WORKING OUT THE SALVATION OF PRIVILEGE IN ELITE SCHOOLS: A TIME CAPSULE STUDY OF MINORITY STUDENTS IN ASIA

ABSTRACT

This paper highlights how a small group of minority students worked to take advantage of the privileges available once they were admitted to an elite school. The argument proposed is that, unlike their more privileged peers, minority students who have made it through the gateways of elite schools have to work out a salvation of privilege to level up their chances and aspirations of success. A grounded theory based on ‘working out the salvation of privilege’ is derived to examine the ways in which minority students in elite schools seize individual ways of self-saving their variegated disadvantages. The study tracked three students over a five-year period to explore the development of their aspirations and individual trajectories two years after they exited their schools. Despite the students’ efforts in self-saving, their ‘envisioned future’ became limited over time. All had to modify their options and expectations because their non-privileged background hindered their aspirations.

Keywords:

• elite schools
• privilege
• Asia
• minority students
• time capsule case study

7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful and astute feedback on earlier drafts. The project, “Elite Independent Schools in Globalising Circumstances: A Multi-sited Global Ethnography” was funded by the Australian Research Council DP1093778. This article is dedicated to my collaborators: Jane Kenway, Johannah Fahey, Debbie Epstein, Cameron McCarthy and Fazal Rizvi.

8. DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

9. FUNDING

This work was funded by the Australian Research Council DP1093778