Elite schools have an intriguing capacity to endure and adapt in the face of social, cultural and political change. They help both to reproduce power, privilege and status and also to regularly produce them afresh. The intricacies involved, over time and place, have attracted the abiding empirical, methodological and conceptual interest of sociologists and historians; recently, anthropologists and geographers have also responded to their allure. Collectively, the focus of such studies is usually on class making and the manner in which gender and race/ethnicity, place and mobility overlap and are part of the mix. This edited collection is framed around the notion of a ‘new sociology of elite education’, but it speaks into this wider space of inquiry in which studies of such schools are becoming more interdisciplinary. In so doing it brings together a new array of conceptual and theoretical tools while also deepening those that already exist. The contributions examine various configurations of contemporary class making and their attendant politics. These explorations are situated in the specificities of geographical locales where the complex dynamics of both national/local educational priorities and global/transnational forces are played out. In addition to showing how these dynamics put pressure on elite schools to redefine them, the book’s diverse international focus shines a light on new and emerging global patterns. This book was originally published as a special issue of British Journal of Sociology of Education.

This book is the first significant sociological study of Ireland’s elite private schools. It takes the reader behind the gates of these secretive institutions, and offers a compelling analysis of their role in the reproduction of social inequality in Ireland. From the selection process to past pupils’ union events, from the dorms to the rugby pitch, the book unravels how these schools gradually reinforce exclusionary practices and socialize their students to power and privilege. It tackles the myths of meritocracy and classlessness in Ireland, while also providing keys to understanding the social practices and legitimacy of elites. By bringing out the voices of past pupils, parents and school staff and incorporating vivid ethnographic descriptions, the book provides a rare snapshot into a privileged world largely hidden from view. It offers a unique contribution to research on elite education as well as to the broader fields of sociology of education and inequality. As such, it will appeal to researchers, practitioners and the general public alike, in Ireland and beyond.

Geography matters to elite schools — to how they function and flourish, to how they locate themselves and their Others. Like their privileged clientele they use geography as a resource to elevate themselves. They mark, and market, place. This collection, as a whole, reads elite schools through a spatial lens. It offers fresh lines of inquiry to the ‘new sociology of elite schools.’ Collectively the authors examine elite schools and systems in different parts of the world. They highlight the ways that these schools, and their clients, operate within diverse local, national, regional, and global contexts in order to shape their own and their clients’ privilege and prestige. The collection also points to the uses of the transnational as a resource via the International Baccalaureate, study tours, and the discourses of global citizenship. Building on research about social class, meritocracy, privilege, and power in education, it offers inventive critical lenses and insights particularly from the ‘Global South.’ As such it is an intervention in global power/knowledge geographies.

This book examines the practices and effects of emerging international curriculum programs established by Chinese elite public high schools and supported by China’s New Curriculum Reform and the Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools (CFCRS) policy. Drawing on critical theory, the book applies sociological and anthropological approaches to the study of the educational practices of such curriculum programs and the rising Chinese elite class, as well as educational policy globally. Through analyzing a wide variety of data sources, this book focuses on examining how changing local and global contexts have influenced and shaped the educational opportunities, experiences, and aspirations of privileged urban Chinese students who are able to attend these programs and who hope to study at U.S. universities. In doing so, the book is intended to define the problematics of the internationalization of Chinese education and an emergent form of elite education in China, which are complex and embedded in the process of modernization in China. Neoliberalism, Globalization, and "Elite" Education in China: Becoming International will appeal to undergraduates, postgraduates, and academics in the fields of curriculum studies, educational policy studies, sociology of education, and anthropology of education, as well as policymakers with an interest in globalization and education, education policy, and education and international development.

Awarded Best Book prize by CIES Globalization and Education SIG Awarded 2nd Prize in the Society of Educational Studies Annual Book Prize Elite schools have always been social choreographers par excellence. The world over, they put together highly dexterous performances as they stage and restage changing relations of ruling. They are adept at aligning their social choreographies to shifting historical conditions and cultural tastes. In multiple theatres, they now regularly rehearse the irregular art of being global. Elite schools around the world are positioned at the intersecting pinnacles of various scales, systems and regimes of social, cultural, political and economic power. They have much in common but are also diverse. They illustrate how various modalities of power are enjoyed and put to work and how educational and social inequalities are shaped and shifted. They, thus, speak to the social zeitgeist. This book dissects this intricate choreography.

This book offers new insights and methodological tools to improve our understandings of how prestigious schools in Poland navigate the major political, social and cultural crosscurrents. The range of choice for elite schooling in Poland has expanded during its post-communist transformation. However, while elite education in countries such as the US, Australia, the UK, France, and Switzerland has been extensively studied, post-communist countries have been largely neglected. This book explores the emergence of such schools within a context influenced by a range of different and often conflicting social forces. In doing so, the study elucidates how the socio-historical processes since 1989 diversified Poland’s egalitarian education system and facilitated the emergence of schools for elites. The book demonstrates that social and political changes in Poland triggered the emergence of new elites with different political and social outlooks, leading to a variety of types of elite schools that reflect and reproduce the elites’ positions and idiosyncrasies. A bespoke theoretical arrangement scrutinises extant and generated data from elite schools’ websites, online readers’ forums, and interviews with elite school principals. The book contributes new insights into elite schools in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, enriching the existing body of knowledge on elites and elite schools around the world. It will be of interest to researchers and postgraduate students investigating elite education, sociology of education, education policy, and education and international development.

India is being widely seen as an emerging economic and political power on the global scene. Despite having the largest population of chronically poor in the world today, it is home to a sizeable number of thriving rich and flourishing middle classes. They are reshaping the country’s popular image and its self-imagination. Equally important are its political dynamics. With increasing participation of erstwhile-marginalized sections in the electoral process, the social profile of India’s political elite has been changing, making way for those coming from the middle and lower strata of the traditional social order, thus broadening the social base of political power. Mapping the Elite seeks to expand the understanding of processes of formations and transformations of the Indian elite. The contributors explore the emergent elite spaces, the new idioms of power and inequality, the diverse strategies in which symbolic boundaries of privilege are traced in everyday lives, as well as the class mobilities in an age of proclaimed meritocracy. They do so by using the sociological frames of caste, class, gender, community, and their intersections. The ''Exploring India’s Elite' series provides a platform to scholars working on elite dynamics in India. It seeks to enable an understanding of the nuances of inequality, power, and other emerging social structures.