Full Description
Private schooling continues to be a divisive issue. In Britain, there has been a rapid expansion of overseas branches being opened by elite British private schools. Private Schools and Cultural Capital offers insight into the workings of private schools that continue to provide an advantage for their students. Author Rachel Louise Stenhouse reports on the role played by teachers' social and cultural capital in reproducing privilege in private schools and how this capital is transmitted to students through their preparation for application to elite universities.
Drawing on data from interviews with teachers, observations of lessons and teachers' own reflections to provide an insight into the workings of one private school in England, Stenhouse contributes to an understanding of how private schools are able to continue to reproduce the privilege that their students enjoy. Using the theories of Pierre Bourdieu as a fitting framework in which to understand how private school privilege is reproduced, the chapters also provoke discussion about the prominence of "cultural capital" in the Ofsted school inspection framework and the role played by teachers in private schools in developing cultural capital in their students.
A timely addition to the literature on private school advantage, this is a compelling resource for international readers working in policy, academia, or education with an interest in social inequality and in particular the workings of private schools.
Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction: Private school advantage and the formation of privilege
Chapter 2. Private school privilege: Admission to university
Chapter 3. Bourdieu's Cultural capital: What is it and why does it matter?
Chapter 4. Private school distinction: The Northwell Difference
Chapter 5. The Northwell Teacher: Private school teachers' social and cultural capital
Chapter 6. Mechanisms of transmission of capital in private schools: The Northwell Approach
Chapter 7. Misrecognition of privilege: The legitimation of cultural capital
Chapter 8. Conclusion - Private schools: Reproducers of privilege
