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Elite Schools in Globalising
Circumstances
New conceptual directions and
connections

Edited by
Jane Kenway and Cameron McCarthy
Elite Schools in Globalising Circumstances

Elite Schools in Globalising Circumstances foregrounds the richly theoretical and


empirically based work of an international cast of scholars seeking to break out of
the confines of the methodological nationalism that now governs so much of contem-
porary scholarship on schooling. Based on a 5-year extended global ethnography of
elite schools in nine different countries – countries defined by colonial pasts linked
to England – the contributors make a powerful case for the rethinking of elite schools
and elite class formation theory in light of contemporary processes of globalisation
and transnational change.
Prestigious, high-status schools have long been seen as critical institutional vehi-
cles directly contributing to the societal processes of elite selection and reproduction.
This book asserts that much has changed and that these schools can no longer rest
on their past laurels and accomplishments. Instead they must re-cast their heritages
and traditions in order to navigate the new globally competitive educational field,
enabling them to succeed in a world in which the globalization of educational mar-
kets; the global ambitions and imaginations of school youth; and the emergence of
new powerful players peddling entrepreneurial models of curriculum and education
have placed contemporary schooling under tremendous pressure. This insightful and
thought-provoking volume provides a well-researched perspective on the nature of
contemporary schooling in the globalising era. This book was originally published as
a special issue of Globalisation, Societies and Education.

Jane Kenway is a Professor in the Education Faculty at Monash University,


Melbourne, Australia. She is recognised internationally for her research on the
politics of educational change in the context of wider social, cultural and political
change. Her more recent books are Elite Schools: Multiple Geographies of Privilege
(Routledge, in press), Asia as Method in Education Studies: A defiant research imag-
ination (Routledge, 2015) and Globalizing the Research Imagination (Routledge,
2008). She has recently edited special issues of the British Journal of the Sociology
of Education and the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and
has published in a variety of journals, including the British Journal of the Sociology
of Education, Gender and Education, Journal of Education Policy and Education
and Societies. She leads the international team project Elite independent schools in
globalising circumstances: a multi-sited global ethnography, and is a Fellow of the
Australian Academy of Social Sciences.
Cameron McCarthy is Communication Scholar and University Scholar in the
Department of Education Policy, Leadership and Organization (EPOL) and in
the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign, Illinois, USA. He has published widely on topics related to globali-
sation; canon formation; race and the class conquest of the city; post-colonialism;
problems with neo-Marxist writings on race and education; institutional support for
teaching; and school ritual and adolescent identities in journals including Harvard
Educational Review, Oxford Review of Education, Studies in Linguistic Sciences
and the British Journal of the Sociology of Education. His latest book is an edited
volume entitled Mobilized Identities: Mediated Subjectivity and Cultural Crisis in
the Neoliberal Era (Common Ground Press, 2014). He is currently one of the lead
investigators of the ‘Elite Schools in Globalizing Circumstances’ global ethnography
study of youth and education in nine countries and across six regions: Australia,
Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Elite Schools in Globalising
Circumstances
New conceptual directions and connections

Edited by
Jane Kenway and Cameron McCarthy
First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN, UK
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 Taylor & Francis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known
or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 13: 978-1-138-10093-0

Typeset in Times New Roman


by diacriTech, Chennai

Publisher’s Note
The publisher accepts responsibility for any inconsistencies that may have arisen
during the conversion of this book from journal articles to book chapters, namely
the possible inclusion of journal terminology.

Disclaimer
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their permission to
reprint material in this book. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any
copyright holder who is not here acknowledged and will undertake to rectify any
errors or omissions in future editions of this book.
Contents

Citation Information vii


Notes on Contributors ix

Introduction: understanding the re-articulations of


privilege over time and space 1
Cameron McCarthy and Jane Kenway

1. Staying ahead of the game: the globalising practices of elite schools 13


Jane Kenway and Johannah Fahey

2. Doing class analysis in Singapore’s elite education:


unravelling the smokescreen of ‘meritocratic talk’ 32
Aaron Koh

3. The Argonauts of postcolonial modernity:


elite Barbadian schools in globalising circumstances 47
Cameron McCarthy, Ergin Bulut, Michelle Castro, Koeli Goel and
Heather Greenhalgh-Spencer

4. Privileged girls: the place of femininity and femininity in place 64


Johannah Fahey

5. Race-ing class ladies: lineages of privilege in an elite


South African school 80
Debbie Epstein

6. The Cyprus game: crossing the boundaries in a divided island 98


Matthew Shaw

7. Reach for the stars: a constellational approach to


ethnographies of elite schools 111
Howard Prosser

v
CONTENTS

8. Old elite schools, history and the construction of a new imaginary 126
Fazal Rizvi

9. A comment on class productions in elite secondary


schools in twenty-first-century global context 145
Lois Weis

Index 157

vi
Citation Information

The chapters in this book were originally published in Globalisation, Societies and
Education, volume 12, issue 2 (June 2014). When citing this material, please use the
original page numbering for each article, as follows:

Introduction
Introduction: understanding the re-articulations of privilege over time and space
Cameron McCarthy and Jane Kenway
Globalisation, Societies and Education, volume 12, issue 2 (June 2014)
pp. 165–176

Chapter 1
Staying ahead of the game: the globalising practices of elite schools
Jane Kenway and Johannah Fahey
Globalisation, Societies and Education, volume 12, issue 2 (June 2014)
pp. 177–195

Chapter 2
Doing class analysis in Singapore’s elite education: unravelling the smokescreen
of ‘meritocratic talk’
Aaron Koh
Globalisation, Societies and Education, volume 12, issue 2 (June 2014)
pp. 196–210

Chapter 3
The Argonauts of postcolonial modernity: elite Barbadian schools in globalising
circumstances
Cameron McCarthy, Ergin Bulut, Michelle Castro, Koeli Goel and Heather
Greenhalgh-Spencer
Globalisation, Societies and Education, volume 12, issue 2 (June 2014)
pp. 211–227

vii
CITATION INFORMATION

Chapter 4
Privileged girls: the place of femininity and femininity in place
Johannah Fahey
Globalisation, Societies and Education, volume 12, issue 2 (June 2014)
pp. 228–243

Chapter 5
Race-ing class ladies: lineages of privilege in an elite South African school
Debbie Epstein
Globalisation, Societies and Education, volume 12, issue 2 (June 2014)
pp. 244–261

Chapter 6
The Cyprus game: crossing the boundaries in a divided island
Matthew Shaw
Globalisation, Societies and Education, volume 12, issue 2 (June 2014)
pp. 262–274
Chapter 7
Reach for the stars: a constellational approach to ethnographies of elite schools
Howard Prosser
Globalisation, Societies and Education, volume 12, issue 2 (June 2014)
pp. 275–289

Chapter 8
Old elite schools, history and the construction of a new imaginary
Fazal Rizvi
Globalisation, Societies and Education, volume 12, issue 2 (June 2014)
pp. 290–308

Chapter 9
A comment on class productions in elite secondary schools in twenty-first-century
global context
Lois Weis
Globalisation, Societies and Education, volume 12, issue 2 (June 2014)
pp. 309–320

For any permissions-related enquiries please visit


http://www.tandfonline.com/page/help/permissions

viii
Notes on Contributors

Ergin Bulut is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Visual Arts
at Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey. He received his PhD from the Institute of
Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois,
USA. His research interests cover political economy of culture and communication,
media labor, development and international communication, philosophy of technol-
ogy, cultural studies and video game studies.
Michelle Castro is a PhD candidate in the Institute of Communications Research at
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA.
Debbie Epstein is Professor of Cultural Studies in Education in the School of
Education at the University of Roehampton, London, UK. She works at the nexus
of cultural studies and sociology of education, gender, childhood and youth. Her
research interests are led by her theoretical focus on the dominant and how it is
held in place; this often involves investigating the experiences of those in subordi-
nated, marginalised and/or stigmatised groups as well as those in more dominant
groups.
Johannah Fahey is an Ajunct Research Fellow in the Faculty of Education at Monash
University, Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests focus on sociocultural
studies of education, broadly defined, in relation to globalisation’s social, cultural
and political landscape. She is also conversant with a range of disciplines that
intersect with her chosen areas of research, from philosophy to cultural anthro-
pology, and from cultural geography to art history/criticism. She is the author or
co-author/co-editor of Social Aesthetics of Elite Schools: Exploring the Sensory
Dynamics of Privilege, Springer,. 2015 (with Prosser and Shaw), David Noonan:
Before and Now (Thames & Hudson, 2004), Haunting the Knowledge Economy
(Routledge, 2006) and Globalizing the Research Imagination (Routledge, 2009).
Koeli Goel is a Post-doctoral Researcher in the Institute of Communications Research
at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA.
Heather Greenhalgh-Spencer is an Assistant Professor in the College of Education
at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, USA. Her areas of specialisation
include diversity and equity in education, critical analysis of educational tech-
nologies, philosophy of education and global studies in education.

ix
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Jane Kenway is a Professor in the Education Faculty at Monash University,


Melbourne, Australia. She is recognised internationally for her research on the
politics of educational change in the context of wider social, cultural and political
change. Her more recent books are Elite Schools: Multiple Geographies of Privilege
(Routledge, 2015), Asia as Method in Education Studies: A defiant research imag-
ination (Routledge, 2015) and Globalizing the Research Imagination (Routledge,
2008). She has recently edited special issues of the British Journal of the Sociology
of Education and the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education,
and has published in a variety of journals, including the British Journal of the
Sociology of Education, Gender and Education, Journal of Education Policy and
Education and Societies. She leads the international team project Elite independ-
ent schools in globalising circumstances: a multi-sited global ethnography, and is
a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences.
Aaron Koh is Associate Professor at the National Institute of Education, Singapore.
His research interests are critical language studies and pedagogy; new literacy
studies; discourse analysis; cultural studies in education; the sociology of educa-
tion; and ethnography and education. He is the author of Tactical Globalization:
Learning from the Singapore Experiment (Peter Lang AG, 2010), and is also on
the editorial boards of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education and
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy.
Cameron McCarthy is Communication Scholar and University Scholar in the
Department of Education Policy, Leadership and Organization (EPOL) and in
the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign, Illinois, USA. He has published widely on topics related to globalisa-
tion; canon formation; race and the class conquest of the city; post-colonialism;
problems with neo-Marxist writings on race and education; institutional support for
teaching; and school ritual and adolescent identities in journals including Harvard
Educational Review, Oxford Review of Education, Studies in Linguistic Sciences
and the British Journal of the Sociology of Education. His latest book is an edited
volume entitled Mobilized Identities: Mediated Subjectivity and Cultural Crisis
in the Neoliberal Era (Common Ground Press, 2014). He is currently one of the
lead investigators of the ‘Elite Schools in Globalizing Circumstances’ global eth-
nography study of youth and education in nine countries and across six regions:
Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Howard Prosser recently completed his PhD in the Faculty of Education at Monash
University, Melbourne, Australia. He is a historian whose previous research
focused on twentieth-century European and American intellectual history, espe-
cially the legacies of the Frankfurt School and the New Lefts. He has taught a
range of histories at universities in Australia and Canada, as well as in schools.
Fazal Rizvi is Professor in Global Studies in Education at the University of Melbourne,
Australia. He has a strong international reputation in a number of academic areas,

x
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

including racism and multicultural education; Australia–Asia relations; models of


educational policy research; theories of globalisation; and international education
and contemporary youth cultures.
Matthew Shaw is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education at Monash University,
Melbourne, Australia. His research interests include the historical role of sport in
elite schools and as a transmitter of imperial values. He is also interested in how
this contrasts to the place that sport has in the curriculum in today’s post-colonial
societies, and how schools seek to transmit values and cultural understanding to
students.
Lois Weis is Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at the State University
of New York at Buffalo, New York, USA. She is Past President of the American
Educational Studies Association, and is on the editorial boards of several jour-
nals, including Educational Policy, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in
Education and Review of Educational Research. Her recent publications include
Class Reunion: The Remaking of the American White Working Class (Routledge,
2004) and Working Method: Research and Social Justice (with Michelle Fine,
Routledge, 2004).

xi
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction: understanding the re-articulations of privilege over
time and space
Cameron McCarthya and Jane Kenwayb
a
Department of Educational Policy, Organization and Leadership, University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA; bFaculty of Education, Monash University, Melbourne,
VIC, Australia

This special issue is based entirely on the research project called ‘Elite
independent schools in globalising circumstances: a multi-sited global
ethnography’ and this opening essay introduces both the project and the
essays to follow. It offers a justification for studying elite schools, elites
and elitism and explains some of the project’s guiding premises not the
least being its deliberate departure from those studies of elite schools that
are nation bound. It clarifies the project’s emphasis on the complexities of
elite formation and expression as they are caught up in changing
modalities of globalisation over time and place.

[A] veil of silence enshrouding the rich so effectively contributed to their


invisibility and impunity. (Caletrío 2012, 136)

In a recently published essay, Javier Caletrío (2012) throws down the gauntlet
to social science researchers concerned with studying inequality in education
and society: why, in a time of heightened neoliberalism and exacerbated
wealth inequality, are we not studying elites? Why are we so overly
preoccupied with studying the poor? Of course, Caletrío’s challenge is
not simply one about methodology or theory. It is about policy and ethical
commitment. It might be argued that the contributors to this special issue
(‘Elite Schools in Globalising Circumstances: New Conceptual Directions and
Connections’) are indeed taking up Caletrío’s challenge by collectively
focusing attention on the way in which contemporary elite schools across a
considerable swath of the globe are preparing teenagers for globalisation.
But what follows in this issue is not simply an effort at changing the subjects
of the social inequality so to speak. Studying elites and elitism for these

1
ELITE SCHOOLS IN GLOBALISING CIRCUMSTANCES

authors is not simply a matter of prosecuting a kind of documentary realism or


sociological sleuthing in which we identify elite actors ‘out there’ as C.
Wright Mills ([1956] 2000) or William Domhoff (1967) might be said to have
done in their discussion of the military, economic and politically powerful of
the USA in the period after the Second World War. Contributors are not about
to point out the quintessential elites, after by identifying their number plates.
Neither, still, are we here simply, or necessarily, knocking on the doors of
William Robinson and Jerry Harris (2006) or Leslie Sklair’s (2009)
multinational corporate executives and their progeny who some see as the
true masters of the neoliberal and globalising universe. Instead, what
contributors maintain based on our international study of elite schools in
globalising circumstances is that the production of elites, elitism, eliteness is
enmeshed in complex historical, economic and cultural dynamics and
pressures articulated through globalisation and its variable and generative
impact upon educational and social stratification. The set of studies reported
on here demonstrates that these complex global logics/dynamics are working
through the social environment, the elaboration of ethos and the social
identities of the elite school contexts in uneven ways, disrupting many taken-
for-granted notions of elite.
A powerful historical arc of British colonial imposition and transplantation
of the metropolitan paradigm of British public school connects all of the nine
elite school sites discussed, creating tension, contradictions and variability in
the reception and absorption of globalising processes and pressures for change.
Eliteness and elite subjectivity are marked by the kind of hybridity and
disjuncture that this collision of historical and contemporary forces introduces.
Contributors, then, seek to engage with the very fundamental issue of how do
we study elites in these transforming circumstances of ruptures and continu-
ities? We seek to articulate new ways of doing this. Central to this approach is
a reading of the material history of British disseminated colonialism onto
the globalising present in the given contexts of these studies. We want to
challenge the methodological starting points of the sociological study of elites
and schooling, so securely set at the perimeter of the nation in contemporary
scholarship. Collectively, contributors suggest that time and space compres-
sion associated with globalisation, the great transborder transgressions of
territory and the cultural and economic transactions that define our times are
all registered in schooling and in the roiling ambitions of the young. This then
forces us to think about how to do research on contemporary elites,
particularly elites produced in the shadow of global core-periphery relations,
in a different way. Contributors are therefore engaged in a reflexive reworking
of methodology as a central feature of their work as they seek to better grasp
the new dynamics of elite subjectivities and elite schooling in the age of
globalisation.

2
ELITE SCHOOLS IN GLOBALISING CIRCUMSTANCES

‘Elite Schools in Globalising Circumstances: New Conceptual Directions


and Connections’ addresses the void that exists in the research on elite
schools concerning contemporary circumstances particularly those circum-
stances pertaining to the post-colonial context and the context of globalisa-
tion. It foregrounds essays that are deeply informed by the first ever extended
global ethnography of elite schooling in globalising circumstances. This
study, now in its final year of a five-year programme of research, is being
conducted by an international collective of researchers who currently work in
Australia, Singapore, the UK and the USA, but who also have biographical
links with South Africa, Barbados, India and Hong Kong. The study consists
of a number of smaller interrelated studies that look at the contemporary
status and challenges confronting the British elite school model as it exists in
England and as it thrives today in former colonial outposts in eight other
countries: South Africa, India, Barbados, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia,
Argentina and Cyprus.1 Drawing on the insights of Michael Burawoy and his
colleagues (2000) contributors pay special attention to the logic of global
forces, global connections and global imagination – as Kenway and Fahey
elaborate in the opening paper.2 The idea of multi-sited global ethnography
informs these essays. And the authors investigating each elite school setting
attempt to show the powerful role of the school in social stratification
processes and the political culture of societies that are rescaling to the
globalising context.
The collection of essays foregrounds strong thematic overlap and integra-
tion and opens up the following three lines of examination of elite schools.
Our first shared thematic emphasis is on a critique of methodological
nationalism. Contributors maintain throughout that, regarding the understand-
ing of the contemporary challenges that elite schools face, methodological
nationalism is overtaken by events linked to globalisation. Each contributor
therefore directs attention to the nexus between elite schooling in given
national and local settings and the global context and argues for a transnational
approach to understand elite schooling in the contemporary era. Second,
contributors implicitly interrogate and complicate both elite theory and class
theory. To this end, contributors emphasise the peculiarities of elite schooling
in the post-colonial but not necessarily post-imperialist context, the dynamics
of global forces, global connections and global imaginations as these impact
contemporary schooling for the privileged, and the importance of practices of
class making along with those contributing to class reproduction. Third,
contributors as a whole underscore the importance of history and historical
analysis for an understanding of the elaboration of the peculiarities and
distinctiveness of elite schools in their globalising circumstances. Such a
historically sensitive approach heightens the significance of concentrated
attention to colonial condensations in the current material culture and
institutional forms of these schools and to adaptations, modifications and

3
ELITE SCHOOLS IN GLOBALISING CIRCUMSTANCES

transformations of the metropolitan paradigm of the British elite school model


as it exists in the post-colonial settings of education in Barbados, South Africa,
India and so forth. What then are our contributors saying about these matters?

The essays
In an illuminating opening essay (‘Staying Ahead of the Game: The
Globalising Practices of Elite Schools’) Jane Kenway and Johannah Fahey
introduce the special issue’s major themes and their connection to the
ethnographic research project that has been undertaken by our international
collective studying elite schools in globalising circumstances. Kenway and
Fahey note the key conceptual and working assumptions of mainstream and
critical research on elite schooling to date and indicate the specific ground
and point of departure of the theoretical and methodological approaches to
elite schooling that contributors to this special issue propound. In this essay,
they deepen the critique of methodological nationalism and its limitations with
respect to understanding how elite class formation operates in twenty-first
century school life defined as it is by the logics of globalisation and
transnationalism. Drawing on examples culled from our ongoing multi-sited
global ethnographic study, Kenway and Fahey offer illustrative instances of
the globalising curriculum practices in all of the elite schools in the project.
They provide a broad context for the essays that follow. In doing so, they
redeploy Burawoy’s (2000) trichotomous model of global analysis – global
‘forces, connections and imaginations’ – to better situate these studies in a
long arch of transformations and continuities that have characterised the
mutation of the British metropolitan paradigm of elite schooling in its former
colonies and outposts.
Through these new lenses, we see the adventurous elite youth of
Singapore, England and Barbados, for example, like ballet dancers nimbly
negotiating the new challenges besetting their path from school to work. These
students are destined for ‘greatness’ not only due to their own extraordinarily
well-cultivated skills, but also, perhaps most importantly, due to what Kenway
and Fahey call a ‘choreography’; a composition and arrangement of many
elements and forces including the impact of the British Empire, the
transformations of the most powerful and privileged social classes, and
reconfiguration of global imaginations, through which the students perform
upon a social stage against the backdrop of globalisation. Accordingly, as
Kenway and Fahey suggest, the elite ‘dancers’, the students from the elite
schools, imagine themselves as ‘members of global high cultural communities
of performers’ or ‘cosmopolitan subjects’, competing in both national and
global arenas effortlessly and offering a helping hand to the poorest people in
some circumstances. All of which, in part, are determined by the steady
increases of social mobility and geographical mobility brought on by a

4
ELITE SCHOOLS IN GLOBALISING CIRCUMSTANCES

globalised socio-economic environment that keeps opening new spaces of


advance, even as it closes down others, especially for the most dispossessed.
In addition, Kenway and Fahey expose a new visionary scheme of the elite
schools, marked now by shifts from exclusive preoccupation with integration
into high-end national labour markets to also centering high-end global labour
markets. Drawing on examples from all school sites in the multi-sited
ethnography, they note that the patterns of the global elite schools are
emerging ones with the one certainty that those patterns are linking with the
globally mobile fractions of national class groupings.
Aaron Koh (‘Doing Class Analysis in Singapore’s Elite Education:
Unravelling the Smokescreen of “Meritocratic Talk”’) and Cameron McCarthy,
Ergin Bulut, Michelle Castro, Koeli Goel and Heather Greenhalgh-Spencer
(‘The Argonauts of Postcolonial Modernity: Elite Barbadian Schools in
Globalising Circumstances’) directly take up the issue of elite/class formation
in the post-colonial settings of Singapore and Barbados in their essays. Drawing
on popular articles and discourses culled from Singapore’s newspapers and
triangulating these with data derived from the global ethnographic study
conducted at Clarence High School in Singapore, Koh points to the ways in
which the discourse of meritocracy renders opaque class stratification and class
ambitions in Singapore’s elite schools and in the public sphere as well. The
powerful disavowal of class distinctions in Singapore elite schools and in
public life constitutes, according to Koh, a national doxa of meritocracy: ‘a
peculiarity where meritocratic principles override all criticisms and contentions
of the reproduction of educational privileges and advantages’.
For Koh, the ‘eliteness’ of Singapore’s best schools is somewhat like
premier membership except that it is not solely defined by ownership of
resources, but also by what Gaztambide-Fernandez (blending Marx’s category
of class with Weber’s status group formulation) calls ‘symbolic materials and
subjective dispositions’. Marked by the similar material privileges, attending
an elite school is more like boarding the plane with first-class tickets. And
once you are on board, you ‘have just about the best of everything’. However,
such educational privileges are recontextualized and contested by Koh’s class
analysis that is informed by an understanding of both localities and the process
of globalisation. Reviewing data derived from the global ethnographic study
conducted at Clarence High School in Singapore, Koh claims that the obvious
signs of privilege of the elite school do not automatically suggest an elitism-
and-class-politics-centred educational environment as many scholars have
argued. On the contrary, the ‘meritocratic talk’ that suffuses the interviews
conducted by Koh and Kenway with Clarence High’s principal and students
reveals that an elite school is a site where gender, class and race are being
renegotiated. These dynamically stratifying variables are ‘neutralized’ by a
discourse of ‘meritocratic principles’ where only ‘grades’ matter. There is
therefore a rejection in the public discourse of the politics of elitism pertaining

5
ELITE SCHOOLS IN GLOBALISING CIRCUMSTANCES

to elite schooling as manifested in and proliferated by news media. Arguing


that the paradox in the relationship between the education-class nexus and the
attendant politics is not inherent in meritocracy, Koh demonstrates the
complexity of doing class analysis in the site of the elite schooling in
Singapore. This predictably, as Koh suggests, is increasingly complicated by
government efforts to close the income gap by creating more ‘good’ rather
than ‘elite’ schools in the future.
In their essay, McCarthy et al. also call attention to the topic of meritocratic
disavowal in two Barbados schools (Old Cloisters and Ardent Arbors) under
study. But the striking feature of the Barbadian elite school story is the
unexpected presence of substantial elements of black gentrified working-class
youth who articulate global ambitions for tertiary education and professional
futures in North America. In this quintessentially British former colony, where
the two schools under study represent some of the earliest transplantations of
the British elite school models to the colonies, students are what McCarthy
and his colleagues call ‘Argonauts of postcolonial modernity’. For, according
to these researchers, the students articulate a decided turn away from the long
tradition of going to England for post-secondary education and like Jason and
the Argonauts of Greek mythology seek to pursue the Golden Fleece of
education and professional opportunity in the US and Canadian institutions.
This desire to voyage abroad produces an ambivalence of identity regarding
the matter of national affiliation. These developments bring students’ global
imaginations into profound tension with historical narratives and traditions
linking these schools to England. This new context is epitomised by the
transactions between the students and international college representatives at
an annual international college fair that brings North American recruiters to
the island in search of academic talent. McCarthy et al. document this
encounter at some length, pointing to the collision between the students’
roiling ambitions and the schools’ deep sense of heritage and tradition linked
to the metropolitan paradigm of British public school traditions. And for the
authors, the students’ articulation of global imaginations of futures beyond
their island home serves to prompt reflection on the process of transnational
elite formation in the context of globalisation and the heightened human
mobility that is taking place in the Caribbean basin.
Johannah Fahey (Privileged girls: the place of femininity and femininity in
place) and Debbie Epstein (‘Race-ing Ladies: Lineages of Privilege in an Elite
South African School’) tilt the discussion of elite schooling and globalisation
towards a discussion of intersectionality – a focus on the interrelated dynamics
of gender, race and class as they operate in these school contexts. Fahey forays
into intersectionality by building on the theoretical writing of leading British
feminist Angela McRobbie (2009) concerning the production of the ‘A1 girls’
(the ‘glamorous high-achievers’ of the right wing press, such as the Daily Mail)
and the ‘global girl’ (exceptional young women from the postcolonies now

6
ELITE SCHOOLS IN GLOBALISING CIRCUMSTANCES

casting a powerful academic presence in British elite high schools). Both types
of girls are destined for Oxbridge. These young women exist in fraught
opposition in the new educational environment defined by globalisation.
Fahey’s essay extends McRobbie’s notion of girlhood by creatively fusing it
with Aihwa Ong’s interpretations of transnationality (Ong 1999, 2006).
Drawing on ethnographic data derived from research at Highbury Hall in
England and Ripon College in India, Fahey calls attention to the distinctive
feature of feminised mobility among elite global girls who articulate a flexible
feminism and strategic post-feminist rational calculations that underscore their
neoliberal orientation. The future is understood as determined by the mobilisa-
tion of personal capacities and abilities. These young women do not articulate a
desire to transform a world that is inherently sexist but aspire to personal
accomplishment and success. According to Fahey, McRobbie, in her depiction
of ambitious and talented white British girls at schools like the elite Highbury
Hall, portrays them as the perfect avatars of A1 girlhood. But Fahey
problematizes McRobbie’s account. She maintains that this fixed image of
privileged white girls in a UK elite schooling context, however, is now being
contested by the simple fact that a significant proportion of A1 girls of Highbury
Hall, the elite English school under study, are not British – they now come
from so called developing countries. Refuting a clear-cut boundary between
‘A1 girls’ and ‘global girls’ (terms coined by McRobbie and carrying implied
class and race distinction), Fahey reexamines contemporary girlhood in the
global context and observes the significant overlap between the two seemingly
exclusive models of privileged girlhood foregrounded in her field trips. In the
newly emerging paradigm of elite school subjects defined by globalisation and
transnationalism, A1 girls often turn out to be wealthy ‘global girls’. And the
great social agility and cultural and economic capital exhibited in this emergent
‘elite feminised mobility’ in Fahey’s own words points us in a new direction of
transnationality. For Fahey, the subjective constructions of femininity for the
female students of the two elite schools become flexible. By the same token, the
periphery and centre relationship in relation to class and race centred in elite
schooling is readjusted, further suggesting that a spatialised perspective in
understanding constructions of femininity becomes imperative.
For Epstein, despite all the nuances and qualification that fellow
contributors have introduced, eliteness can, in some contexts, simply mean
‘whiteness’. In this sense, Epstein calls the sharpest possible attention to the
racialization of eliteness, even within the framework of conceptual inter-
sectionality that she shares with Fahey and others in this special issue. She
calls attention to the colonial residue of discriminatory production of power
based on skin colour. Though for some this emphasis on pigmentation may
seem obsolete, Epstein argues that colour divides are rearticulated and
recycled in the new educational sphere in post-apartheid South Africa.
Situating her study of Greystone Girls’ School in the context of a transforming

7
ELITE SCHOOLS IN GLOBALISING CIRCUMSTANCES

South Africa, Epstein shares the same interest in exploring the specificity of
local elite schooling with Koh but with particular emphasis on the gendered
and racialized politics that percolate through the new order. Unlike the
Singapore case where, as Koh suggests, meritocracy as the national doxa
‘overrides’ class politics, Epstein observes the opposite. Specifically, she notes
that Greystone School, the elite single sex girls’ school under study, continues
to uphold its colonial tradition of producing ‘camouflaged’ whiteness among
their students in the post-apartheid era. This reproduction of whiteness is also
present at Fahey’s Highbury Hall where the privilege of the white girls is more
or less taken for granted.
For Epstein, Greystone is a site of the ‘race-ing class’ as new recruits from
South Africa’s ‘colored’ and Indian population along with a sprinkling of
black South African girls contribute to a more elastic model of stratification,
serving to inoculate continued white privilege. Epstein explains the race-class
dynamics in this particular elite school setting by outlining the history of the
school in which three themes – namely, articulations of race and class,
biocultural constructedness of race and the ‘white dividend’ – are interwoven
and run through all her analysis. Likewise, the lineages of privilege of this
particular site also unfold chronologically from the school’s foundation period
back to Britain’s South African colonies, the Second World War and its
aftermath, to the present.
Echoing the colonial mise-en-scène of the school, a substantial majority of
white students embrace and racially profit from the rhetoric of the production
of ‘young ladies’ that has continued as the school’s mission. The continuing
legacy of white privilege still prevails in this elite school space. Despite its
new clothing bequeathed by globalisation, the bewildering presence of
wealthy ‘colored’, Indian and privileged black girls, Greystone is haunted by
racialization and privilege which has a deep and disturbing past.
Matthew Shaw (‘The Cyprus Game: Crossing the Boundaries in a Divided
Island’) and Howard Prosser (Reach for the Stars: a Constellational Approach
to Ethnographies of Elite Schools) deepen the examination of culture
regarding the matter of the preparation of elite youngsters for globalisation.
Shaw, reporting on his school in Cyprus, takes to the domain of sport, where
like C.L.R James (2008) in Beyond a Boundary, he finds a strong programme
of values and normalisation in the practices of physical exertion and the
principle of mens sana in corpore sano. Prosser, in turn, draws on Adorno’s
method of constellation which he then deploys as a unit of analyis to draw out
the linked networks of affiliation that connect the elite at Caledonian School in
greater Buenos Aires to a national and global order of social classifications.
Collectively, these studies show the versatility and robustness of the
metropolitan paradigm as an institutional framework for the organisation of
elite schooling spread across the globe.

8
ELITE SCHOOLS IN GLOBALISING CIRCUMSTANCES

Shaw sketches a scene of the opposing identities that define Cyprus.


The two ethnically divided groups, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, have
had little regular interaction since the island was formally divided into two
distinct sections in 1974. They do, however, come together side by side in the
Lefkos Academy (TLA), an elite school under study. Therefore, the students
battle not only for academic achievements but also over the long-lasting ethnic
enmity embedded in the country’s history both within and out of this
contested site.
In addition the boundaries that they cross are also historically investigated.
In the colonial period, as Shaw suggests, the British tried to instil their
particular notions of a sporting ethos of fair play and team work to prevent any
potential uprising of nationalism of either ethnic group that threatened its final
authority. It is an ethos that continues to be perpetuated today, even by the
world’s largest and most important sporting organisations, such as the
International Olympic Committee and Fédération Internationale de Football
Association, that promote the ability of sport to bring diverse groups of people
together. Shaw notes that team sports have been highlighted in the curriculum
of TLA because of their great capacity for bringing different characters
together and thus forging a sense of togetherness. The British ethos embodied
in the games alongside the students’ belief in their own cultural superiority
further help foster the eliteness of the school. Sport has the ability to offer a
foil to the ethnic order of division and tension that plagues political
arrangement in Cyprus. It is, too, a space where leadership and codes of
success are inculcated in youngsters orientating to globalising futures.
Prosser take us in a somewhat different direction. Viewing ideas, themes
and histories as a dense cluster of shining stars at the galaxy’s nucleus, Prosser
provides us a constellation, a useful and invaluable tool, to study elite
schooling in the context of global capitalism. Specifically, inspired by Theodor
Adorno’s constellational approach, Prosser argues that successful navigation in
the dark, shadowy world of studying the elite school can be achieved by
seeking directional assistance from such a ‘set with stars’ or an arrangement of
various foci in which contradictions/paradoxes are infused. This approach
renews the importance of infusing history into global ethnography in that it
treats history like a white dwarf, degenerating on the one hand but very dense
on the other, bringing the past’s existence in the present.
Prosser tested this method in his ethnographic work at the Caledonian
School, an elite school in the greater Buenos Aires area. He found the method
quite useful insofar as it helped him successfully decode the eliteness of the
school, which according to Prosser, was created jointly by Argentine
nationalism, British ‘informal’ imperialism and Presbyterian educationalism
under the impact of the global capitalization.
Fazal Rizvi (‘Old Elite Schools, History and the Construction of a New
Imaginary’) foregrounds the importance of history and historiography. For

9
ELITE SCHOOLS IN GLOBALISING CIRCUMSTANCES

Rizvi this is not simply a matter of methodological strategy and chronology, as


in recording the elite school past as it ‘happened’. But the work of history
alerts us to the fragmented nature of the produced iconography and narratives
of elite school pasts that are materially manipulated by old elite schools such
as Ripon College in India to navigate the globalising present. This is a use of
history that is produced by the schools for their own ennoblement. This is a
remarkably useful insight that has implications for all of the schools in the
study. A distinguishing feature of these schools, as Rizvi points out, is their
production of history as a selective tradition. This use of history helps to
consolidate tradition and serves to mythologically unify the stratified and
disparate groups that are to be found at these schools. Rizvi points to a use of
history that serves to inoculate these elite schools in the present from aspects
of a past that Kenway and Fahey and Epstein see as haunted by unspeakable
events of symbolic violence and practices of subjugation: Old Cloisters in
Barbados inhabits the landscape and buildings of what was a former
plantation; excavation at Greystone in South Africa plunges the twenty-first
century school dwellers down into the frozen life world of a slave-owning
past. Additionally, Rizvi shows how Ripon College mobilises the most gilded
and glorious features of its past to fortify itself against competition from newer
elite schools in the great struggle that is developing in the form of competition
for fee-paying students in India. Ultimately, the historical tour of the school
sites of the studies discussed in this special issue leads us inexorably to the
conclusion that elite formation in the post-colonial setting is one not so much
of class reproduction but of class making. The interface of the British public
school model with practices of national and local adaptation and the emphases
and dynamic imperatives of capitalised globalisation introduce moments of
disjuncture, innovation and reinvention. We are lead by Rizvi in his
consideration of Ripon College and its new elite school competitors to a
deeper reflection on the globalising circumstances of these schools in the study
and the critical contradictions and transformations that have taken place in the
structural form and educational orientation of the British-bequeathed metro-
politan paradigm of elite schooling from the period of implantation and
gestation to the contemporary moment.
This special issue closes with a comment (‘A Comment on Class
Productions in Elite Secondary Schools in Twenty-first-century Global
Context’) written by Lois Weis. Her comment reflects on the theoretical and
practical significance of the studies assembled in this special issue, on the
collective research project upon which all the papers are based and adds an
additional and vital location. This location is the USA and she focuses on the
increasingly fraught and frenzied nexus between prestigious schooling and
acceptance into the most and more exalted universities. Weis, Cipollone and
Jenkins (2014) have undertaken their own multi-sited ethnographic research in
three highly, but differently, esteemed secondary schools in the US context and

10
ELITE SCHOOLS IN GLOBALISING CIRCUMSTANCES

she shares some of the powerful insights from this study. She shows how
certain, highly fractious fractions of the US middle class have responded in a
hyper-anxious and hyper-calculative, even desperate, manner to the insecur-
ities associated with changing globalised labour markets – changes which, she
points out, affect everyone, everywhere. College (university) admission, she
argues, has become a site, par excellence, for intra-‘class warfare’ – a site
where the socially advantaged struggle to preserve their individualised
advantage as they see this becoming more fragile in the global context and
less portable to their next generational kin. This work is in poignant
conversation with the research being conducted in the ‘Elite Independent
Schools in Globalising Circumstances’ project wherein we also witness similar
processes of intensive angst-ridden, long-term capital accumulation work in
anticipation of the sublime step to the next consecrated educational intuition –
be it national or international. The university admissions market is clearly
global and schools work immensely hard on their global positioning systems.
Along with the USA, England is also a prime destination for socially and
educationally ambitious students and parents from many parts of the world.
And in England we see attempts by the current Tory government to curb the
continued colonisation of elite universities by elite schools (Sutton Trust 2012)
and to increase representation of state school students through the use of
targets. In turn we witness a backlash from elite schools complaining, in the
pages of the Telegraph for example, of ‘posh prejudice’, ‘jealousy and
hostility’ and ‘discrimination’ (Henry 2013), with one headmaster even
advocating a university boycott (Paton 2012). This is yet another instance of
class work and warfare with the privileged portraying themselves as victims
and mobilising class animosity against both the government (in which male
graduates from elite schools are massively over represented) and state schools.
Finally, in broad brushstrokes, Weis also points to some possible future
directions for research on elite education to help us continue to improve our
understandings of how education helps to secure power and privilege at the
multiple intersections of class, gender, race and nation in the rapidly shifting
global landscape, and, importantly, how such power and privileged might be
challenged.

Notes
1. This study has been funded by the Australian Research Council [DP1093778], as
well as by Monash, Melbourne, Cardiff, Roehampton and Illinois Universities, the
Hong Kong Institute of Education and the National Institute of Education
Singapore. The team consists of Jane Kenway and Johannah Fahey (Monash),
Fazal Rizvi (Melbourne), Cameron McCarthy (Illinois), Debbie Epstein (Roe-
hampton) and Aaron Koh (NIE) and PhD students: Matthew Shaw, Howard
Prosser, Shlomi Hanuka (Monash) and Mousumi Mukherjee (Melbourne).
2. Our research design includes three weeks per year, over three consecutive years of
fieldwork in each school (all anonymised throughout this issue). These have been

11
ELITE SCHOOLS IN GLOBALISING CIRCUMSTANCES

staggered over the five years of the project with research starting in three schools
in 2010. However, for their PhD projects, Matthew Shaw and Howard Prosser
each spent eight months in their research sites (Cyprus and Argentina,
respectively). In each school, research team members (usually two, sometimes
three) generate data through conventional ethnographic techniques including
intensive observations of various institutional practices and each school’s semiotic
ecology, interviews and focus group discussions involving students, teachers, the
school principal and leading members of each school’s governing body, alumni
and parents’ associations. Case studies of individual students (roughly 10 in each
school) are also being developed through interviews with them over the two last
years of their schooling and their second year out after having left school.

References
Burawoy, M. 2000. “Introduction: Reaching for the Global.” In Global Ethnography:
Forces, Connections, and Imaginations in a Postmodern World, edited by
M. Burawoy, J. A. Blum, S. George, Z. Gille, and M. Thayer, 1–40. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Caletrío, J. 2012. “Global Elites, Privilege and Mobilities in Post-Organized
Capitalism.” Theory Culture Society 29 (2): 135–149. doi:10.1177/026327641
2438423.
Domhoff, W. 1967. Who Rules America? Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Henry, J. 2013. “Leading Headmasters Defend Values of Independents Schools.”
The Telegraph, February 17.
James C. L. R. 2008. Beyond a Boundary. London: Yellow Jersey Press.
McRobbie, A. 2009. The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change.
London: Sage.
Mills, C. [1956] 2000. The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ong, A. 1999. Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Durham,
NC: Duke University.
Ong, A. 2006. Neoliberalism as Exception. Durham, NC: Duke University.
Paton, G. 2012. “Public Schools Threaten University Boycott.” The Telegraph,
October 1.
Robinson, W., and J. Harris. 2006. “Towards a Global Ruling Class? Globalization
and the Transnational Capitalist Class.” Science & Society 64 (1): 111–154.
Sklair, L. 2009. “The Transnational Capitalist Class: Theory and Empirical Research.”
In European Economic Elites: Between a New Spirit of Capitalism and the
Erosion of State Socialism, edited by F. Sattler and C. Boyer, 497–522. Berlin:
Duncker & Humblot.
Sutton Trust. 2012. Open Access: Democratising Entry to Independent Day Schools.
https://docs.google.com/a/monash.edu/viewer?url_http://www.suttontrust.com/public/
documents/1open-access-report-march-2012-final.pdf
Weis, L., K. Cipollone, and H. Jenkins. 2014. Class Warfare: Class, Race, and
College Admissions in Top-Tier Secondary Schools. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.

12
Staying ahead of the game: the globalising practices of elite schools
Jane Kenway and Johannah Fahey
Faculty of Education, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

How are elite schools caught up in the changing processes of globalisa-


tion? Is globalisation a new phenomenon for them? This paper focuses on
the globalising practices that selected elite schools adopt. It also explores
how globalisation is impacting on the social purposes of elite schools,
which conventionally have been to serve privileged social groups. It seeks
to begin a conversation about whether such schools are involved in
securing advantage for social grouping that exists beyond the nation state
on the global stage. It draws from a multisited global ethnography of elite
schools in globalising circumstances.

Introduction
What are the usual social purposes of elite schools? The sociological research
about such schools in England (Walford 1986), the USA (Khan 2011;
Gaztambide-Fernández 2009; Howard 2010), France (Bourdieu and Passeron
1997; Bourdieu and Passeron 1977/2000) and Australia (Connell et al. 1982)
indicates that their purpose has primarily been to serve dominant social
groupings within the nation state and, to some extent, in the process also to
provide an avenue of social mobility for ‘deserving’ members of subaltern
populations. Their purpose has been to advantage the advantaged across the
generations and, in so doing, to adapt to ensure that the schools keep pace with
changing social conditions and groupings in order to stay ahead of the game.
This is the conventional, and usually undisputed, wisdom.
We are interested in the ways in which elite schools are caught up in the
changing social conditions of globalisation. Indeed, globalisation is not
necessarily a new phenomenon for them. We are also interested in the ways
in which these schools are using certain aspects of globalisation to reproduce
power and privilege. Our focus here is on the globalising practices that these
schools adopt. But we are also interested in how globalisation is impacting on
the social purposes of elite schools and the social groups that they are said to

13
ELITE SCHOOLS IN GLOBALISING CIRCUMSTANCES

conventionally serve. Are they involved in securing advantage for social


grouping that exists beyond the nation state on the regional and global stage?
Relevant, for our purposes, here, is the emerging literature about the formation
of a global middle-class, global elites and a global capitalist class and their
various fractions (e.g., Ball 2010; Sklair 2000; Robinson 2004). This literature
suggests that these groupings have certain specificities that distinguish them
from national class groupings. Specifically, they have global economic
interests, sensibilities and loyalties and relate to the national tactically. It also
asks the following: are they becoming classes ‘for’ themselves (i.e., do they
have a subjective sense of themselves and their shared interests) as well as ‘in’
themselves (i.e., they are objectively economically constituted)? If so, how?
As we (McCarthy and Kenway) indicate in the Introduction to this special
issue, there is very little research that addresses the links between elite schools
and globalisation.
This paper draws on a study called Elite schools in globalising
circumstances: a multi-sited global ethnography (2010–2014).1 It includes
one school each in England, India, Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore, South
Africa, Barbados, Argentina and Cyprus; all countries with links to the British
Empire. We have defined our research schools as elite on the following
grounds. They all draw their inspiration from the traditional and prestigious
British public school model, are over 100 years old, have produced many
influential people and have powerful connections, their records illustrate
considerable success in end-of-school exams and entrance to high-status
universities and, overall, they have excellent reputations. In addition, most are
very well resourced in comparison to the majority of other schools in the
national education system that they are part of. And they have different
relationships to their national governments; some are more independent than
others and most, although not all, charge high fees. All are anonymised here.2
In order to explore the globalising practices of elite schools, in historical
context, we focus on three axes of globalisation: global forces, global
connections and global imaginations (Burawoy et al. 2000) and on the manner
in which they intersect with various practices of the schools.3 Obviously, there
are many ways of reading these three axes of globalisation. Our focus here is
on specific inflections within this broad terrain. While these interrelated
concepts have been deployed for undertaking global ethnographies, they have
not been deployed to consider elite schools. We will explain, generally, what
we mean by each term, show how the schools’ practices relate and in so doing
tease out some of the implications for contemporary configurations of class
within this broader nexus.

Global forces
For Burawoy et al. (2000, xii) ‘global forces’ are one relevant ‘slice’ (the
others being ‘connections’ and ‘imaginations’) in the process of separating out

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ELITE SCHOOLS IN GLOBALISING CIRCUMSTANCES

an understanding of globalisation. They entail taking ‘external forces to a


global level’ and are viewed as a ‘product of contingent social processes’
(Burawoy 2000, 29). Burawoy identifies imperial interests, colonial history
and capitalism as some such global forces. By distinguishing these forces, a
greater sense of the ‘concrete and dynamic’ dimensions of the ‘global
economy, polity and culture’ (Burawoy 2000, 29) is envisaged.
Colonialism was actually an expansionist movement in the process of
globalisation as the big European nations struggled to gain control of remote
and under-developed regions in order to support their own industrial growth.
(Hobsbawm 1989). But the colonial period of nineteenth-century expansion
was much more than competition between European nations. It was the
foundation period for global capitalism, a development that we now simply
take for granted. Clearly, on a global scale, these forces intersect in complex
uneven ways in relation to various nations and regions. We cannot develop
these points here. Suffice it to say that global geo-politics are central to the
manner in which global forces operate over time and space. These global
forces’ evolution and their interrelated dynamics put intense pressure on
places, institutions, situations and people. Let us now offer some instances of
how elite schools’ practices intersect with these global forces.

Colonialism/post-colonialism
All the schools in our study were founded at some stage during the reign of the
British Empire and all adopted, in one way or another, a British public school
model with its class-based orientations to knowledge as well as its modes of
organisation, rituals and pageantries. This model was implicated in the
economic, cultural and military dynamics of empire building. Often/usually
the church was the conduit. The model was both not only adopted in the
colonies but also adapted to local circumstances. Mostly, the schools
specialised in and concentrated on the high-status knowledge that was
regarded as suitable to the local young gentlemen and, differently, local
young ladies. (But this was not always the case and also the schools changed
over the colonial period). In India, for example, there was an ‘overemphasis on
the languages (i.e., English) and humanities’ (Basu 1982, 65) as a means, in
Macaulay’s opinion,4 to cultivate Indians who were ‘Indian in blood and
colour but English in taste, in opinions, in words and in intellect’ (Macaulay in
Sharp 1920, 112).
Usually, the schools in the colonies were intended to educate the children
of local elites as well as the children of middle-level administrators of the
British Empire. Those in the upper levels of Empire tended to send their
children to top English public schools, as did some of those at the apex of the
indigenous elite population. This also helped to produce a colonial pattern of
sending the children of well-to-do parents from the colonies to top English
universities.

15
ELITE SCHOOLS IN GLOBALISING CIRCUMSTANCES

But there are dangers in these sorts of generalisation. For instance,


missionaries who proselytised the Christian religion and educated Chinese
bishops and clergymen founded our school in Hong Kong, called Cathedral
College. In terms of the relation between Christianity and colonialism, one
striking fact is that Christianity had been in China for a long time and was not
introduced by the British. In fact, its influence is recorded as far back as the
Tang Dynasty in the sixth century. That said, as it was an English clergyman
who established his church in Hong Kong and subsequently built Cathedral
College, the school has undeniable links to the colonial project. Indeed,
Cathedral College went on to play a role in the Westernisation of Hong Kong
when it became a school exclusively for Chinese boys who were offered their
education in the English language.5
The movement between the centre of empire and its edges also included
that of school heads and teachers. In fact, young ladies educated at Highbury
Hall, our school in England, went to the colonies to teach. The pattern of
employing ‘expat’ teachers from England remained until quite recently in Old
Cloisters in Barbados and continues in Clarence High in Singapore. The photo
gallery of previous Heads at Clarence is a stark reminder of this. On our first
school tour, our guide proudly indicated the change from a colonial to a post-
colonial moment in the school’s history as exemplified in the appointment of a
local Head. In Hong Kong, the school’s 160-year history has only included
one Chinese Head who led the school for 37 years.
As these examples indicate, there are various kinds of elite formation, and
these arise from different historical and spatial configurations. And the British
public school model and such British teachers can be thought of as colonial
carriers of certain forms of eliteness.

Global market capitalism


The links between elite schools’ practices and global market capitalism are not
necessarily directly obvious or straightforward, particularly, as indicated, if
one takes a long view and looks at the complex links between colonialism and
capitalism (Hall 1980). However, with regard to current times, the matters that
seem most potent include the following: the elite education market (schools,
universities and their intersections); selective entry, the grooming curriculum
and selective exit and access to the top-end of the labour market.
As increasing numbers of international students and parents become school
clients, the elite school market is not only extending beyond more and more
state borders but is also intensifying. Several patterns are evident in terms of
international students’ and parents’ mobility.
There are mobile parents plugged into global routes of high-end employ-
ment with transnational companies, NGOs and various international govern-
mental agencies. These people can be seen to constitute a transnational
privileged class fraction that is constantly on the move (Elliott and Urry 2010).

16
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
In 1794 William Jackson deeded to Joseph Preston and others a
piece of ground for a schoolhouse,[561] which was to be in trust for
the Friends’ meeting. This is the first transfer of ground for school
purposes found among the New Garden Friends. Among the
stipulations of the deed are the following:
1. The master is to be a member of Friends. [Sidenote:
Requirements for
2. The master must teach according to the rules the school at New
laid down (presumably by the school trustees) as Garden]
before mentioned in the case of the Horsham
School Rules.[562]
3. The purpose stated is for the “promotion of piety and good
order” and to “propagate useful learning.”
On 12-2-1701, some Friends at Goshen applied [Sidenote:
to their quarterly meeting for the privilege of Goshen]
establishing a meeting for worship,[563] but this
request was not approved until the meeting of the quarter in 1703.
[564] In 1707 they proposed building a house for worship which was

granted by the quarterly meeting in the twelfth month.[565] Their


monthly meeting, as stated before, was not established until 1722.
[566] The preparative meetings in its compass were Goshen,

Newtown, and Uwchlan.[567]


Though starting at a much later date as a [Sidenote: A
monthly meeting the records of Goshen are in school in East
some ways far superior to many other meetings. In Bradford for
Goshen, Bradford
the first place, they devoted considerable attention and Birmingham]
to the yearly meetings’ proposals of 1746 and
1750,[568] which by many meetings received very scant attention.
The concrete results of this attention, however, do not stand forth, as
reports on the subjects are not plentiful till the “1778 era.” In that
year of all years, they received the urgent accounts from the yearly
meeting.[569] They appear to have gone to work at once, or perhaps
had already begun, as a committee in the care of schools reported in
the sixth month, 1779, that “a piece of ground is agreed for and a
schoolhouse is now building in East Bradford.”[570] This school was
to be made up from the Friends of Goshen, Bradford, and
Birmingham,[571] and to be established in accord with the
stipulations of the yearly meeting aforesaid.[572] Goshen Monthly
Meeting was requested to name some Friend to receive the land in
trust, and Thomas Hoopes, Jr., was accordingly appointed for the
purpose.[573]
In 1782, the present school committee, deciding [Sidenote:
that something should be done concerning the Increased
regulation of schools, desired an addition to their committee
reported 1782]
number, those added being Abraham Pratt, William
Lewis, John Mailin, and Josiah Hibberd.[574] Two months later this
committee brought forth the following proposals, which are self-
explanatory.
[Sidenote: Land to
We have met sundry times since the last be purchased for
meeting on the subject and are unanimous in school and
master’s
judgment that it will be convenient for Friends to accommodations]
have a school house built near Jesse Garrett’s
smith shop on the east side of the road leading [Sidenote: The
from the valley where about five acres may be building and cost]
purchased of William Garrett and William
Garrett, Jr., in order to erect a school house on, and also a
house for a school master, which we request the monthly
meeting to take under consideration; and if they approve
thereof, that it may be encouraged by a subscription amongst
Friends only, and to be established on the plan proposed by
the Yearly Meeting and subject to the direction of the monthly
meeting from time to time, to remove or alter as they may see
cause, or time may show to be necessary. We propose the
house to be twenty-seven feet square from out to out, and
compute the expense of building to be £150 exclusive of the
land which will be £25, which we submit to the monthly
meeting. Signed in behalf of the committee—Thomas
Hoopes, Jr.[575]
Their report was left for further consideration.
In 1784 a drive was organized on the preparative [Sidenote:
meetings. The monthly meeting received a visit Attempt to bestir
from the committee of the quarterly meeting, which the preparatives]
suggested the appointment of a large committee
and the distribution of the printed advices of the yearly meeting of
1778, to be read before each of the preparative meetings.[576] In
conformity with this suggestion, the former school committee was
released and a new one of ten members appointed as a standing
committee, directed to follow out the previously made suggestions.
[577] In their report issued shortly thereafter, there is an account of
the beginning of a school in Willistown, which is as the following:
[Sidenote: School
The committee in the care of schools report at Willistown;
that a school is kept in the new house built in master’s house,
Willistown by a Friend, and endeavors are used etc., proposed]
to have it conducted as near as may be to the directions of
the Yearly Meeting, and the building of a house for the master
is proposed and a considerable sum of money is subscribed
towards the same, provided a sufficiency can in like manner
be raised.[578]

Another report for 1785 gives the state of schools for that date.
[Sidenote: One
There are several schools in the verge of our school the
monthly meeting, kept by members of our property of the
society, one of which belongs to the monthly monthly meeting]
meeting, with several acres of land, whereon Friends are now
building a house for a master, which when completed there
will be a small fund towards schooling poor children.[579]

The chief concern to which the committee now addressed itself


was the problem as to how they might establish a permanent fund
for the schooling of poor children in their limits. For this problem they
seem to have found a satisfactory solution for the time being, in
1786, which they reported to the monthly meeting for its approval. It
appears to have been satisfactory to the meeting in the following
form, the essential features being the same as those incorporated in
the plans of meetings already mentioned.
[Sidenote:
We, the subscribers, do hereby promise to Goshen plan for
pay unto ... treasurer for Friends’ schools, within establishing funds
similar to others]
the compass of Goshen Monthly Meeting, or to
other Friends as may be from time to time appointed by said
committee to that service, the sum of money severally written
against our names, which sums are so subscribed to be and
remain a permanent fund under the care of and direction of
the monthly meeting’s committee of the people called
Quakers, held at Goshen for the time being, appointed for this
and other such purposes relative to schools, to be by them
laid out in such manner as they shall from time to time judge
most conducive to securing an income to the said schools,
which income or annuity so arising therefrom to be applied to
the education of such children as live within the compass of
Goshen Monthly Meeting, whose parents, whether Friends or
others, are not of ability to pay for the same and other such
purposes as a majority of said committee shall from time to
time direct, consistent with the object of the institution.
Witness our hands—etc.[580]

For the next six years there are but two reports worthy of attention,
which may be briefly summarized in this manner:
1787 [Sidenote: The
state of schools in
1. One school, under the monthly meeting, 1787]

a. has a large school house, and


b. a dwelling house and garden for a master, who
c. is a member of Friends
d. The school is in charge of a standing committee
2. Another school house, whose

a. master is a member of Friends, but


b. the house is not Friends’ property.[581]

1792 [Sidenote: 1792]


1. There is a school in Williston

a. kept by a member of Friends,


b. cared for by a standing committee of the monthly
meeting,
c. much in accord with yearly meeting’s demands.
d. There has been no increase in the permanent fund since
last year.[582]

The report of the standing monthly meeting’s committee in 1795


notes these further advances. The reference to the purchase of
ground in Willistown would lead to the belief that the school of
Willistown mentioned in the report of 1792 was not located on the
meeting’s property; but the tenor of the report of 1784 leaves the
impression that the “new house” might have been the meeting’s
property.[583] The report of 1795 is as follows:
[Sidenote: 1795]
The meeting’s committee in the care of
schools report that they have for some time had in
contemplation the establishment of another school within the
verge of the monthly meeting to be conducted agreeable to
the advice of the Yearly Meeting, and have so far proceeded
as to have purchased 4⅓ acres of land of Samuel Thomas in
Willistown, which is deeded to some Friends in trust for the
use and benefit of Goshen Monthly Meeting, to improve, alter,
sell, or otherwise as the meeting may think proper, or time
show to be necessary; therefore, if the monthly meeting
unites with our proceedings, we desire they may take the
same under their patronage.[584]

In 1796 the school at Goshen was apparently [Sidenote: One


closed for several months, though the reference school closed
made to this fact may have been to one at temporarily]
Willistown;[585] exactly which one can not be
deciphered from the minutes. In 1797 the committee reported a
house had been built on the ground lately purchased (presumably
that mentioned in the report of 1795)[586] and a school was being
kept therein, according to the advices in all respects, save the
membership of the master being outside of Friends.[587] “The other
school” was taught by a member, and was very much as might be
desired in all respects.[588] One of the schools (not clear which one)
became vacant again for a short time in 1798.[589]
What became of the school established about [Sidenote: Union
1779 by Bradford, Goshen, and Birmingham[590] is school of 1779]
not made clear by Goshen records. It is probable
that when the two schools at Willistown and Goshen came under
their direction, they ceased to have any further connection with the
earlier one in East Bradford. Further mention will be made of the
East Bradford school in the material presented for that monthly
meeting, in the pages just following. It may be only briefly mentioned
in this connection that in 1797 the Goshen meeting appointed a
committee to secure subscriptions for the yearly meeting’s boarding
school which had been proposed in 1794,[591] and was opened for
students in 1799.[592]
Some meetings for worship by the Friends in the [Sidenote:
district, later to be known as Bradford Meeting, Bradford meeting
established]
were held as early as 1719,[593] and regular
meetings for worship were established in 1725.[594] Not until 1737,
however, had they become of sufficient importance to warrant the
establishment of a monthly meeting.[595]
In 1762 Bradford’s minutes refer to settling the affairs and
providing for the support and the education of the children.[596] It
was proposed that application be made to the next court that those
under indenture to ⸺ might be bound out so as to have a Christian
education, and to enable them “to acquire a livelihood with
reputation.”[597] It is implied that the Mr. ⸺ had not provided for
them properly in those respects. In 1765 fourteen epistles were
received and directed to be read in each of the preparative meetings
(Bradford and Caln).[598] Though no school is mentioned at these
early dates, there seems to be no doubt that schools were in
operation, perhaps a sort of family school. This brief extract would
indicate that the above assumption is not without foundation:

Two of the Friends appointed report they had an


opportunity with Benjamin Faris respecting schooling of Isaac
Few, and that he informed them that he would undertake to
school him for the term of one year, for the sum of £25, which
proposal the meeting complies with and agrees to pay the
half.[599]

The cost of this schooling was paid by the two preparative


meetings which produced their quotas four months later.[600]
Thenceforward, till 1778, nothing of note is recorded, save
occasional notices of the education of the youth.
The year 1778 produced the following minute:

The extracts of last Yearly Meeting were produced here and


read, containing much seasonable advice and instruction
which is recommended to the solid consideration and
observation of individuals; in particular, that of encouragement
of proper schools for the instruction of youth in useful
learning.[601]
Like an electric current suddenly shunted into the circuit, these
extracts of 1777 and 1778 seemed to increase the voltage in the
wires of the organization, producing a general hum of activity. A
committee, immediately appointed, reported in 1779 they had
considered the situation,[602] and in 1780 produced the report which
is given below. As will be noted, their report mentions the “Union
School” of Goshen, East Bradford and Birmingham, which has
already received some consideration in the case of Goshen.[603]
[Sidenote: Three
We, the committee appointed in the care of schools
schools, report that most of us attended to the established; a
appointment and have several times met and committeeassist in
to

conferred together and have given our establishing


assistance toward the settling of a school others]
between Goshen, Bradford, and Birmingham
Preparative Meeting in a new schoolhouse built by Friends;
one at East Bradford in the old schoolhouse near the meeting
house; one at East Caln kept at the meeting house at present,
agreed to be under the direction of Friends nearly agreeable
to the Advices of the Yearly Meeting; and we think it expedient
to appoint Friends to take the necessary care of said schools;
but there appear to be many Friends that are not yet
accommodated with suitable schools, and we think a
committee of a few Friends to be continued to assist therein
will be necessary, all of which we submit to the meeting.
(Signed by the committee)....
Which being read and considered, the meeting appoints
William England, William Cooper, Humphrey Marshall, and
Thomas Baldwin to have the care of the school near Bradford
Meeting House, and Thomas Fisher, Griffith Mendenhall,
Isaac Coates and Isaac Pim to have the care of the school
now kept in the meeting house at East Caln, who are desired
to take the necessary care therein and the former committee
is still continued.[604]
A subsequent report of 1781 points out that an additional school
has been established, presumably through the coöperation of the
meetings of Bradford, Kennett, and New Garden.[605] The records of
Kennett and New Garden do not seem to recognize this coöperative
school, however. To the writer, it seems that the probable state of
affairs was that the one school was so located that it was patronized
by the three communities though its direction lay in the hands of
Bradford Meeting. The contiguous situation of the townships makes
this a plausible and a probable solution. The school was soon to be
discontinued for a time.[606] The report of 1781 is herewith
submitted.
[Sidenote: A
The Friends in the care of schools report that school between
they attended the school set between this Bradford, Kennett
meeting, New Garden, and Kennett Monthly and New Garden]
Meetings, and purpose taking further care therein; and those
to have the care of the school at Bradford report that a school
is held there in pretty regular order, considering the situation
of the master in regard to his sight, and they that had the care
of the school at East Caln informed that they had divers
opportunities with the master and scholars, and are of the
mind that further care in that respect is necessary; which
being considered, this meeting continues the said Friends and
desires that they may attend to the service for which they are
appointed.[607]

The conditions presented in the report of the [Sidenote: Four


second month remained the same, save that the schools reported
school between Kennett, New Garden, and by committee]
Bradford was reported “discontinued” in the sixth
month, 1781.[608] Later in that year, the old committee was released
and a new list of men, Thomas Baldwin, Joel Harlan, Thomas Sugar,
Nathan Cooper, Benjamin Hanley, John Hoopes, Thomas Fisher,
Griffith Mendenhall, Samuel Fisher, and George Harrison constituted
a “standing committee.”[609] In 1782 four schools were reported;[610]
in 1783, several schools not entirely agreeable to the desires
expressed in the Yearly Meeting’s Advices;[611] in 1784, three are
reported in the verge of Bradford Particular Meeting, mostly under
the direction of Friends, but “none at either of the Calns” (East or
West).[612] Subsequent reports show that the cessation of the
schools at Caln was only temporary. The presentation of this very
brief span of their history may be closed with an abbreviated
statement of a committee report made in 1792.[613]
[Sidenote: Report
1. We visited four schools in our verge, one of 1792]
more left, making five.
2. The fifth is likely to be discontinued soon.
3. Number

one near Bradford Meeting House (in care of Friends).


one in East Bradford (part Friends and part not).
one in East Caln (the masters not members of Friends,
but willing to be under their direction).

4. The committee was released on request.

In the same year that Uwchlan became a [Sidenote:


monthly meeting, the Friends entered a protest, Uwchlan]
saying that the making of wills was too much
neglected, but that such as were made were not [Sidenote:
Education of
misapplied.[614] It is quite probable that the first Negroes
statement is an indication of a philanthropic spirit in mentioned
1765]
in

the meeting, between which and educational


activity there has been noted a high correlation. Moreover, their
explicit statement in 1765 concerning the education of the negroes
would indicate the education of their own children was already taken
care of.[615] The usual transformation in the kind of reports, noted in
other meetings about 1778 and following, is likewise apparent in the
meeting at present under discussion.
Though a school committee was appointed much earlier (1779)
there was a very definite report made before 1782. Two reports
made then in successive months are worthy of our attention.
[Sidenote: Three
The committee respecting schools report that schools
they have attended to the service, having mentioned in
visited one school, the master whereof is a 1779]
member of this meeting, to a good degree of satisfaction,
some of the employers and scholars being present. They are
continued to proceed in that service as way may open and
report to next meeting[616]....

And a month later

The Friends appointed report that they have visited two


other schools, the masters whereof and many of the
employers are members of this meeting, and ... being enabled
to communicate some advice, which appeared to be well
received, they are continued.[617]

In 1783 a new committee was commissioned to [Sidenote: New


procure a particular statement of the schools committee
wherein Friends were concerned either as masters appointed]
or as employers, viz.: Thomas Richards, Jesse [Sidenote: The
Jones, Joshua Baldwin, Reuben John, William state of funds]
Millhouse, Griffith John, Simon Meredith, William
Cooper, Elihu Evans, Aaron Duncan, and Joseph Starr.[618] This
committee is not to be confused with the trustees of the school
funds, who were entirely distinct, and whose sole function was to
receive and apply the funds for the education of the indigent
children. The trustees’ report stated in 1784 that the amount of the
legacies and donations up to that date amounted to £120/10/00.[619]
Near this time, very probably in 1784, a new [Sidenote: School
school was established by Friends at Nantmeal, for set up at
which Uwchlan Meeting appointed a special Nantmeal]
committee which was to make a report; the report made in 1785
stated that they had visited the school and found it well conducted.
[620] In 1787, the school committee produced a report on all schools,
which was to be sent to the quarterly meeting. It embodied some
statement of the results achieved, difficulties to be faced, and further
gave an insight into the coöperation of Friends in the “mixed schools”
of their communities. As sent to the quarterly meeting, the report was
as follows:
[Sidenote: Report
We of the committee appointed to essay a of 1787]
report to the quarterly meeting of the situation of
our members in regard to schools and the [Sidenote: Nantmeal school
progress of our monthly meeting in that discontinued]
important concern, having had several
conferences and opportunities of enquiring into that subject,
report as follows: that some have been appointed and
continued from time to time by our monthly meeting for
several years past, who have used many endeavors to
promote the establishment of schools agreeable to the
advices of the Yearly Meeting; but our number generally living
so remote from each other, has prevented much progress
being made therein, save one house being built by Friends at
Nantmeal nearly on the plan proposed, in which a school has
been kept some time, but now dropped for want of a salary for
the master, there not being a sufficient number of Friends
settled contiguous thereto nor to each other, in any other part
of our meeting to support a school; and the boarding out of
our children appears an expense too heavy for many of us, so
that we are generally in the practice of schooling our children
in a mixed manner, though mostly under the tutorage of
Friends, or persons friendly disposed, to whom some care
has been extended and their schools frequently visited by our
committee some time back. Signed by order of the school
committee by William Millhouse, clerk.[621]
In 1794, the London Grove Monthly Meeting, just [Sidenote: London
created, began its educational work by appointing a Grove]
committee to take subscriptions for a fund to
[Sidenote:
support a “regular school.”[622] In 1795, the Committee of
preparative meeting proposing that a standing men and women
committee be appointed to inspect the necessities appointed
schools]
for

of the poor and the school education of their


children, the following were named to unite with a committee of
women on that concern, viz.: Samuel Swayne, Josiah Hoopes, John
Man, and Jonathan Buslow.[623] Four months later the committee
appointed to raise the funds by subscription (see above) reported
that a sum of “more than fifty pounds” was already subscribed.[624]
No statement of the number of schools established in the limits of
the London Grove Meeting is given between the time of its
establishment and the end of the century; nor are any other details
vouchsafed. It will suffice for a voucher of their intentions and the
work actually begun in that period, to insert the following statement
of their plan for founding their schools.
[Sidenote: Plan
Pursuant to the advice and recommendations produced for
of the Yearly Meeting of Friends for many years, settling schools]
and excited by consideration in our own minds
for an improvement of the school education of the youth,
especially those in low circumstances, we, the subscribers
hereto, have agreed to promote the raising of a fund or stock,
the increase whereof to be for the benefit of the several
schools which are or may be under the care of London Grove
Monthly Meeting, and to be distributed amongst them at the
direction of a committee of the said meeting, appointed from
time to time in the care of schools. The sum annexed to each
of our names we hereby engage each for himself or heirs,
executors and administrators respectively, to pay or to cause
to be paid to such Friend or Friends as the abovesaid monthly
meeting shall appoint as treasurer for the same, and that at
any time, when demanded, after the whole subscription
amounts to the sum of fifty pounds. The treasurer, so
appointed, we enjoin to be subject to the inspection and
control of the said monthly meeting and to render a fair and
true account thereto of his proceedings therein once a year,
and if the said meeting shall at any time see cause to release
the treasurer, then he shall give up his accounts and pay the
money or transfer such other property as may be under his
care, appertaining to the said fund unto such other Friends as
the monthly meeting may appoint to succeed him in the said
trust. Our subscriptions, until they amount to fifty pounds or
upwards, we direct to be kept in stock and be deposited in
some safe way so as to produce increase either by a loan
upon land at the discretion and direction of the said monthly
meeting or committee thereof. The interest, rent, or increase
whereof we direct to be applied for the benefit of the aforesaid
schools in such a manner and at such times as the school
committee of the said monthly meeting for the time being, or a
majority of them shall direct. And although our present
endeavor may appear feeble and small, yet we trust and hope
it may gradually increase so as to become more useful in
time.[625]

There remains to be presented in this chapter [Sidenote:


the activities of Sadsbury Meeting, which, though Sadsbury]
outside the limits of Chester County, was made up
very largely of members residing in Chester [Sidenote: meetings
Youths’

County.[626] The most distinctly educational work of established 1739]


any sort was the youths’ meeting, which was very
frequently mentioned as early as 1739, only two years after they
became a monthly meeting.[627] Numerous statements of these
meetings occur throughout the first thirty years and more. Attention
was also directed to a care for the children of the poor.

One of the Friends appointed in the case of John Marsh’s


child report they attended the service and met with some
encouragement concerning the education of the child, the
person with whom it resides being its grandmother; the
meeting concludes to leave it under the care and notice of
Henry Marsh, the child’s uncle.[628]

In 1779 the first committee to carry out the [Sidenote:


instruction of 1777 and 1778 was appointed, Committee
consisting of the following members: James Miller, appointed
schools]
on

Andrew Moore, and Samuel Simons.[629] They


were to afford assistance to each of the preparative meetings
(Sadsbury and Leacock). This they reported in the second month
they had done; James Moore, Isaac Taylor, John Moore, James
Smith, Abraham Gibbons, and James Webb were then appointed to
do the work.[630] In 1782 a visit was made to Sadsbury Meeting by
the committee appointed by the quarterly meeting.[631] They
reported further at that time:
[Sidenote: School
The Monthly Meeting committee has it under at Sadsbury
care and there is a school set up at Sadsbury, mentioned]
and it is closely recommended to Friends for a
further progress and to the committee of this meeting in
particular, to which George Cooper, Andrew Moore, and
Joseph Dickinson are added.[632]

The conditions remain substantially the same for [Sidenote:


the five subsequent years, with frequently Discontinued, but
interspersed reports, made to the monthly not long]
meetings and to be sent to the quarterly meeting.
In that year, as the following report shows, the school at Sadsbury
was discontinued, and the old committee removed to make place for
a new one.

Several Friends of the committee respecting schools report


they have conferred together since the last meeting, and it
doth not appear that there is any school at this time within the
verge of this meeting under the care and direction of Friends,
and the said committee expressing their desire to be
released, the meeting consents thereto, yet in order to keep
alive the concern and promote a matter so interesting,
concludes to appoint a fresh committee, and James Miller,
John Moore, son of James, Isaac Taylor, and Joseph
Williams, Joseph Brinton, Moses Brinton, William Downing,
and Gaius Dickinson are appointed for the service.[633]

It is not ascertainable from the minutes just how [Sidenote:


long this school remained closed, but a minute of Barclay’s
1789, directing that Barclay’s Catechism be Catechism in schools]
for use

distributed for the use of the schools, indicates that


it was not discontinued for a long time.[634] Isaac Taylor, R. Moore,
William Gibbons, and William Webb were appointed to distribute the
said books.[635]
In 1792, Lampeter Preparative Meeting (called [Sidenote:
Leacock in 1732, but changed to Lampeter in Lampeter
requests to build
1749)[636] laid before the monthly meeting a schoolhouse,
request to be permitted to build a school house on 1792]
or near their meeting house land for the purpose of
a boarding school to be under the care of the monthly meeting.[637]
Their request was not acted upon until the next meeting when it was
referred to a committee of eleven men, who were to consider the
proposals and report their judgment to the monthly meeting when
convenient.[638] It appears from the following extract of the monthly
meeting that they were somewhat critical.
[Sidenote:
The committee appointed to consider the Committee’s
proposals of Lampeter Preparative Meeting for suggestions for
building a school house made a report in Lampeter school
not accepted]
writing, which not meeting the approbation of
this meeting, is returned and Joseph Brinton, Abraham
Gibbons, William Brinton, James Smith, John Ferris, James
Cooper, and Levi Powell are added to the former committee
and William Webb is requested to consider the matter and
report to the next meeting.[639]
At the session of the monthly meeting held two months later, the
newly appointed committee was successful in getting a satisfactory
hearing for their decision in regard to the Lampeter Boarding School.

The proposal of Lampeter Preparative Meeting comes


again under consideration and the following report being
produced and divers times read, is concurred with.
To Sadsbury Monthly Meeting—

We, the committee appointed to consider [Sidenote: The


Lampeter’s proposals for building a school accepted report]
house and having again met and had a solid
conference together unite in judgment that the proposals are
nearly agreeable to the advices of the Yearly Meeting and
under the present circumstances are of the mind the monthly
meeting may be safe in leaving that meeting at liberty to erect
a building proportioned in size to their Friends and the
probabilities of what may be obtained by subscription (which
is submitted to the meeting by James Miller and signed by
fourteen others). 6-25-1792.[640]

In 1793, the school committee recommended in the following


report that more definite steps be taken to meet the demand of the
yearly meeting in regard to (1) the accommodations for a master and
(2) the establishment of a permanent school fund.
[Sidenote: Funds
The committee in the care of schools made to be raised]
the following report in writing which, after being
solidly considered, is adopted and the clerk is directed to
furnish each preparative meeting with a copy of this minute
together with the report of the committee (which follows).
Most of the committee appointed in the care of establishing
well regulated schools for the instruction of our youth report
they met twice on the subject and solidly considering the
same, believe it would be right for the monthly meeting to
recommend to Sadsbury Preparative Meeting the making of
such suitable provisions for the accommodation of a school
master as is recommended by the Yearly Meeting Minute of
1778—That Sadsbury and Lampeter Preparative Meetings be
stirred up to use their endeavors to raise such funds for their
respective meetings by subscription as is recommended—as
well as in a minute of our last quarterly meeting, by William
Webb (and five others).[641]

By a later minute we are informed that an instrument of writing


(subscription plan) has been drawn up for the purpose of raising
funds,[642] which, however, did not prove wholly satisfactory,[643] and
was postponed for further consideration. As presented finally and
accepted on twelfth month, 10th, 1793, the plan for raising
permanent funds was as follows:
[Sidenote: Plans
Whereas the Yearly Meeting is impressed for raising funds
with a sense of the advantages that would arise adopted]
from a religious education of our youth, has
frequently recommended the establishment of schools under
the care of a standing committee of monthly or particular
meetings and especially in 1778, recommended the
promoting a subscription towards a fund, the increase
whereof might be employed in paying the master’s salary, if
necessary, and promoting the education of poor Friends’
children. This provision may be made to take in poor children
of Friends or others taught gratis or at such moderate rates as
their parents or guardians can afford to pay at the discretion
of the trustees, etc.
And we, the subscribers, writing with the above
recommendations and willing to part with a portion of the
substance, we as stewards are blessed with, in order to carry
the same into effect (provided always, nevertheless, that no
part of the fund shall ever be applied towards paying the
master’s salary so as to reduce the schooling of children who
are in affluent circumstances, lower than 40 shillings per
annum, and may be raised at the discretion of the trustees),
do hereby promise for ourselves, our heirs, and executors, or
administrators to pay, or cause to be paid, the several sums
to our names annexed, to the trustees for ... school.
Otherwise, five per cent. interest from the dates respectively
to our names prefixed until paid or till such other persons as
may be appointed by the monthly meeting to receive the
same. In witness whereof, ...[644]

The situation of schools near the close of the century is shown in a


report of 1797 to be as stated below. Though this report states no
fund is established, a later report of 1798 states that some progress
has been made in that respect.[645]
The report for 1797 is as follows:
[Sidenote: Three
The committee in the care of schools report schools; no funds]
that there is no fund established for this
purpose, yet there are three schools within the compass of
our monthly meeting taught by masters who are Friends and
are under the especial care of a committee of this meeting.
[646]

At the very close of the century Sadsbury Friends were interested


in raising a fund to help in the establishment of the Yearly Meeting’s
boarding school at Westtown, Pennsylvania.[647]

SUMMARY
This chapter considers the establishment of [Sidenote: The
schools in Kennett, New Garden, Goshen, meetings]
Bradford, Uwchlan, London Grove and Sadsbury
monthly meetings.
No early definite reference is made to education, [Sidenote:
though the careful interest in children’s welfare is at Kennett]
all times evident. Not until the “1777 era” do the [Sidenote: A
reports give any considerable information union school
concerning schools. Committees were thereafter reported]
always in attendance upon the problems of the [Sidenote: Rules
schools. In 1781 a “union school” was reported drawn for school,
between Kennett, Bradford and New Garden, property
purchased]
which was afterwards discontinued. In 1785 they
report “several schools,” in partial accord with demands of the yearly
meeting. Land for Kennett school “number one” was purchased in
1792, and rules drawn up for its control. Their scheme for raising
permanent funds was not completed until 1795. Two schools, taught
by members of the society, were under the care of the meeting’s
committee in 1798.
Two schools were reported at New Garden in [Sidenote: Two
1779 and another was at that time proposed. Some schools under
land was conveyed to the meeting in 1785 for the Kennett meeting]
use of a school, and a house built upon it. Another [Sidenote: Two
piece of land was deeded by William Jackson in schools, another
1794 for a similar purpose. Certain stipulations proposed]
were made concerning the school to be established
there. It was found more consistent in summer to employ mistresses
rather than masters.
Though established at a late date, Goshen was [Sidenote:
very active educationally. Land was purchased and Goshen]
a house was being built for a union school between
Goshen, Bradford and Birmingham, in 1779. [Sidenote: schools]
Two

Committees were appointed, which gave reports


better than those usually returned. A plan for funds was adopted in
1786. No further mention is found in regard to the union schools after
the establishment of the schools at Goshen and Willistown.
Bradford’s first educational activity was in [Sidenote:
connection with the apprenticing of children. A Bradford]
single case in which a boy was put to school by the
meeting occurred in 1767; the expense therefore [Sidenote: Three
schools 1780]
was defrayed by the preparative meetings.
Educational activity increased in 1778; three schools were reported

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