Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
onto the carpet for not absolutely following the rules all the time. I mean it is not be-
cause we are lax, it's because I think it's almost an expectation.” He explains, “You are
just kind of implying, 'Hey, you are going to be in this station in life—well sure you are
supposedtoshowupontime;but,ifyoudon'tpeoplearegoingtowaitforyouorpeople
are going to make exceptions for you.'”
Education and the uneven distribution of economic and sociocultural resources are
strongly connected. Bowles and Gintis (1977) believed that schools reproduced priv-
ilege through what they called a “façade of meritocracy.” “The educational system le-
gitimates economic inequality by providing open, objective, and ostensibly meritocratic
mechanisms for assigning individuals to unequal economic positions” (103). Cookson
and Persell (1985) argued that the hidden curriculum for elite schools like Rockport is
largely designed to justify and legitimate the students' disproportionate amount of ad-
vantages: “Privilege must appear to be earned, because the only real justification for in-
equalityisthatitisdeserved—paymentforsacrifices”(125).ZweigenhaftandDomhoff
(1991) got the sense that prep school students understood themselves as having “rights
and privileges which other people can't trample over…a feeling of specialness that is
bestcharacterizedasasenseofsuperiority”(159).CooksonandPersell(1985)similarly
found that, “For those who survive the prep ordeal, there is a sense that they are entitled
to the privileges and position that they attain. Their 'specialness' has been confirmed by
their experience” (206).
We heard comparable narratives from students at Rockport. Students often spoke
of strong expectations for both personal success as well as the success of their peers.
We heard narratives of elevated moral standards and superior academic achievement as
compared to, for example, public school students. Many of the students expressed an
overall sense of confidence in personal merit. Mike (AD) described what the perform-
ance of such values can look like in the workplace, “One of the things I once heard an
employer say,hesaid hecould always tell independent schools—not college—but inde-
pendent school kids from public school kids because at twenty-four years old they are
hiredandtheyareparticipatinginmeetings.”Mikeattributedthistoasenseofconfiden-
cegottenintheirprivateschooltraining,“Notbecausethey'rearrogantbutbecause—it's
like it's not arrogance its confidence. There is an expectation that you want to hear my
voice, you want to hear my opinions, you want to hear what I have to say. You want my
analysis of the situation.”
It is not to say that private school students do not “earn” their diploma, many if not
most certainly work hard for their success, but so do most working- and middle-class
public school students. However, values such as entitlement, individualism, and merito-
cracy that are taught in many elite private schools are troubling, particularly given the
disproportionate amount of affluence and influence many will have not only nationally
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