Review of - Preparing for Power- Americas Elite Boarding School

8/22/2019 Review of - Preparing for Power- Americas Elite Boarding School

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Bryn Mawr College

Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn MawrCollege

Sociology Faculty Research and Scholarship Sociology

1986

Review ofPreparing for Power: America's EliteBoarding Schools, by Peter W. Cookson, Jr., and

Caroline Hodges PersellDavid KarenBryn Mawr College, [email protected]

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Recommended CitationKaren, David. Review ofPreparing for Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools, by Peter W. Cookson, Jr., and Caroline Hodges Persell.American Journal of Sociology 92, no. 2 (1986): 478-481.
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AmericanJournal fSociologyright.Unfortunately,espite ts defects hisvolumewill almostsurelybecome he tandard eferencen class dentificationoryears ocome. tis, as WilliamJ. Wilson s quotedon the nsideofthe dust acket, "themost mportanttudy fclass identificationincethepublicationn 1949of RichardCenter'sThe Psychology fSocial Class." For my part, Ilearnedmore boutsocialclass and alsohad a muchbetter ime) eadingSteinbeck's ortillaFlat.Preparing or Power: America'sElite Boarding Schools. By PeterW.Cookson, Jr., and CarolineHodges Persell. New York: Basic Books,1985. Pp. x+260. $19.95.David KarenBrynMawr College

Appeals for ociologists o enter he black box" of chooling ave beena mainstay f articles hat address therelationships etween hesocialorigins f studentsinputs) nd their ocialdestinationsoutputs). o theextent hat schools mediatebetweenorigins nd destinations, ow dotheydo so? Paul Willis, n LearningtoLabour (1977), an ethnographicstudyof a British chool, showed, n the wordsofthe book's subtitle,How Working lass Kids Get Working lass Jobs.At theother nd ofthesocioeconomic pectrum, eter W. Cookson, Jr., and CarolineHodgesPersell,in Preparing or Power, focuson elite preparatory oardingschools, nstitutionshatare an important art oftheprocessbywhichupper-class idsgetupper-classobs. Characterized yC. WrightMillsand E. DigbyBaltzell as critical n the socialization fupper-class hil-dren, prep schoolshave largely scaped the attention fsociologists feducation. The authorsprovideus with the mostdetailed,comprehen-sive, and sophisticated nalysis of the structure nd function f prepschoolsto date.A beautifully ritten, ensitive,ndcriticalwork,Preparingforowerexplores herolethatelite boarding choolsplay in themaintenance fupper-class ohesionand privilege n the contemporarynited States.After ocatingboarding chools within he largercontext f secondaryschooleducation, heymove from n analysisof who attends hem o aconsideration f ifewithin hese nstitutionsnd, finally, oa discussionofthe ikely utcomesfortheir tudents.Cookson and Perselluse dataobtainedby a numberof methods o addressthequestions heypose.Their study s based on informationollected n visitsto 55 Americanboarding chools plus 13non-U.S. schools), n questionnairesdminis-tered o2,475 freshmennd senior tudents t20ofthe chools includingan open-ended ssayon their erceived utures),n additional cademicinformationuppliedby the schools forthe seniors, n public data onboarding chools, nd on interviews ithmore han 100boarding choolalumni.478


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Book ReviewsWhatdo theyfind?Focusingon prepschools as critical o theupperclass'sprojectofexclusionaryocial closure, he authors rguethat,his-

torically, henumber fprep schoolshas increasednthe periods ollow-ingrising idesof mmigration. n the nput ide,they ind hat tudentsat these nstitutionsre from hehighest eachesof theclass structure.Approximatelywo-thirdsf the fathers f prep school studentshaveannual incomesgreater han $75,000 and have graduateeducations,while90% have either rofessional rmanagerialobs. Although ot asexclusive as they once were-Asians, Jews,and blacks are admitted(blackrepresentationnprep schools,however, s only bout one-fifthfblackrepresentationnpublicschools)-the prepschools electfrom napplicantpool based on whether theraw material is] suitable to thetreatment"p. 57). Pierre Bourdieu's assessmentof school selectionpolicies s apropos: in order to benefit romwhat the prep schoolhasto offer, ne must have the instrumentsf appropriation,he culturalcapital.The socialization rocess t theprep chools scomplex.The rigorouslystructured ays,theextracurricularctivities, hesmallclasses, and theemphasis nwritingombine oproduce n environmenthat s academ-ically xciting ut wherethepressure o excel s intense.The impressionconveyeds that his s an all-encompassingnstitution,romwhichyoucanrunbut youcannot hide. The competitivetmosphere roduces darkside to studentife, ympatheticallyescribednthebook,that ncludesalcohol and drugs. Privacy s at a premium, riving tudents o worktogethero express hemselves n the cracksof the nstitutions,s Goff-manhas put t. Surviving hiscrucible,Cooksonand Persell rgue,gen-eratesfeelings f egitimacyor he exercise fpowerthatthese nmates(i.e., students)will ultimately ield; after ll, theywill have paid theirdues. In one stroke, hen,the prep school experience acilitates lasscohesion nd class legitimation.This is not to say, however,thatprep schoolssimply unctioncon-stantly nd successfully)n the interests f the upper class, eitherforindividuals r for he class as a whole.The stress y parents n success,combinedwith theschool'semphasison moral earning nd thestudentculture fgratification,roducesprepsuccess and prepfailure.For theunsuccessful,he uthorsndicate, heres a "lossof nnocence; herecog-nition hatgoodnessunadornedby power s impotentnthestruggle orprivilege" p. 162). For thesuccessful, ristocraticrrogances theout-come. Yet, even for themthe double-sidednature of theprep schoolexperiences evident, nthat"thecycleofsocialization ecreates enera-tions of individualswhose potentials re often rippled,not freed,byprivilege" p. 164).The most mmediate utcomeofprep school ife nvolvesthe collegeadmissionscompetition.With preparationfor SAT's and AdvancedPlacement ests regular artofthecurriculum, ith ollege ounselors'interviewingvery facultymember o get data for students' etters frecommendation,nd withstudentswho are already ocially lite, ca-

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AmericanJournal fSociologydemicallyprepared, nd extracurricularlyxperienced eingsupportedforadmission, t is no wonder thatprep schoolsare moresuccessfulin placingtheir tudents n Ivy League and otherhighly elective ol-leges than even the mostselectivepublic schools,such as the BronxHigh School of Science. Long-standing ies betweeninstitutions restrengthenedy ong-standingiesbetween ollege dvisers ndelite ol-leges'admissions fficerseven deans ofadmission).With ocialnetworksundergirdingulturalaffinities mong the students, he prep schooladministrators,nd the vyLeague colleges, he inksbetween liteprepschools nd elite olleges,whilenotas closeas they ncewere, re never-theless ecure.There are some omissions n Preparing orPower,which,sincetheyalreadyhave theneededdata, I hopethatthe authorswillcorrect oon.First,despite laborating map thatdistinguishesmongprep schools,Cookson and Persell focus on similarities ather han on differences.Their strategy as to paint a collective ortrait, nd, in so doing, omecritical ndividualdifferences ayhave been lost. For instance, houghtheydistinguishedcademies, Episcopal schools, and entrepreneurialschools, he uthors sually efer o someofthem ollectivelys membersof the"Select 16," the mostsociallyprestigious oarding chools. Howthese differn termsof the social backgrounds f theirstudents, hesocialization rocesses hat heyprovide, nd theadvantages hat ccrueto their harges n the collegeadmissionsgamewould be ofparticularinterestn understandingherecruitmentnd reproductionrocesses fdifferentartsof theelite.Second,although he authorswereon ethnographicallyncharted er-ritorynd thusdid notattempt o testhypotheses,heymight ave beenmore xplicitntheir onsiderationf pecific ypothesesboutthe ffectsof the black box. While thestory hey ell is veryconsistentwith andexplicitlyinkedto a Weberiantheory hatsuggests hat theseschoolsreinforcetatus-groupohesiveness nd socialization, hedatamight lsohave beenread with n eyetoward esting owles andGintis's orrespon-dencetheory f therelationshipetween chool and work.Cookson andPersell do at one point suggest that studentgovernment xperienceprefigureshe eadership ositions hat hese tudentswillultimately oldin aw, finance,ndso forth. utthefact hatprep chools ewardndivid-ualsfor ervice o thecommunity-forxample,by being dormmonitorone gets a privateroom-underlines how, even in the total nstitution,there s roomfor ndividualmobility. he authorsmight ave discussedsimilarities etweenthissituation nd thecorporate nvironmentshatthese tudentswillmost ikelynhabit,where herewill be thepossibilityfor ndividual dvancement ven as theybehave as consummate om-panymen.These criticisms side, Preparing orPower is a masterfully ritten,richly hronicled, ngagingbook thatwill not only be a source forre-searchersnterestedn itsauthors' onclusions ut will also providedataforscholarswithdifferentuestions from he ones thatthe book ad-480


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Book Reviewsdresses. n paperback, thisbookwill be widelyused forcourses n thesociology f education nd social stratification.Jobs and Gender: A Study of OccupationalPrestige. By Christine .Bose. New York: Praeger.Pp. xiv+ 207. $33.95.Jerry . JacobsUniversity fPennsylvania

Sincemuch of thedetailed analysisofoccupationalprestige cales isaccessibleonly in dissertations, sers and potentialusersof ChristineBose's occupational ndexwill be pleased at the publication f theevi-dence and rationalebehind these scores. n Jobsand Gender,Bose re-ports he results f her 1972surveys f 197Baltimore esidents nd 195Baltimore-area ollege students, surveysthat were designed to testwhetherrespondents ccord differentevels of prestige o men andwomen in the same occupations. She asked both samples to rate theprestige f 110occupational itles, hosen orepresenthegender ompo-sition foccupations n the abor force.Respondentswere ssigned ooneof four reatments:omewere askedtoratebothoccupational itleswithno incumbent pecified nd the prestige f female ncumbents,nothergroupratedoccupational itles nd male ncumbents, third roup atedmaleand femalencumbents,nd a fourthroup ated ccupational itlesonly.Bose finds hat ocioeconomic actors remore mportantnthe valua-tionofprestige han is gender. The prestige f an occupationwith noincumbent pecified s the best predictor f the prestige f male andfemale ncumbents.Genderfactors dd between1% and 2.5% to thevariance n male and female ncumbentcores.Thus, gender s a small(butstatisticallyignificant)actorn thedeterminationftheprestige fmenand women n occupations.FollowingDuncan's strategy,ose estimates ccupational tatus coresfor ll occupations rom n equationthatpredicts restige rom ncomeand education.Her approach differs romDuncan's in that she createstwoseparate cales, oneforwomen nd another ormen. The scoresforwomen rebased on an equationpredictingheprestigehatrespondentsaccorded owomen, nd the coresformenare based on an equation hatpredicts heprestigeccorded o men.A furtherepartures a second etofscales forpart-time orkers.Bose's indexwill be familiar oresearch-erswho have used the data of theNationalLongitudinal urveys.This book goes beyondBose and PeterRossi's article, GenderandJobs:Prestige tandings fOccupations s AffectedyGender" Ameri-canSociologicalReview48 (1983): 316-30), inthe discussion f the evelofconsensus mongraters nd inthepresentationf scoresfor he1960,1970,and 1980 detailedcensus occupationalcategories.Another nter-esting eature fthe book is a discussion ftheprestige fhousewives,

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Review of - Preparing for Power- Americas Elite Boarding School