Private schools are central to the reproduction of social inequality. For example, whilst in the UK providing only about seven per cent of the school population, about half of the undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge still come from the private sector. Private schools have long been associated with privilege and elitism. While this traditional elitist aspect to the private sector is still central, the private school sector is actually far more diverse that is usually acknowledged. It now includes many small schools and faith-based schools that may not offer the traditional advantages of the private sector but which provide a particular environment deemed desirable by parents. In spite of their educational and social importance, there has been very little academic research and writing on private schools. The proposed book will be the culmination of Professor Walford's research into private schools over the past twenty years.

Originally published in 1988, this book analyses the effect of public boarding school on those boys who grew to manhood under its influence. With access to over 2000 letters written by parents to the Head Master and governors of Ellesmere College in the period 1929-50, it raises issues about the construction of masculinity in the mid-twentieth century. The author demonstrates from these candid letters the concerns of a small group of parents bringing up their sons: their aspirations, plans, fears and problems. She shows how parents' plans changed, sometimes very dramatically, due to the Second World War, and demonstrates the differences between social groups as diverse as clergy, widows and farmers in bringing up their sons. The author also presents fascinating and elusive evidence about the sons themselves and the effects of their schooling on their models of masculinity, sexuality and attitudes to women. This book places the particular concerns of a relatively small group within the much wider contexts of education, social and gender structure.

'The girls' boarding school! What a ripe theme for the most observant verbal artist in our midst today - the absurdly undersung Ysenda Maxtone Graham, who has the beadiness and nosiness of the best investigative reporter, the wit of Jane Austen and a take on life which is like no one else's. This book has been my constant companion ever since it appeared' A. N. Wilson, Evening Standard When I asked a group of girls who had been at Hatherop Castle in the 1960s whether the school had had a lab in those days they gave me a blank look. 'A laboratory?' I expanded, hoping to jog their memories. 'Oh that kind of lab!' one of them said. 'I thought you meant a Labrador.' 'The cruel teachers. The pashes on other girls. The gossip. The giggles. The awful food. The homesickness. The friendships made for life. The shivering cold. Games of lacrosse, and cricket. 'The most brilliant, hilarious book. My book of the year' India Knight 'A wonderful book' Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday

Elite schools have an intriguing capacity to endure and adapt in the face of social, cultural and political change. They help both to reproduce power, privilege and status and also to regularly produce them afresh. The intricacies involved, over time and place, have attracted the abiding empirical, methodological and conceptual interest of sociologists and historians; recently, anthropologists and geographers have also responded to their allure. Collectively, the focus of such studies is usually on class making and the manner in which gender and race/ethnicity, place and mobility overlap and are part of the mix. This edited collection is framed around the notion of a 'new sociology of elite education', but it speaks into this wider space of inquiry in which studies of such schools are becoming more interdisciplinary. In so doing it brings together a new array of conceptual and theoretical tools while also deepening those that already exist. The contributions examine various configurations of contemporary class making and their attendant politics. These explorations are situated in the specificities of geographical locales where the complex dynamics of both national/local educational priorities and global/transnational forces are played out. In addition to showing how these dynamics put pressure on elite schools to redefine them, the book's diverse international focus shines a light on new and emerging global patterns. This book was originally published as a special issue of British Journal of Sociology of Education.

The great public schools are central to any discussion of English secondary education. Founded as public endowments, they are the basis of private education. Set apart from the other grammar schools by the Clarendon Commission of 1861, their influence on the state system has been enormous. Severed from the national provision of public education, they have put prestige and ancient endowments at the service of wealth and patronage. This book, available in paperback for the first time, shows how this came to pass. How the schools' attempts at reform, reliance on fees, the defence of the Classics, public criticism of Eton, European ideas and foreign economic competition led to the Carendon Commission. How Lord Clarendon himself, in conflict with Palmerston over foreign policy, came to lead the Commission and attempt curricular reform. How the Public Schools Acts created a separate school system for the benefit of Eton and how the Lords sought to establish that system for the upper classes. How the fee-paying, class-based principles of the Commission influenced the other grammar schools and all later English education. How the Public schools Acts reduced the influence of local parents and how new governors were appointed nationally. How Shrewsbury School, an example of an endowed grammar school with strong local connections, came to be part of the public school system. It is not the conflict between state education and private schools that makes so much discussion of English education bitter and controversial. It is the loss to state education of the public schools - the original political purpose of the Acts - and the impoverishment of national education by the class divisions of Victorian legislation. -- .

Not much has been written about the private education sector in Singapore despite the fact that the sector houses about 300 private education institutions (PEIs) and enrolls about 150,000 students. Private Education in Singapore: Contemporary Issues and Challenges is an exciting book that aims to fill a gap in the literature. In the book, the author offers an extensive discussion on (i) the key elements of the sector - types and features of the PEIs, (ii) the regulatory framework for private education, (iii) students' aspiration and the impact of the ASPIRE report on PEIs, and (iv) the provision of external degree programme through transnational partnership. The book also tackles the hotly debated discussion in relation to academic quality and standard of PEI courses. The author identifies the reasons - some of them have more characteristics of a myth - and suggests a number of ways to overcome the issues and challenges.

Elite schools have an intriguing capacity to endure and adapt in the face of social, cultural and political change. They help both to reproduce power, privilege and status and also to regularly produce them afresh. The intricacies involved, over time and place, have attracted the abiding empirical, methodological and conceptual interest of sociologists and historians; recently, anthropologists and geographers have also responded to their allure. Collectively, the focus of such studies is usually on class making and the manner in which gender and race/ethnicity, place and mobility overlap and are part of the mix. This edited collection is framed around the notion of a 'new sociology of elite education', but it speaks into this wider space of inquiry in which studies of such schools are becoming more interdisciplinary. In so doing it brings together a new array of conceptual and theoretical tools while also deepening those that already exist. The contributions examine various configurations of contemporary class making and their attendant politics. These explorations are situated in the specificities of geographical locales where the complex dynamics of both national/local educational priorities and global/transnational forces are played out. In addition to showing how these dynamics put pressure on elite schools to redefine them, the book's diverse international focus shines a light on new and emerging global patterns. This book was originally published as a special issue of British Journal of Sociology of Education.

As Higher Education becomes increasingly important in the world, so does the task of Higher Education Management. This book serves as a practical guide to administrators and leaders who are actively involved in setting the direction of their Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). It covers relevant theories and specific research topics to provide a comprehensive view of private HEIs in Singapore and Malaysia, as well as an insight into the research methodologies applicable to analyse HEIs.This is the first book about Asian Private Education Management written by an author who is also an administrator and professor of a university. As such, it is a real insight into the workings and thinking of private university leaders. This book also serves as a guide for administrators and researchers who wish to understand problems related to the education industry from a business process reengineering perspective.

This book, first published in 1988, examines the development of secondary comprehensive education from the 1960s to the 1980s. Tensions and transformations in the meaning and practice of 'comprehensive' and 'progressive' education within the state education sector are examined and described. The main themes throughout the collection are the deepening crisis of comprehensive education and the profound restructuring which is taking place in secondary education as a result of current government policy. This title will be of interest to students of education and sociology.

First published in 1984, British Public Schools is a collection of empirically based articles written by sociologists of education who have conducted research into public schools. Studies are presented on why parents sent their children to public schools, on the experiences of pupils and teachers, on aspirations and attitudes of pupils towards higher education, on the increasing emphasis of schools on examination successes, and on the relationships between public school education and educational and occupational successes. This book is an essential read for scholars and researchers of sociology of education and education.

Originally published in 1900

As well as being a history of Abbotsholme School this volume also examines the general question of the English national education at the turn of the last century.

The material includes:

• The foundation of Abbotsholme, 1889
• Answers to the Royal Commission on "Secondary" education, 1894
• British, French, and German press reports on the progress of the school
• Planned schools on Abbotsholme lines in England, Germany, France, Russia and Switzerland.

This book provides a foundational understanding of the charter school principalship through the lens of culture, mission and vision. By drawing on the experts in the field of charter school research, this volume expands our understanding of the unique challenges facing the charter school principal as they engage in the core responsibilities of developing and sustaining charter schools. With this expanded knowledge practitioners and policy makers are positioned to ponder and engage in improved practice, while researcher can further expand the knowledge base surrounding the charter principal.

Supplementary education consists of private instruction that complements and sometimes 'shadows' formal school content. Providers range from informal and part-time tutors to highly institutionalized, multi-national corporate franchises. This phenomenon is growing worldwide and has many potential impacts on formal education systems. This volume is the first multi-national examination of this topic and includes 'big picture' analyses to comparatively explain the intensity, authority and policy contexts of supplementary education. Quantitative and qualitative case studies of countries with high and low intensity forms of supplementary education are detailed. The chapters aim to deepen comparative and interdisciplinary knowledge on the impact of these educational markets on formal school systems, and inform future research and policy on supplementary education.

British private schools are a continuing topic of fascination for many. In particular, the leading so-called public schools have long been subjected both to criticism for their elitism and praise for their academic success. Traditionally, Conservative governments have strongly supported the private sector through special funding such as the Assisted Places Scheme, while Labour governments have reduced the private sector's support from the state and threatened to abolish it. However, the present new Labour government has reversed Labour's former oppostion to private schools and sought co-operation between the two sectors. This has led to an increasing interest in the realities of the private schools; and this book brings together the best of recently conducted research on the various aspects of private schooling, through a series of specially commissioned, previously unpublished essays.

This study of Edgewood Academy--a private, elite college preparatory high school--examines what moral choices look like when they are made by the participants in an exceptionally wealthy school, and what the very existence of a privileged school indicates about American society. It extends Peshkin's ongoing exploration of U.S. high schools and their communities, each focused in a different sociocultural setting. In this particular inquiry, he began with two central questions:
* What is a school like whose students enter with a determined disposition to attend college, and all of whom are selected on the promise they display for college success?
* What can be learned from studying Edgewood Academy that transcends the particular case of this school?
The volume opens with a description of how moral choices look when they are made by the participants in an exceedingly wealthy school. There is a general picture of the Academy, a discussion of the processes the school uses to insure the quality of its students and educators, and an overview of teachers and students that reveals what is commendable about each group. These chapters clarify what a school of ample financial means and wise leadership can do. Peshkin goes on to reflect briefly on privilege and concludes with a discussion of what the very existence of a privileged school indicates about American society. Schools, he suggests, are about much more than what goes on inside them--they mirror what is and is not at stake for their particular constituents--and function similarly for the nation.
Edgewood Academy's host community is not a village, town, church, or tribe, as in Peshkin's previous studies. It is a community created by shared aspirations for high-level academic attainment and its associated benefits. Affluence and towering academic achievement are the two most relevant factors. In this book, advantage occupies center stage. The school's excellence is documented not to extol its success, but, rather, to call attention to what is available for its students that is not available for most American children. The focus, ultimately, is on educational justice as illuminated by the advantage of Academy students--that is, on justice denied, not because anyone or any group or agency consciously, planfully sets out to do injustice to other children, but because injustice happens as the artifact of imagined limitations of resources and means. Peshkin's purpose is not to detail the particulars of how educational justice is denied to the many, but to portray and examine the meaning of a privileged school where educational justice prevails for the few.

This study of Edgewood Academy--a private, elite college preparatory high school--examines what moral choices look like when they are made by the participants in an exceptionally wealthy school, and what the very existence of a privileged school indicates about American society. It extends Peshkin's ongoing exploration of U.S. high schools and their communities, each focused in a different sociocultural setting. In this particular inquiry, he began with two central questions:
* What is a school like whose students enter with a determined disposition to attend college, and all of whom are selected on the promise they display for college success?
* What can be learned from studying Edgewood Academy that transcends the particular case of this school?
The volume opens with a description of how moral choices look when they are made by the participants in an exceedingly wealthy school. There is a general picture of the Academy, a discussion of the processes the school uses to insure the quality of its students and educators, and an overview of teachers and students that reveals what is commendable about each group. These chapters clarify what a school of ample financial means and wise leadership can do. Peshkin goes on to reflect briefly on privilege and concludes with a discussion of what the very existence of a privileged school indicates about American society. Schools, he suggests, are about much more than what goes on inside them--they mirror what is and is not at stake for their particular constituents--and function similarly for the nation.
Edgewood Academy's host community is not a village, town, church, or tribe, as in Peshkin's previous studies. It is a community created by shared aspirations for high-level academic attainment and its associated benefits. Affluence and towering academic achievement are the two most relevant factors. In this book, advantage occupies center stage. The school's excellence is documented not to extol its success, but, rather, to call attention to what is available for its students that is not available for most American children. The focus, ultimately, is on educational justice as illuminated by the advantage of Academy students--that is, on justice denied, not because anyone or any group or agency consciously, planfully sets out to do injustice to other children, but because injustice happens as the artifact of imagined limitations of resources and means. Peshkin's purpose is not to detail the particulars of how educational justice is denied to the many, but to portray and examine the meaning of a privileged school where educational justice prevails for the few.

Research conducted in schools over the past two decades has found that youth shape who they are in ways that do not simply mirror class, race, and gender discourses organizing life in schools. Instead, educators have learned that youth play active roles in shaping who they are on a daily basis, challenging dominant meanings and practices as they move through school. New insights in these directions now compel those in educational circles to talk differently about youth identity formation than they did nearly two decades ago. While sound research on male identity formation in educational contexts has illustrated boys' socialization processes in school, there still is much to learn about girls' social lives and meaning-making processes, particularly in the relatively unexplored arenas of private education and single-sex schooling.

Probing beneath the surface, this book explores one year in the lives of thirty-four adolescent girls in Best Academy, a historically elite, private, single-sex high school, as female students construct their identities in an educational context. Through the eyes of these students, we find that the private school is less of a homogenous and stable culture along class and race lines than educators have understood it to be.

This work examines the history of access to private education in order to shed light on the wider question of the interaction of state, society and schooling. Although the research is organized historically, much of the analysis is concentrated upon contemporary political struggles, and used to evaluate the possibility of creating a unified educational system.

The presentation of a practical model showing how three schools dealt with privatization. This study asks whether privatization is a means of improving education and discusses the issues central to successful privatization including the choices for parents.

The presentation of a practical model showing how three schools dealt with privatization. This study asks whether privatization is a means of improving education and discusses the issues central to successful privatization including the choices for parents.

This book is about boys' experiences of being educated in independent single-sex schools in Canada. These experiences, which are oftentimes attributed to particular places and moments at school, reveal ways in which school places are both "companionable" and "influential" in how boys become available to themselves and others as they pursue the possibility of becoming somebody. Curious about how masculinities show up in places at school and studying the sorts of gendered subjectivities that such places invite, entice, support and deny, the book extends beyond traditional ways of thinking and writing about the production of masculinities in education by introducing a different set of conceptual orientations and inquiry practices, including post-masculinities, weak theory, and art-led research and thought practices.

This edited collection discusses the efforts of teachers, parents and administrators to counteract the alienation and intellectual disengagement which they perceive to be present in many American schools. Educators working in some of the best alternative primary and secondary schools across America describe their attempts to create systems which will educate diverse populations in their customs and heritages and to make schools into places characterized by intellectual vitality, personal support and strong connections to their local social environment.

First published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Originally published in 1988, this book analyses the effect of public boarding school on those boys who grew to manhood under its influence. With access to over 2000 letters written by parents to the Head Master and governors of Ellesmere College in the period 1929-50, it raises issues about the construction of masculinity in the mid-twentieth century. The author demonstrates from these candid letters the concerns of a small group of parents bringing up their sons: their aspirations, plans, fears and problems. She shows how parents' plans changed, sometimes very dramatically, due to the Second World War, and demonstrates the differences between social groups as diverse as clergy, widows and farmers in bringing up their sons. The author also presents fascinating and elusive evidence about the sons themselves and the effects of their schooling on their models of masculinity, sexuality and attitudes to women. This book places the particular concerns of a relatively small group within the much wider contexts of education, social and gender structure.