Grandes Ecoles

    Brigitte Darchy-Koechlin, Hugues Draelants and Elise Tenret

    11. Globalizing Femininity in Elite Schools for Girls: Some Paradoxical Failures of Success

    Jane Kenway, Diana Langmead and Debbie Epstein

     

     

    Part 4

    Elite Institutions, Elite positions and Elite Jobs

    12. Elite Universities, Elite Schooling and Reproduction in Britain

    Paul Wakeling and Mike Savage

    13. Paths to the Elite in France and in the United States

    Jules Naudet

    14. Contextually-Bound Authoritative Knowledge: A Comparative Study of British, French and Norwegian Administrative Elites’ Merit and Skills

    Marte Mangset

    15. Higher Education, Corporate Talent and the Stratification of Knowledge Work in the Global Labour Market

    Phillip Brown, Hugh Lauder and Johnny Sung

     

     

    Conclusion

    Elites, Education and Identity. An Emerging Research Agenda

    Stephen Ball

     

    Biography

    Agnès van Zanten is Senior Research Professor at the Observatoire Sociologique du Changement at Sciences Po, Paris.

    Stephen J. Ball is Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London.

    Brigitte Darchy-Koechlin holds a PhD in sociology and works at the Department of Research Development, Innovation and Experimentation of the French Ministry of Education, Higher Education and Research.