The Wealthy, the Brilliant, the Few
Elite Education in Contemporary American Discourse
How does the US make sense of its elite educational system, given that it seems to be at odds with core American values, such as equality of opportunity or upward mobility? Sophie Spieler explores scholarly and journalistic investigations, self-representational texts, and fictional narratives revolving around the Ivy League and its peers in order to understand elite education and its peculiar position in American cultural discourse. Among the book's most surprising and groundbreaking insights is the tenacity and adaptability of meritocratic ideology across all three sub-discourses, despite its fundamental incompatibility with the American educational system.
Kapitel-Übersicht
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Frontmatter
Seiten 1 - 4 -
Contents
Seiten 5 - 6 -
Acknowledgements
Seiten 7 - 8 -
Introduction
Seiten 9 - 20 -
I. Exposition: Approaching the Elite Educational Space
1. Introductory Remarks
Seite 21 -
2. Starting Points: Eliteness and Education in American Culture
Seiten 21 - 29 -
3. 'Very Important, Very Powerful, or Very Prominent': Eliteness in America
Seiten 29 - 50 -
4. 'Excellence and Equity': Merit as the Price of Admission
Seiten 50 - 58 -
5. 'A Touchy Subject'? Class and Elite Education
Seiten 58 - 67 -
6. Concluding Remarks
Seiten 67 - 68 -
II. Critique: Elite Education and Its Discontents
1. Introductory Remarks
Seiten 69 - 73 -
2. Mapping the Critical Landscape
Seiten 73 - 83 -
3. Progressivist Critiques
Seiten 83 - 95 -
4. Conservative Critiques
Seiten 95 - 109 -
5. Concluding Remarks
Seiten 110 - 112 -
III. Affirmation: Self-Representation at Princeton University
1. Introductory Remarks
Seiten 113 - 118 -
2. Elite College Admissions: A Discourse of Impossibility and Pathology
Seiten 118 - 123 -
3. A Meritocracy of Affect
Seiten 123 - 135 -
4. Epistemological Frames: Diversity, the Good Life, Community
Seiten 135 - 170 -
5. Concluding Remarks
Seiten 170 - 174 -
IV. Imagination: Fictionalizations of the Elite Educational Experience
1. Introductory Remarks
Seiten 175 - 178 -
2. Exposition: Fiction in the Discourse of Elite Education
Seiten 178 - 186 -
3. Prep in the Discourse: Publicity, 'Preppiness', and the Neoliberal Imagination
Seiten 186 - 211 -
4. Diversity, Class, Mobility: Prep's Cultural Work
Seiten 211 - 242 -
5. Concluding Remarks
Seiten 242 - 248 -
Conclusion
Seiten 249 - 256 -
Works Cited
Seiten 257 - 276
1. Juni 2021, 276 Seiten
ISBN: 978-3-8376-5729-6
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