ERIC Number: EJ1022958
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013
Pages: 22
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-5692
EISSN: N/A
"Class Work:" Producing Privilege and Social Mobility in Elite US Secondary Schools
Weis, Lois; Cipollone, Kristin
British Journal of Sociology of Education, v34 n5-6 p701-722 2013
Drawing upon two ethnographic studies of affluent and elite co-educational secondary schools in the United States, Weis and Cipollone spotlight the explicit "class work" of a now highly insecure middle/upper middle class, as they attempt to maintain advantage via entrance to particularly located post-secondary destinations. Affirming the notion that class position must now be "won" at both the individual and collective level, rather than constituting the "manner to which one is born," the authors track and theorize intensified preparation for and application to particular kinds of post-secondary destinations in an increasingly segmented national and international marketplace for higher education. Although the US media have taken note of such "application frenzy," little scholarly work tracks and theorizes this "frenzy" as a distinctly "class process," one that represents intensified "class work" at one and the same time as class "winners" and "losers" become ever more apparent in the larger global arena.
Descriptors: Advantaged, Social Mobility, Selective Admission, Secondary Schools, Ethnography, Social Class, Coeducation, College Admission, College Preparation, Commercialization, Higher Education, Social Stratification, Advanced Placement Programs, Course Selection (Students), High School Students, Futures (of Society), Interviews, Parent Attitudes, Cultural Capital, Social Capital, Competition, College Applicants
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Secondary Education; Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A