Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School (The William G. Bowen Series)

If you are a low income student who is about to enter an elite institution, this will help you understand your classmates and the environment you are entering into. I read this for a college sociology class and it gave me so much insight. I am from a middle class town in the South and I left to attend an Ivy League university in the North East. Culture shock is an understatement. This book helped me understand so many of the cultural nuances that seemed bizarre to me.

This is a fascinating analysis is in how prep school does its work, and as Khan makes clear, that work isn't just learning Shakespeare or calculus or film theory, but how to embody "privilege" in a society that wants to view itself as class-less and democratic. I didn't go to prep school, but came across a lot of prepsters in college and after and this book, more than anything, demystified the prep school mystique.

Shamus Rahman Khan studies the issue of privilege by studying students at a boarding school, St. Paul, from the point of view of a sociologist. His explanation of privilege helps to clear its meaning as the word is used way too often incorrectly. As a popular phrase of student activist and of activist in general, the phrase is given a negative connotation by implying that others have unfair advantages over others that should be redressed. Of course those under attack are none too thrilled by mobs of protestors chanting against them and they view the words tossed around as slander. Khan avoids the confusion around what privilege means by giving an objective view of what privilege is and provides reasons for why it remains invisible. He also provides reasons for how privilege has aided in ushering in a new era of "democratic inequality."That being said a majority of conclusions in his book are based off his interaction with students and faculty. During some parts of his book his observations appear to be stretching quite a bit. Generalizations based off the observations of a selected number of students at one school can stray to the limit of stereotyping. However, important trends in the new elite youth are addressed such as "exceptional indifference" and "reading shortcuts." Overall a decent read that follows a narrative of a teacher trying to observe how St. Paul is structured for success.

An interesting study by a former student, turned teacher and researcher, at St. Paul's prep school. Kahn's multiple perspectives convey a somewhat mild indictment of the "exceptional" self-image instilled in St. Paul students, that objective judgement might not support. Students are, by their very presence at St. Paul's, deemed exceptional at whatever skill or talent they display. This reinforced self-image is a major contributor to the students' sense of "ease" in interactions between themselves, other members of privilege, and those who serve them. Their self-confidence, despite a lack of substance, prepares them for their future roles in pre-ordained prominent positions.

As a graduate of a far less prestigious boarding school, so many of the author's observations reminded me of my own high school experiences. The notion of the school turning the extraordinary into the ordinary, leaving the student in a sense jaded, is a big component of the author's discussion of "ease" -- almost nothing takes you entirely out of your comfort zone because to some extent you've already experienced so much at a young age. Too, the indulgence if not encouragement of glibness -- often touted by teachers as proof of one's precociousness -- also resonated with me.

If the concept of effortlessness is ease as demonstrated by the elite, then the cover of this book best expresses it. An interesting, if somewhat scholarly discussion of life at a prestigious prep school in New England and the transformation of students for all economic backgrounds into a elite collective is of interest.

Good book for my class

Simply brilliant ethnography. As one who has been reading, thinking and teaching about inequality for years, I can say that this book adds enormously to our understanding of a complex, difficult-to-comprehend reality in the twenty-first century. If you want to learn about the making of contemporary American elites, you can read nothing better.