Provoking elite schools’ defences: an antistrophon

ABSTRACT

Elite schools, both private and public, consistently top metrics of success around the world. This article mobilises an antistrophon – turning an argument against itself – to expose elite schools’ rhetorical defences. As part of this device, four provocations are offered – knowledge, excellence, merit, values – that coincide with elite schools’ identity. These provocations are explored in light of a growing global corpus of scholarship on elite schools that consistently reveals how they reinforce their status and justify social inequality. Implicit to the argument is the idea that non-elite schools and school systems imitate such practices. It concludes by suggesting elite schools’ shrewdness in obscuring their unjust exclusivity must be continually illuminated, scrutinised, and challenged if social inequality is to be combatted.

KEYWORDS:

• Antistrophon
• elite education
• eliteness
• ideology
• inequality
• public/private schooling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Michael Burawoy (2012) offers a slight corrective to Bourdieu’s actual use of the term martial arts. The English title of Pierre Carles’ 2001 film, La Sociologie est un sport du combat, was mistranslated as Sociology is a Martial Art. According to Burawoy, ‘there is no warrant for translating combat sport as martial art’ since Bourdieu did not elaborate on the metaphor elsewhere in his work. The translated title was, ironically, more of a marketing tool. Burawoy, however, expatiates the idea as a genuine feature of Bourdieu’s work as a scholar and activist.