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What is Elite Boarding School? Gaztambide- Fernandez DIVVY GROUP…
What is Elite Boarding School? Gaztambide- Fernandez DIVVY GROUP
Curriculum
• The curriculum offered by elite boarding schools is not a response to state mandates or policies developed by economists or politicians. Rather, it is negotiated between the educators who deliver the curriculum, the expectations of parents who pay the high tuition, the demands of students who take the courses, and - of course - the requirements of elite colleges and universities that expect to admit students with particular academic backgrounds
Parents and students have a large part in the education that they receive
• What makes elite boarding schools scholastically elite is also the whole range of opportunities in areas like athletics, the arts, and extracurricular activities. These schools do not typically subsume athletic and artistic opportunities as extracurricular activities. Rather, students are expected to engage in both the arts and sports as a fundamental part of their educational experience
A diverse option of classes, you'll find something for every student
• Most elite boarding schools today still offer a curriculum that mirrors the early academics, at least in their commitment to both classical and English approaches to the curriculum.
“Although Americans were ambivalent about the classic curriculum that was the model of early academies, they also realized the symbolic power that such skills had and retained the belief that these skills were important
Characterizing Elite Boarding Schools
Demographically Elite
"While there is no doubt that these measures of achievement are wrought with inadequacies, these are the indicators that elite boarding schools use to determine the academic aptitude of their students, and they are therefore an important status marker” (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2009, 1110)
Historically Elite
"it can also be argued that elite boarding schools share a history that points to their expansion along with the public school system that is premised on their elite status defined by their wealth of social, cultural, and economic capital” (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2009, 1107)
“ only wealth and social connections can explain the spread and success of elite boarding schools” (Fernández 2009 p.1107).
Scholastically Elite
“To satisfy these goals, elite boarding schools offer sophisticated courses of study, and students are able to choose from a wide range of offerings in a diversity of disciplines.” (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2009, 1101)
“The curriculum offered by elite boarding schools is not a response to state mandates or policies developed by economists or politicians. Rather, it is negotiated between the educators who deliver the curriculum, the expectations of parents who pay the high tuition, the demands of students who take the courses, and - of course - the requirements of elite colleges and universities that expect to admit students with particular academic background” (Fernández 2009 p.1102).
Typologically Elite
6 characteristics along independent schools
self-governance, self-support, self-defined curriculum, self-selected students, self-selected faculty, and small size
Geographically Elite
“Parents preferred that their sons be educated in a pristine rural environment rather than in the city. In a rural environment their children would be far removed from the contaminating aspects of city life, including the dangerous habits and ideas of working-class children whom they were likely to meet on their way to and from school.” (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2009, 1108)
Independent and self selected communities
Average of 543 Students
Elite boarding schools are typically for the upper class families.
"Yet, it is important to remember that just because a school has an impressive record of sending students to elite colleges or just because two thirds of its families make more money than the large majority of the population does not make it an elite boarding school." (Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2009, p.22)
Implications for Research
“Powell largely ignores privilege in his analysis. Instead, he draws a distinction between understanding "the education that privileged schools provide" and "the social system that permits independent schools to exist” (Fernández 2009 p.1111).
“the prep school tradition must always be considered in the context of such privilege and in relation to the social system that encourages the gross inequality that these schools represent“ (Fernández 2009 p.1111).