The Wealthy, the Brilliant, the Few

Elite Education in Contemporary American Discourse

DOI: 10.14361/9783839457290

Spieler, Sophie

Abstract

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.

Book Cover [The Wealthy, the Brilliant, the Few]

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Erscheinungstermin

01. Juni 2021

Creative Commons Lizenz

Open Access enabled by

Freie Universität Berlin

Kapitel

- Frontmatter
  - 1 - 4
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- Contents
  - 5 - 6
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- Acknowledgements
  - 7 - 8
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- Introduction
  - 9 - 20
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I. Exposition: Approaching the Elite Educational Space
- 1. Introductory Remarks
  - 21 - 21
  - Spieler, Sophie
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- 2. Starting Points: Eliteness and Education in American Culture
  - 21 - 29
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Mehr
- 3. 'Very Important, Very Powerful, or Very Prominent': Eliteness in America
  - 29 - 50
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- 4. 'Excellence and Equity': Merit as the Price of Admission
  - 50 - 58
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- 5. 'A Touchy Subject'? Class and Elite Education
  - 58 - 67
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- 6. Concluding Remarks
  - 67 - 68
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II. Critique: Elite Education and Its Discontents
- 1. Introductory Remarks
  - 69 - 73
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- 2. Mapping the Critical Landscape
  - 73 - 83
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- 3. Progressivist Critiques
  - 83 - 95
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- 4. Conservative Critiques
  - 95 - 109
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- 5. Concluding Remarks
  - 110 - 112
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III. Affirmation: Self-Representation at Princeton University
- 1. Introductory Remarks
  - 113 - 118
  - Spieler, Sophie
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- 2. Elite College Admissions: A Discourse of Impossibility and Pathology
  - 118 - 123
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- 3. A Meritocracy of Affect
  - 123 - 135
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- 4. Epistemological Frames: Diversity, the Good Life, Community
  - 135 - 170
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- 5. Concluding Remarks
  - 170 - 174
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IV. Imagination: Fictionalizations of the Elite Educational Experience
- 1. Introductory Remarks
  - 175 - 178
  - Spieler, Sophie
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- 2. Exposition: Fiction in the Discourse of Elite Education
  - 178 - 186
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- 3. Prep in the Discourse: Publicity, 'Preppiness', and the Neoliberal Imagination
  - 186 - 211
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- 4. Diversity, Class, Mobility: Prep's Cultural Work
  - 211 - 242
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- 5. Concluding Remarks
  - 242 - 248
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- Conclusion
  - 249 - 256
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- Works Cited
  - 257 - 276
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Weniger

Bibliografische Daten
Rezensionen

eISBN PDF: 978-3-8394-5729-0
eISBN ePUB: -
eISBN HTML: -
Seitenumfang: 276
BIC-Code: DSB JFC
BISAC-Code: LIT004020 SOC022000
THEMA: DSB JBCC

Creative Commons Lizenz: cc-by
Verlag: transcript Verlag
Schlagworte: Social Stratification, Distinction, Meritocracy, Campus Novels, Capital, Princeton, Elite Education, Class, Discourse Analysis, Neoliberalism, Ivy League, Curtis Sittenfeld, Literature, Education, America, American Studies, Cultural Studies, Cultural Theory, Literary Studies,

Abstract

Kapitel

I. Exposition: Approaching the Elite Educational Space

II. Critique: Elite Education and Its Discontents

III. Affirmation: Self-Representation at Princeton University

IV. Imagination: Fictionalizations of the Elite Educational Experience

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