“Majority Rules, But Not All Are The Majority:” Social Mobility and Class Values in a Private Los Angeles High School

Celestina DiMauro

An Honors Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of a Degree in Sociology & Anthropology Lewis & Clark College

May 5, 2015

Advisor: Professor Sepideh Bajracharya

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Abstract This thesis investigates how a private high school, like the one I worked with and attended called Campbell Hall, becomes an arena where certain forms of class values and social mobility are distinguished and cultivated – particularly as a result of the school’s situation as private and elite. I refer to Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, capital, structural and symbolic violence, and distinction to argue that students at Campbell Hall are identified, and self-identify, according to two forms of class and social mobility. I argue that the wealthier, upper-class students experience what I call a “maintenance-oriented habitus,” or outlook on their educations, seeking simply not to lose status. Alternatively, the relatively middle-class students experience what I call a “mobility-oriented habitus,” seeking both to maintain their current status and to achieve upward social mobility into the upper class. Interviews and surveys I conducted among classmates from Campbell Hall between May 2014 and March 2015 as well as media analysis and photography all contribute to support these arguments.

Key Terms: high school, wealth, structural and symbolic distinction, capital, habitus, maintenance-oriented, mobility-oriented

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Dedication This thesis is dedicated to all those who wish to be students but are not afforded the resources and opportunities to do so.

Acknowledgments Thank you to Professor Jennifer Hubbert for her help and inspiration to apply for the Student Academic Affairs Board grant that allowed me to travel to Los Angeles to conduct the initial ethnographic research for this thesis (thank you to SAAB as well for awarding me that grant) and for her continued feedback and support throughout the process; to Professor Jennifer de Saxe who guided me through my preliminary research on education and for her continued support throughout the process; to Professor Sepideh Bajracharya for her wise and extensive guidance through the roller coaster of this final and culminating semester – I could not have asked for a more sincere, encouraging thesis advisor; and to the Sociology & Anthropology and Education departments for all of the professors and courses that prepared me for this project. A huge thank you to all of my interlocutors – friends, acquaintances, former teachers, and former administrators – for they were incredibly responsive and, like any ethnographic research project, this thesis simply could not have been possible without their participation. Final and never over-emphasized thanks go to my friends and family for their understanding of Saturday nights at the library and phone calls cut short. It has been quite the journey.

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Table of Contents

ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................. II DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................................. III ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................................................... III INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER I ................................................................................................................................................ 17 INSTITUTIONAL CLASSIFICATION: “THE COMMUNITY OF INQUIRY” ........................................... 17

PRIVATE PARTS ....................................................................................................................................... 18 GATED & GUARDED ................................................................................................................................ 21 ADMISSIONS (YOU WISH!) ...................................................................................................................... 23 ALL YOU NEED IS… MONEY. ................................................................................................................... 25

CHAPTER II .............................................................................................................................................. 31 INDIVIDUAL CLASSIFICATION: “UNLIMITED AMOUNTS OF MONEY” ........................................... 31

A SELECTIVITY OF PUNISHMENT ............................................................................................................. 32 THE HAVES AND THE HAVE-MORES ....................................................................................................... 38

CHAPTER III ............................................................................................................................................. 45 TWO EDUCATIONAL HABITUSES: “OUR PREP SCHOOL FUCKED US UP” ................................... 45

SO WHAT IS SUCCESS, AFTER ALL? .......................................................................................................... 46 THE METRICS: GRADES, GPAS, AND COLLEGE ...................................................................................... 48

CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................... 55 REFERENCES ...........................................................................................................................................61

APPENDICES ............................................................................................................................................64

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INTRODUCTION

I, no different than any other student at Campbell Hall, was socialized into

a very particular worldview with aspirations of material accumulation and superior social status. In junior high I got my first MacBook and started thinking about what brand new car I wanted in years to come. I had the Verizon Chocolate phone in lime green before the brand new Voyager came out, which soon became the Blackberry before returning to the Voyager 2. I was good at this game – the “game of things” where winning amounts to accumulation of the most stuff. The game sounds disconcertingly like Hungry Hungry Hippos, and that’s because it is disconcertingly like Hungry Hungry Hippos. I became a seasoned pro at this real life version of a game of insatiable consumption. My hopes consisted of indefinite wealth and materialism and my fears were, well, anything else.

A strange, quasi-horrifying, and embarrassing thing happened to me, though. Somewhere between the end of junior high and the beginning of high school, I began to realize that something was gravely different between most of my friends and me. My friend’s mom traded in her BMW hard top convertible for a new Bentley. My dad still drove his Chevy Trailblazer. Another friend started selecting her favorite designer handbags to ask for during the holidays. I was content with See’s Candies and the latest DVD seasons of Criminal Minds (and maybe a new phone upgrade). I had become enlightened to my dismal fate. My fears were now the only thing that had materialized.

I was poor. So it began – my struggle with “poverty.” I could no longer keep up with the Jones’s.

--- I am now absolutely certain that I am not poor – not even remotely close.

My status in life has been an amalgamation, though, of my economic, social, and cultural capital. As everyone’s is, presumably. While I was not raised with as much wealth as my peers were growing up, I was raised with enough social and cultural capital for me to make up the difference. I was never ostracized for being part of the upper-middle class rather than the upper-upper class. On some level, it didn’t matter, as long as I could put together acceptable outfits, talk about the right topics, and be enough of a socialite to keep up on gossip and news.

This vignette is a splicing of excerpts from a personal essay I wrote for a creative non-

fiction writing course during my junior year here at Lewis & Clark College. Our task was to

explore an event or aspect of our lives through the lens of some historical, academic, or popular

context. My experience growing in up in a private, K-12 school community – Campbell Hall –

since age 5 led me to investigate exactly how it was that wealth and capital instilled the classed

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values in my peers and me that formed our aspirations then, and still continue to form them as a

part of our identities today. For a while, I honestly considered myself to be poor. That said, I did

recognize that there were people outside of the Campbell Hall community that were poorer than

me. Nonetheless, I felt that because I was unable to keep up with the lifestyles and purchases of

my friends, I was living in poverty. Much of my motivation to “do well” in school was driven by

a recognition that I was not an equal to many of my peers. I found myself aspiring to attain the

same class status as they had by getting great grades, admission into a reputable college, and a

well-paying job. In college, I began reflecting on my experience at Campbell Hall. I began to

wonder specifically about the significance of the class-based values, ideals, and aspirations I had

assumed and cultivated during my time at Campbell Hall.

Campbell Hall, though, is just one example of a community that assumes the values of

heightened and concentrated wealth. The classed, communal, and personal experiences that I and

my former peers experienced at this institution of private education might equally apply to other

community-based institutions of concentrated wealth. The research I conducted between May

2014 and March 2015 that forms the foundation of this thesis explores the effects of privatized

communities of concentrated wealth on its members. I ask how members of the elite majority

and the members of the less elite minority relate to the classed values assumed, structured,

cultivated, and embodied by these intensely capital-driven institutions. Students associated with

the elite majority already feel a part of a community with identities that easily align with the

classed values of capital accumulation. Students associated with the lower-, middle-class

minority, such as myself, find themselves striving to accumulate the classed values and materials

of such a class-based and capital-driven institution. I ask how students in the Campbell Hall

community internalize and begin to live those respective class identities and aspirations.

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⌘

The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu argues that the building of personal and communal

identities relies on certain methods of structural and symbolic processes (Bourdieu 2001). The

effects of structural and symbolic pressures are assumed, internalized, and cultivated in each

individual as a “habitus” of norms and habits (Nash 1990). In an essay titled “The Forms of

Capital” (1986) Bourdieu parses out the terms of economic, social, and cultural capital to explain

how social identities are framed and assumed. He presents economic capital as intersecting with

cultural capital and social capital to comprise the types of material and embodied assets an

individual is able to inherit or acquire.

…capital can present itself in three fundamental guises: as economic capital, which is immediately and directly convertible into money and may be institutionalized in the forms of property rights; as cultural capital, which is convertible, on certain conditions, into economic capital and may be institutionalized in the forms of educational qualifications; and as social capital, made up on social obligations (‘connections’), which is convertible, in certain conditions, into economic capital and may be institutionalized in the forms of a title of nobility (Bourdieu 1986:241-258). [emphasis original]

The “symmetrically and inversely structured relationship” between economic capital and

cultural capital1 is critical to Bourdieu’s argument (Bourdieu 1986). For any given class

status, there is a sum of economic, social, and cultural capital that comprises and

determines the appropriateness of that status. A decrease in economic capital might thus

lead individuals to seek newfound cultural and social capital in order to maintain their

original class statuses, or vice versa. Class status, however, requires recognition from the

larger community and peers, a recognition based on observable acts of consumption,

embodied “tastes,” and habitual preferences (Bourdieu 1984).

                                                                                                               1 Social capital is directly related to cultural capital and thus also symmetrically and inversely related to economic capital, as Bourdieu defined social capital in his publication “The Forms of Capital” two years after Distinction

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Seeking to investigate how senses of self, worth, and community are achieved,

one of my initial research questions was, how are students’ identities and statuses like my

own formed at Campbell Hall? Throughout this thesis, I employ the language and theory

of Pierre Bourdieu to tell the story of this personal and communal socialization of

students at Campbell Hall. I argue that economic, social, and cultural capital conditions

influence institutional (school) and individual (student, faculty, staff, and administration)

values, interactions, and identities through material structural and symbolic means of

distinction. Structural and symbolic distinctions operate at the institutional and individual

level, respectively, to form students’ senses of class identity and status. In Fresh Fruit,

Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States, Seth Holmes reasons that:

Structural violence is manifested as social inequalities and hierarchies, often along social categories of class, race, gender, and sexuality. Symbolic violence, as defined by Bourdieu, is the internalization and legitimation of hierarchy, ‘exercised through cognition, misrecognition, knowledge and sentiment, with the unwitting consent of the dominated’ (Holmes 2013:89) citing (Bourdieu 2001).

In this thesis, I draw on notions of structural and symbolic pressures and relations to describe the

ways that students become distinguished from each other and between themselves. Structural

distinction occurs at the institutional level and is the topic of chapter one in this thesis, while the

complementary symbolic distinction that occurs at the individual level is the topic of chapter

two. I argue that these distinctions serve to form students’ respective assumptions about class

values, social positionality, and mobility (Bourdieu 1984).

In trying to further investigate the way these values are embedded at the level of self,

worth, and identification, I refer specifically to Bourdieu’s concept of habitus. Roy Nash aptly

defines habitus as:

“a generative schema in which social structures come, through the process of socialization, to be embodied as schemes of perception that enable a practical

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mastery of the world, a knowledge of the ‘rules of the game’ within fields of practice, in such a way that individuals necessarily (or almost necessarily) reproduce the underlying structures” (Nash 2003:47).

Nash’s explanation of habitus as “social structures” that are “embodied” “through the process of

socialization” is exemplified by student experiences at Campbell Hall. The structural coordinates

and symbolic pressures that are experienced in the Campbell Hall community distinguish

students from each other and between themselves. Students embody these distinctions through “a

generative schema” that leads to them reproduce the forms of their own difference. This

embodiment of structural and symbolic distinction is what Bourdieu refers to as habitus.

At Campbell Hall, I argue that class values relate to two prevailing forms of habitus. One

habitus is experienced and embodied by the upper-class students; the other is experienced and

embodied by those who are considered and consider themselves relatively middle-class. I refer to

what upper-class students experience as a maintenance-oriented habitus, and what relatively

middle-class students experience as a mobility-oriented habitus. For upper-class students,

“maintenance-oriented habitus” is concerned with maintaining the status quo and not losing the

high status that they already have as a result of their inherited economic, social, and cultural

capital. For relatively middle-class students, however, “mobility-oriented habitus” is concerned

with acquiring economic, social, and cultural capital that will allow them entry into the upper-

class schema. Upper-class students and relatively middle-class students thus experience their

education and the classed values of the community in different ways that are contingent upon

their respective relationships to the structurally and symbolically assumed class-based ideals of

Campbell Hall.

⌘

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Sherry Ortner’s ethnography New Jersey Dreaming: Capital, Culture, and the Class of

’58 has been a cornerstone guide to my research both in terms of methodology and theory

(Ortner 2003). Ortner’s subjects were, similar to mine, her former high school classmates. Like

me, she returned to her high school to ask how class influenced their time in high school as well

as their time following high school. Although Ortner’s classmates were not of the unusual

economic makeup as mine are, many of the middle-class students at Campbell Hall share similar

features as Ortner’s predominantly working- and middle-class interlocutors – specifically their

drive for upward mobility (Ortner 2003). I thus refer to students that are less wealthy than the

upper-class majority as relatively middle-class to reflect their moderate wealth as well as their

position in a community of extreme wealth. It is the drive that students of the relatively middle

class express toward upward social mobility that identifies their mobility-oriented habitus. This

drive stems from a particular distribution of capital that renders them equipped with less

economic capital than their upper-class counterparts, but with enough access to cultural and

social assets to be able to compensate for this lack. Their habitus becomes mobility-oriented.

Students of the upper class are conversely more concerned with remaining a part of the upper

class that they are already included in – an embodied experience that I discuss in chapter three as

a form of maintenance-oriented habitus.

In addition to Ortner, I refer to Paul Willis’ Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids

Get Working Class Jobs as both a comparative ethnographic example and a theoretical

grounding for my argument. The working-class high school students Willis writes about embody

what he calls a “counter-school culture,” of which “the most basic, obvious, and explicit

dimension… is entrenched general and personalized opposition to ‘authority’” (Willis 1981:11).

Willis suggests that his interlocutors’ class status as working-class high school students frames

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their counter-school perspective. He argues that when students realize that school is no longer of

value to them because their working class status leaves them no option but to remain in the

working class, they develop a counter-school culture that devalues the school itself. Along the

opposite end of the socioeconomic spectrum, I argue that upper-class students ironically create a

counter-school culture for similar reasons as Willis’ working-class students: they too believe that

school is of little to no value to them and their ambitions. At Campbell Hall the class of students

who express counter-school culture attitudes tends to be the wealthiest, upper-class whose

members realize that school is effectively of little value to them because of their other existing,

largely economic assets. Willis’s argument about counter-school culture applies to elite upper-

class students at schools like Campbell Hall for whom education is not a necessity, but merely

identified as a personal preference, an option, or a formality. Students of the relatively middle

class on the other hand tend to be more conservative and rule abiding, because they are

conscious of how school promises them upward social mobility into an upper-class habitus. This

is why relatively middle-class students typically cannot afford to participate in counter-school

culture.

⌘

The first chapter of this thesis investigates the structural distinction of Campbell Hall as

an elite, upper-class private school in terms of architectural access, bureaucratic procedure, and

the privatized costs included in the process of becoming a part of the Campbell Hall community.

The chapter analyzes the interrelated structural distinction of the members of the community as

generally elite and as reflecting back onto the institution in a mutually distinctive relationship. I

argue that the privatized nature of Campbell Hall, along with its structural dimensions of

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architectural access, bureaucratic procedure, and explicit and latent costs, structurally distinguish

both the institution and its community members as elite.

The second chapter focuses on how such structural distinctions bare on the symbolic

distinction of students at Campbell Hall in terms of their interactions with campus authority

figures, as well as their interactions with student peers. I refer to the system of punishment for

infractions at Campbell Hall to illustrate the symbolic distinction between students and the

school authorities. To illustrate the symbolic distinction that occurs between students, my

interlocutors recounted events and sites where students were distinguished by their peers based

on their appearances and material belongings. I argue that through these two means of symbolic

distinction, between authority figures and students and between students themselves, Campbell

Hall students identify as members of the upper class or the relatively middle class.

The third and culminating chapter of this thesis builds from the first two chapters to

analyze the way structural and symbolic forms of class distinction are embodied in how these

two “classes” of students distinguish themselves. I argue that these two “habituses” –

maintenance-oriented and mobility-oriented – are experienced by those marked and self-marked

as either upper-class or relatively middle-class students. For upper-class students who may

already possess much capital – economic capital especially – the acquisition of capital is not of

significant concern. For the relatively middle class students, however, the accumulation and

demonstration of capital becomes a primary influence in their experience of the institution,

themselves, and their aspirations. In the conclusion, I reference and contextualize the words of a

former Campbell Hall teacher to illustrate the detrimental effects of capital-focused ideals and

habitus in an educational setting. Ultimately, this research questions the role that secondary

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education, and particularly elite private education, plays in generating and assuming the ethos of

class-specific values and aspirations.

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METHODOLOGY

In May 2014 I returned to Los Angeles with the aim of interviewing current and former

members of the Campbell Hall community about their experiences and relationships to both

community members and the institution itself. At this point, I had not yet honed my investigation

of the specific values instilled at Campbell Hall, though many of my interviews ended up

emphasizing those values anyway.

I conducted my research over the past year using five main methodologies: participant-

observation, semi-structured interviews, structured interviews in the form of surveys,

photography, and media/artifact analysis. As a native ethnographer, my participation-observation

began well before the timeline of this project. I draw on experiences that transpired before this

research project by incorporating personal memory as an aspect of past participant-observation.

Because the topic of this research is a site and institution that I took part in for many years, I

have maintained knowledge and information about the student experience from both my

participation in and observations of the community. It would be both impossible and naïve for

me as an ethnographer to attempt to remove myself from this research in order to preserve a false

sense of objectivity. Instead, by acknowledging the critically reflexive subjective perspective of

the ethnographer, and more specifically the native ethnographer, I use my own experiences and

situation in the Campbell Hall context as a point of insight at different points throughout the

thesis.

My main guidance and inspiration for this reflexive methodology is Sherry Ortner’s New

Jersey Dreaming: Capital, Culture, and the Class of ’58 (Ortner 2003). Ortner had a nearly

identical native research relationship with many of her interlocutors, many of whom were, like

mine, former classmates. In the ethnography, she acknowledges her positionality and engages

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her subjective relationship to the topic and ethnographic context. Throughout this thesis I follow

a similar methodological ethos (Ortner 2003).

My second methodology, semi-structured interviews, generated a large portion of the

ethnographic material that came directly from my interlocutors for this project. I kept my pool of

participants broad at the start of my research by interviewing a range of former students, current

and former faculty, and current and former administrators. I intentionally conducted all semi-

structured interviews off-campus because I did not want my interlocutors to feel as if they had to

censor or embellish their thoughts because of the possibility that members of the Campbell Hall

community might overhear them. Most interviews thus occurred at coffee shops and restaurants

or the homes of former Campbell Hall students. In addition to being sites for interviews, the

homes of former Campbell Hall students were some of the off-campus sites where I conducted

participant-observation during my time as a student at Campbell Hall.

As a native ethnographer, it became vital to the integrity of my research to establish clear

divisions between my research relationships and my personal relationships. Keeping a constant

and vigilant awareness to that nuance, I emphasized transitional moments like the start of

interview conversations, turning on the recording device after establishing ethical research

practices and receiving consent to continue. I reminded interviewees that identifying names and

details would be obscured and subject to their final discretion. Emphasizing those transitions

appeared to ease my interviewees into feeling confident about the distinctions in my roles as

researcher and as a friend. Drawing from these semi-structured interviews and native participant-

observation, I will be incorporating portraits of several core participants who speak at length or

precision about their Campbell Hall experience throughout the chapters of this thesis.

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The third methodology I used was structured interviewing in the form of an electronic

survey. This method, like the semi-structured interviews, garnered ethnographic data directly

from my interlocutors. After returning to Portland and analyzing my interviews, I realized I

needed to know more about the aspirations and goals of my student interlocutors during their

time at Campbell Hall. As much as faculty and administrator comments were compelling, the

scope of this project did not permit me to explore all three perspectives with as much depth as I

wanted. Furthermore, the compressed timeline of this thesis meant that I would be unable to go

back and individually re-interview my interlocutors. As a recourse, I sent out a survey to the

individuals I had already interviewed and to a few new participants to get targeted information

about students’ goals and aspirations. The results of this survey-styled structured interviewing

appear predominantly in chapters two and three.

The fourth methodology involved photography. I used photographs toward the end of my

research process when I decided that illustrating the physical space and architecture of the

campus would be integral to portraying the school’s exclusive, distinguished identity. In order to

compensate for my distance from the Campbell Hall site itself, I was able to solicit the help of

two friends still residing in Los Angeles to take photos of the campus.

The fifth and final methodology included in this thesis is media source analysis accessed

via the internet. I refer to the websites of both Campbell Hall and North Hollywood High School

to provide statistical contrasts in public and private education within the same locale. Both the

photography and media analyses appear in chapter one to illustrate Campbell Hall’s institutional

role in the student experience. The diversity and triangulation of my methodologies has afforded

me the breadth and depth of data necessary to make the arguments that follow.

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CHAPTER I INSTITUTIONAL CLASSIFICATION: “The Community of Inquiry”

I really didn’t get on with the administration while I went to Campbell Hall. I felt that throughout my time at Campbell Hall, the school stopped caring about the experience and education of their students and really only cared about the reputation they could build and the money they could make. – Survey completed by Alice, February 12, 2015

Structural violence typically refers to how individuals experience violence or oppression

as a result of structural or systemic forces rather than at the hands of individual actions (Bourdieu

2001). In this chapter, I argue for an adaptation of this concept in which economic, social, and

cultural capital intersect to create the structural and symbolic terms that distinguish the

institution at the same moment it distinguishes its members. The creation of the community is

thus inherently exclusionary and predicated on the distinction of an “in-group” as separate from

an “out-group” (van Gennep 1960). The process of being accepted into a community can be

understood as a rite of passage in which individuals transition from being a foreigner of the “out-

group” to being a community member of the “in-group” (van Gennep 1960). In the context of

Campbell Hall, this ritual might be more accurately described as a rite of class distinction as

Vassos Argyrou defines in his book Tradition and Modernity in the Mediterranean: The

Wedding as Symbolic Struggle (Argyrou 1996). Argyrou analyzes the meaning of various types

of weddings on the Greek island of Cyprus, a native ethnographer and Greek Cypriot himself, to

understand typically Western, extravagant weddings as rites of class distinction for the couple

into the upper class. I, also a native ethnographer, apply this idea of rites of class distinction to

Campbell Hall as an institution and the creation of its community.

In this chapter I describe how Campbell Hall structurally situates itself as a private

institution through certain of rites of class distinction – architectural access, bureaucratic

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procedure, and privatized costs. These rituals establish Campbell Hall as a classed, elite

institution, creating the very exclusive “community of inquiry” (Campbell Hall d).

Private Parts  

Campbell Hall sits on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, one of the most prominent boulevards

of the city, between the underpass of the major 101 Freeway and Moorpark Street. The other side

of the boulevard hosts a residential zone, a neighborhood called Studio City, with apartment

buildings and relatively modest homes for a city like Los Angeles. The residents of Studio City,

Campbell Hall’s neighbors, have both appreciated and resented Campbell Hall’s growth.

Beginning in 2010 the school went under the forklift and had a facelift that transformed a large

part of campus by demolishing an old building and replacing it with a brand new one,

necessitating many days of construction and obstruction of the busy boulevard. This facelift was

planned and executed entirely around the erection of this new asset to the institution: the Arts &

Education Center. The Center is a state of the art central hub of buildings, walk bridges, and

throughways, containing many of the secondary school’s classrooms and much of its new

technology.

“Arts & Education Center” (Campbell Hall a)

Both entrances to the campus face the boulevard, and both are commanded by security

officers in one-room booths to ensure the exclusivity and security of campus. The campus also

features a full turf football field which doubles as a soccer field, a second soccer field, two

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baseball fields, underground parking, fully-equipped science labs, a three-story library building,

two gymnasiums, dance studios, a digital production studio, a complete nurse’s office, and the

list continues. Its history begins in 1944 with the initial purchase of land and 74 total students

enrolled for classes Kindergarten-6th grade (Campbell Hall f). Since then, nine more acres of

land have been added to the compound and in the ‘10-‘11 school year Campbell Hall had a total

of 1,088 students enrolled (Campbell Hall a). January 2010 marked the public launch of the

Capital Campaign for the Arts & Education Center (Campbell Hall a). On August 30, 2012 the

Arts & Education Center was dedicated and officially open for use (Campbell Hall a). Today,

one can walk the outdoor halls of the Center and view plaques of varying designation bestowing

the names of all the donors that contributed to the funding of the building by tier of monetary

donation.

Display on an exterior wall of the Arts & Education Center (Darcy 2015, March 10)

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Zoomed in selection of above photo to show donor group titles (Darcy 2015, March 10)

As far as the makeup of the community, while Campbell Hall proudly touts that 24% of

the student body receives some sort of tuition assistance, that means 76% of their students do not

receive aid for the $32,690 (plus an approximately $2,000 in further fees dependent on grade

level) annual secondary school tuition (Campbell Hall e; Campbell Hall g). Furthermore,

someone who might qualify for the minimum tier of tuition assistance, $1,000, based on such a

large sum of tuition costs may not actually qualify for free or reduced-price lunch because if the

student attended a public school the portion of tuition that was paid to Campbell Hall would still

remain available for use (Campbell Hall e). To keep all raw data contextualized and to maintain

validity in this research, the local public high school, North Hollywood High School (NHHS),

can serve as a benchmark for the local, public community. At NHHS, 74% of students participate

in the federal free and reduced-price lunch program (North Hollywood High School ). Thus, only

26% of students do not receive free and reduced-price lunch. At Campbell Hall, 76% of students

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pay full $30,000+ tuition – annually. While Campbell Hall’s metrics for determining tuition

assistance are unlikely to be identical to the metrics for determining free and reduced-price lunch

eligibility, the disparity would likely only become more drastic with the proper metrics for

comparison, not less, given that the threshold for eligibility in the federal lunch assistance

program must be far lower than that to receive $1,000 or more tuition assistance at Campbell

Hall.

Gated & Guarded

One of the most tangible places to begin analyzing the creation of Campbell Hall’s elite

community is the physical, architectural site itself. As a private institution, educational or

otherwise, Campbell Hall’s campus is private property and the institution is legally entitled to

restrict access to the physical space of the school. Campbell Hall has two driveway entries to the

campus. One is traditional and is used more for guests and appearances than quotidian access.

First Gate, closed on a weekend (Clay 2015, March 26)

Guardhouse on the left-hand side after entrance through the first gate (Clay 2015, March 26)

It has a classic iron gate and is further away from the main parking areas and than second

driveway. This second driveway is far more heavily trafficked, used by faculty, staff, students,

and families of Campbell Hall. It, too, is gated, but leads into both the new parking structure

underneath the Arts & Education Center and to additional outdoor parking.

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Second, newer gate and guardhouse (Clay 2015, March 26)

Both entrances are monitored by guardhouses run by the campus security. The rite of spatial

passage, if you will, into the physical campus and community requires obtaining a parking

pass/decal for the current school year, each with a unique identification number linked to a

particular community member. Without the decal, cars are stopped and questioned as to their

presence on campus. During the school day, it is very challenging to get on campus without a

decal; if drivers can convince the security guard that they need to be on campus, the security

guards will write temporary passes. The license plate number, driver’s license number, date,

time, and reason for entry may be placed on the vehicles’ dashboard. Often times the security

guards will contact teachers or administrators of students who drivers claim to be visiting or

picking up. Some strong exceptions to this norm are sports events when, for logistical reasons,

the security is lax so as to allow supporters of other teams to attend the event. The only way to

obtain a decal for access to campus during standard school hours, though, is to be accepted as a

student. In other words, the rite of spatial passage is only one aspect of the larger rite of class

distinction for becoming part of the Campbell Hall community.

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Admissions (You Wish!)

The admissions process at Campbell Hall is extremely competitive: on average, private

schools in Los Angeles like Campbell Hall are now receiving up to 10 applications per opening,

including for admission into Kindergarten (Davidow 2008). The bureaucratic application process

is exhaustive. For kindergarten applicants, families must submit an online application, a $135

non-refundable application fee, a preschool teacher evaluation form, a preschool administrator

evaluation form, and a financial aid application if applicable. Once the application is submitted,

applicant interviews and evaluations are scheduled. Parents are interviewed and the prospective

students (preschoolers) are taken for a short tour and readiness assessment. Additionally, these

Kindergarten applicants attend a one hour “mini-day” where they will be observed “socializing

with other students, following directions, listening and responding to a story and song, and

participating in choice play time” (Campbell Hall b:2). For applicants for grades 1-4, the

interviews include both child and parent(s), students are required to take an admission test,

another recommendation form is typically required, and transcripts/report cards are added to the

list of required application materials. To apply for admission for grades 5-12, the admission test

is a standardized exam called the Independent School Entrance Examination (ISEE) and all

applicants are required to submit scores (Campbell Hall b:2; erblearn.org 2014).

Especially for kindergarten applications where testing and scores are not applicable, two

of the major components of the application are the teacher/administrator recommendations and

the interviews/observations with applying students and families. In the case of the

recommendations, prospective students and families must have the social capital of being

familiar with those preschools, teachers, and administrators with the most clout as recommenders

in Campbell Hall’s eyes. In the case of interviews and observations for the preschool students,

 24

both parents and students must have cultural capital in order to navigate the questions and

ambiguous criteria put forth by Campbell Hall’s admissions team (Bourdieu 1986:241-258).

What is and is not acceptable in the sandbox, or what aspirations are and are not acceptable for

parents to have for their children, are norms and expectations understood only by those with the

cultural capital to do so.

Furthermore, the explicit and implicit costs of the application process provide a burden of

economic capital. The application itself explicitly entails a $135 non-refundable fee. Implicitly,

though, parent(s) must participate in interviews with their respective student(s); while Saturday

interview slots are available, they are booked on a first-come, first-served basis. Thus, if a family

were to apply after the Saturdays were already scheduled full of interviews, the parent(s) would

have to find time off of work (assuming they work during the 5-day workweek) in order to

accommodate the interview requirement of the application. A second implicit burden of

economic capital is the expectation of preschool enrollment. Interestingly, there is no written

stipulation of eligibility for prospective Kindergarten students to have attended preschool.

However, it is written in the admission guide that the “Preschool Evaluation” form and

“Administrator Recommendation” form are both required for the Kindergarten application.

While preschool may be more normative today than ever before, it is still an economic burden as

it currently is not a standard offering of the public school system.

The criteria for admission at Campbell Hall, and many private institutions alike, are far

more than paperwork and questionnaires: in fact, they are more aptly described as social,

cultural, and economic capital (Bourdieu 1986:241-258). The attainment of physical access to

Campbell Hall’s campus and the granting of coveted admission into the student body are two

components of the rite of class distinction. They define the exclusionary creation of Campbell

 25

Hall’s community through architectural access and bureaucratic procedure, less obvious than the

last step of this ritual – privatized costs. This final step to the ritual requires the payment of what

can be amounted to “membership fees” or “annual dues” to truly be a part of the Campbell Hall

club and community: tuition and fees.

All you need is… money.

The economic burden of being a part of the Campbell Hall club is a function of the

school’s intertwined statuses as both a privatized and an elite educational institution: for, in the

public school system, both elementary and secondary school are free of charge and do not

necessarily demand the same upper-class lifestyle as Campbell Hall does. As previously

introduced, the 2014-2015 tuition for elementary school (K-6) and secondary school (7-12) was

$27,690 and $32,690, respectively. However, in addition to the base tuition, “Other Fees” are

also imposed including, but not limited to, the Tuition Guarantee Plan, $225, the Student Body

Fee, $65 for grades 7-12, and Experiential Education, ranging from $350 to $1,400 depending on

grade level.

While Campbell Hall is not naïve to the burden of these costs and offers payment plans

and financial aid, the realities of these options are limited and can actually impose further

economic burden in a form similar to loan interest. The three available payment plans offer 1) a

single payment of full tuition, 2) tuition divided into two payments2, or 3) ten monthly payments

with an 8% service charge for families who have not been awarded a partial financial aid grant.

This service charge can be understood in a similar way as loan interest in which individuals are

reaping the benefits of funds or a service before having paid for it. In other words, families who

select the third payment plan are not only indebted to the school, but must pay 8% “interest” on

                                                                                                               2 No information is provided as to the timing of the two payments

 26

that “loan.” Thus, if a family did not receive a financial aid grant (only 1 in 4 do), then in order

to enroll in a payment plan, they may be charged up to an additional $2,792 (calculated from

total costs of tuition and fees for grade 11) (Campbell Hall e; Campbell Hall g).

For those families that are seeking financial aid grants, another fee, approximately $40, is

imposed in order to submit the School and Student Services (SSS) financial aid application

(Campbell Hall c:1). Families must possess the cultural capital to fill out the Parents’ Financial

Statement, submit 2012 and 2013 taxes (or whichever years are contemporarily applicable), and

write an explanatory letter justifying or explaining the need for financial aid (Campbell Hall c:1;

Bourdieu 1986:241-258). Ultimately, only 24% of students at Campbell Hall receive any degree

of tuition assistance ranging from $1,000 to full tuition grants (Campbell Hall e). Campbell Hall

does not release data regarding the distribution of funds among that 24% of students, like how

many receive $5,000 or less, for example. It is possible that more than half of those students

receive the minimum grant of $1,000, or it may be possible that most students receive $10,000 or

more. Thus, it is impossible to ascertain the actual impact or reach of Campbell Hall’s financial

aid offerings simply from the information that 24% of students receive aid of at least $1,000.

In order to even be considered for financial aid, a student and his/her family must

therefore have demonstrated enough cultural and social capital to compensate for and justify the

lack of economic capital that requires financial aid. This is an example of the “symmetrically and

inversely structured relationship” between economic capital and cultural capital3 (Bourdieu

1984:613). One’s class status is bound by one’s capital, which is comprised of economic, social,

and cultural capital (Bourdieu 1986:241-258). To maintain a given status, upper-class for

example, one must possess a high amount of capital. Those students or families who may not

                                                                                                               3 As previously footnoted in the introduction, social capital is directly related to cultural capital and thus also symmetrically and inversely related to economic capital

 27

officially have the economic capital to be members of the Campbell Hall club may, however,

accumulate sufficient social and cultural capital to make up the difference and gain admission to

the school. It is this possibility that contributes to the moderate range of diversity that exists at

Campbell Hall: while the vast majority of students are very wealthy (76% pay full tuition), at

least 24% of students accept some financial aid; even within those families who do not receive

financial aid, there are varying degrees of wealth.

While there is discrepancy among students and families at Campbell Hall, overall the

population is wealthy and belongs to the upper class. In this chapter I have argued Campbell

Hall’s barriers to entry to its community – physical and guarded landscape, highly competitive

and intensive admissions process, and all-encompassing costs – as rites of class distinction. In an

entirely different context, Vassos Argyrou used the term “rites of distinction” in his book

Tradition and Modernity in the Mediterranean: The Wedding as Symbolic Struggle to describe

what would otherwise be recognized as a rite of passage: weddings (Karakasidou 1998:68-69).

He analyzes Cypriot weddings with regard to the class and sub-culture of the participants and

concludes that the style and form of weddings actually serve to distinguish the bride and groom

in particular ways, classed and otherwise(Cassia 1998:156-157). While the process of gaining

access to Campbell Hall does not have such a succinct term as a “wedding,” this thesis argues

that that process would also typically be referred to as a rite of passage, but can also be

understood as a rite of class distinction.

Though the official costs of a Campbell Hall education can be obstacles in the rite of

passage and class distinction of becoming a member of this exclusive community, there are yet

more economic experiences to being a Campbell Hall student. These latent costs are incurred

 28

throughout the duration of one’s membership in the community, reflect the institution’s

reputation, and influence students’ and families’ decisions to remain at the school.

Megan Wells, who identified herself as a member of the relatively middle-class

community at Campbell Hall, came to the school in 10th grade. In discussing the prevalence and

pressures of wealth in the student experience, Megan explained the ubiquity of economic

expenses for students:

MW: It’s not like we could even avoid it because, if you go to like the pre-proms, the pre-proms are catered where you have to spend like, thousands of dollars on like, an hour long event for the parents and kids to take photos and like, even the party buses are so expensive…. All the school-sponsored events are so expensive and you have to buy a dress and that’s like also expensive. And, um, like joining the volleyball team you have to like pay for, um, like athletic hear and all that stuff. CD: Really? MW: You have to pay, like they’ll do like a spirit pack or whatever where you have to have like sweatpants and sweatshirts, and like, all, everyone has like a matching warm-up shirt…. I mean, it’s all over. And it’s not something that’s hiding at Campbell Hall.

For proms, and other dances like Winter Formal, Megan described the latent costs incurred

simply to be involved in such events. “Pre-proms” are the events that begin a few hours before

the dance at the home of one friend in a particular friend group. Often these events are hosted at

the largest and most picturesque homes of anyone in the friend group because a stunning

background to the photos is a requisite to the entire “pre-”event. After getting dressed in brand

new dresses for the dance, the females do their hair and makeup, or even often take turns getting

their hair and makeup done by house-call stylists. Then, after the catered food is set up, the rest

of the students who may not have gotten dressed at the house of the pre-prom but are invited to

the photo-event begin to arrive with their parents, cameras in tow. Students and parents nosh on

hors d’oeuvres and drinks while they mingle and start to congregate around the best location for

photos, often a view of the city, a terrace in front of a garden or a pool, or a spiraling staircase in

the foyer of the home. After photos have been taken of students – individual, date pairs, and

 29

group – the students file into the party bus or limousine that awaits them to attend the dance that

they, or their dates, have purchased tickets for.

Invitation to a pre-prom almost always comes with a price tag, one’s “share” of the event:

for example, $40 for hair and makeup stylists, $30 for food and drinks, $60 for the party bus to

get to and from the event – $130 for the pre-prom. While the hair and makeup costs affect

females more than males, males are often expected to buy the event tickets for female dates,

often around $50 each. While females have some ability to navigate the price of their respective

outfits, the hunt for the perfect dress is often part of the event itself beginning weeks before the

dance. The norm for a dress purchase is likely around $200. With leeway for new shoes, often a

necessity, an average estimate for the costs of one school event might be $3004.

It must be noted that not all students participate in these school-sponsored events at all,

and some that do might not participate in the extravagant pre-proms even if they attend the

dance. Some students opt not to go to the dances after freshman year to save money. Others do

their own hair and makeup and are supported by a small group of friends to intentionally buy

frugally for the event. However, as Megan notes, the norm is for expensive preparation, clothing,

cuisine, and transportation. In her words, “it’s not something that’s hiding at Campbell Hall.”

This vignette of one aspect of the Campbell Hall community serves to explain how even

after admission has been garnered, tuition and fees are paid, and students are afforded access to

the campus, the institution still reinforces its capital-intensive lifestyle in the intimate decisions

its members make in order to belong. As Alice introduced this chapter explaining, this process is

one of structural distinction concerned with reputation and class. Alice, like many of my

interlocutors, was in my class at Campbell Hall and participated in my research by taking a                                                                                                                4 There are discrepancies between the expectations of males and females for these formal events, but unfortunately the scope of this thesis does not afford the opportunity to explore those gendered aspects of the cost of being a member of the Campbell Hall community

 30

survey about her Campbell Hall experience. She identified the relationship of students to the

Campbell Hall institution as one of reputation: “the school stopped caring about the experience

and education of their students and really only cared about the reputation they could build and

the money they could make.” The idea of “reputation” can be understood as akin to that of

“distinction” seeing as they both consider the public acknowledgment of status. As a private

institution born to attract capital, structural distinction of the Campbell Hall institution itself

unfolds into the symbolic lives and experiences of students themselves.

 31

CHAPTER II INDIVIDUAL CLASSIFICATION: “Unlimited amounts of money”

In the first chapter, I explained how structural distinction and rites of class distinction

condition the terms of entry and belonging at Campbell Hall. Through its privatized

architectural, bureaucratic, and costly rites of distinction, Campbell Hall creates a community of

members that ascribe to its elite, capital-based class values. In turn, this community’s status as

elite reflects on the identity and reputation of the school as exclusive. In this chapter, I consider

how within the generally elite community, there are in fact two differently distinguished groups

of students. Many students attain their elite status and entry into the community by compensating

for a lack of economic capital by cultivating certain types of social and cultural capital. I argue

that there are in fact differences that symbolically distinguish two major class statuses: an upper-

class status and a relatively middle-class status (Bourdieu 1984:613).

I consider how distinctions occur in two types of interpersonal relationships. The first is

the relationship between students and authorities on campus, and the second is the relationship

between students and each other. In the former, teachers and administrators distinguish students

by using and maintaining their claims to authority and discipline. At Campbell Hall and through

my research, this manifests most obviously in the decisions made by the school’s Academic

Honor Board and the administrators who control it. In the latter, students are distinguished

among their own peers by the symbolic standards of upper class consumption. I argue that these

means of symbolic distinction strengthen the class status with which these students are identified,

and with which they begin to self-identify.

 32

A Selectivity of Punishment “All [students] are equal, but some [students] are more equal than others.”5

MS: I was a part of the Academic Honor Board, um, which, should I explain what it is? CD: Yea, sure. MS: Um, which was, uh, a board, a student, well not really student-run, a student- co-run with teachers and adults, board that uh, I guess deliberated on like, like, academic infractions in the student body. Which excluded, um anything that was over-tutored. CD: Hm. MS: So anything that involved parents’ money. We didn’t deal with any of that. And we fought to try to deal with it, but we, we didn’t get anywhere.

The above excerpt is spliced from a much longer transcript of my interview with

Meredith Sherwood, a former Campbell Hall student, as she begins to discuss the implications of

economic capital in the discipline and distinction of students by authority figures on campus.

Meredith came to Campbell Hall in primary school, a few years after kindergarten, and remained

through graduation. One of the first questions I asked in my former student interviews was

whether or not the interlocutor had received financial aid at Campbell Hall: Meredith never had.

She did however have a very particular experience of the community that afforded her special

insight into the structures and norms of disciplinary action at Campbell Hall: she sat on the

Academic Honor Board (AHB) as a representative of her class each of the four years of high

school. Since she was a student herself, her position as a peer authority gave her unique insight

into the way that teachers and administrators did and did not discipline students for various types

of academic infractions.

Right away at the start of our interview Meredith highlighted a very poignant aspect of

the role and responsibilities of the AHB. Explaining that the AHB heard cases of academic

infractions, she highlighted their jurisdiction by saying they “excluded, um, anything that was

over-tutored. So anything that involved parents’ money. We didn’t deal with any of that. And we

                                                                                                               5 Orwell, George 1990 Animal Farm. San Diego: San Diego : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

 33

fought to try to deal with it, but we, we didn’t get anywhere.” Some students on the Academic

Honor Board realized that there was something unequal about the types of infractions they

disciplined: they were not able to hear cases of infractions like over-tutoring that are, at least in

large part, a result of financial means. While the AHB is a confidential site of discipline and only

the student in question and the members of the board hear the cases, they operate under bylaws

that are available to all students. Anyone in the student body could have known that the AHB

was excluded from hearing cases of over-tutoring. However, many readers may point out that

high school students aged 14-18 might not seek out the AHB bylaws in their free time on

Saturday nights. Nonetheless, high school students are a part of the Campbell Hall community

that has a certain set of norms and a disciplinary structure that is enforced and reinforced

everyday. Just as other norms and structures are socialized, so was the knowledge of the

jurisdiction of the AHB and the lack of transparency behind financially-backed academic

infractions like over-tutoring.

The students at Campbell Hall, whether directly relating to the jurisdiction of the AHB or

experiencing the disciplinary system themselves and with their friends, were distinguished by

selective disciplinary standards. As Meredith was quick to point out, the AHB did not oversee

any cases that were directly influenced by the wealth of a family like over-tutoring since tutors

are a luxury of the wealthy.

MS: The over-tutoring thing was so bad. That was the worst part of it, was that we couldn’t get any kids who were over-tutored, like teachers complained about that all the time, that they’d get like an essay from a kid and like, the tutor did their homework, and you knew the tutor did their homework, but the kid was like, “No, like I did it on my own.” And they don’t know half the words that are in their essay, you know. So it’s like, they, they just don’t know what their essay was about. CD: Mhm MS: Like that kind of stuff. And, the teachers couldn’t do anything about that. CD: Wow. MS: We, and we couldn’t get it. We could never get those cases. They made like a board of administrators to deal with those cases.

 34

CD: Huh. MS: So that would go straight to the administration. CD: That’s interesting. MS: Any case that had to do with over-tutoring. CD: Which is directly, MS: Yea CD: a result of financial, MS: Yea CD: means. MS: Yea, would always go straight to the administration. CD: Hm. MS: It would completely bypass us.

Meredith explains that cases of over-tutoring were in fact overseen, but not by the AHB.

Instead, a board of administrators was created to address the infractions, effectively eliminating

the transparency of disciplinary proceedings of academic infractions having to do with “money,”

like over-tutoring. Thus, an entire category of academic infraction available to upper-class

families who could afford tutors was not enforced: or, it may be more accurate to say that there

was no degree of transparency or proof that it was enforced. The infractions that resulted in

student disciplinary action were infractions that relatively middle-class students were susceptible

to committing. This processed allowedeconomic capital and class shape the student experience

of discipline (Bourdieu 1984:613). Meredith had some fascinating insights into the experiences

of both upper-class students and relatively middle-class students, though she did not use those

labels in her speech.

MS: Um, but, there were, there were kids kind of like, I don’t remember if Jake Mason ever came in front of us, but those kinds of kids often did come in front of us that were like, “Yea, whatever, like I really don’t care…” CD: *laughs* MS: *laughs* Yea they were like, “Yea, like, I didn’t do that…” Or, the really pompous kids would say like, “Yea. Like yea. You can’t prove that I did it.” And we were like, “yea, yea we can.” MS: And then all the kids who kind of fucked up, who were like, you know, not really rich kids, like those kids would like come in front of us and cryyy, and be like, “Are we gonna get expelled?” CD: Awww

 35

MS: And we’d be like, “No, like you’re just gonna have to write an essay.” Like, it’s fine. It’s not even, you’re just gonna have to answer like five questions, and you’ll be done. *laughs*

An interesting paradox emerges when considering that Meredith identified that the cases

the AHB heard generally concerned two different types of people. She acknowledges the first

type of people as usually “not really rich kids.” These students would be genuinely remorseful

and worried about the consequences that could be imposed on them: “those kids would come in

front of us and cry and be like, ‘Are we gonna get expelled?’” Conversely, she characterizes the

second type of person by relating it to a particular student: “I don’t remember if Jake Mason ever

came in front of us, but those kinds of kids often did come in front of us that were like, ‘Yea,

whatever, like I really don’t care…’” I knew Jake came from a very wealthy family, was

involved in athletics, and hosted many parties at his home on the weekends. It is likely that he

knew, either explicitly or implicitly, that the administration would bring few to no repercussions

upon him considering his family’s economic support of the school. Even if he had come to the

board, or when students of his position did come to the board, there was no assurance that the

AHB could implement their recommended consequences.

MS: *laughs* And, when we wanted to suspend people, sometimes our consequences would get overridden, by the administration. ‘Cause we, our consequences, everything that we wrote up for them had to be sent to Mrs. Morrison and approved, and sometimes, not often, but sometimes Mrs. Morrison, especially if it was a student who had a lot of money, would send us an email back and say, “No, I’m sorry this isn’t gonna be used. This isn’t gonna work. We can’t suspend this kid for two days. And we’d have to go back and reconsider the consequences. We’d have to change them.”

Even if Jake Mason were to be brought to the AHB, there is doubt as to whether or not he would

have to endure any consequences. Meredith explains that even when the AHB had made a

decision, “sometimes [their] consequences would get overridden, by the administration….

sometimes Mrs. Morrison, especially if it was a student who had a lot of money, would send us

an email back and say…. ‘We can’t suspend this kid for two days.’ And we’d have to go back

 36

and reconsider the consequences. We’d have to change them.” Mrs. Morrison was the principal

of the high school at the time. Thus, while both types of students, those of the upper-class and

those of the relatively middle-class, came before the board, the experience and threat of the

proceedings and potential punishments resonated in vastly different ways.

MS: I mean I think the population that we got was a bit skewed, because the kids who really didn’t want to go to the board kinda really didn’t end up coming. CD: Mhm MS: You know, because it really was up to the teachers to, we didn’t get a student in front of us unless a teacher had gone to the dean who then went to us. CD: Okay MS: So it was like this whole process of actually getting the student in front of us.

It is this process, as Meredith put it, “this whole process of actually getting the student in front of

us,” as well as the final determination of punishment that is governed by the teachers and

administrators. This process distinguishes students as either belonging to a privileged, upper-

class status or, in the alternative, a less privileged, relatively middle-class status.

At Campbell Hall, the master status or distinction for students is class, seeing as the

school is defined by its constituents’ wealth. In other communities though, the same principles of

favoritism or selective discipline can be seen based on the master status and distinction of that

community. Peter Demerath’s ethnographic research in Producing Success: The Culture of

Personal Advancement in an American High School (2009) serves to reinforce this relationship

of administrative distinction of students, but by a different barometer: athletics (Demerath 2009).

Demerath conducted ethnographic research at a school called Wilton Burnham High School

“located in Wilton, an affluent, though changing suburb of a large Midwestern U.S. city that

often promoted its own distinctiveness and appeal” (Demerath 2009:8). Three major differences

play into the two different manifestations of symbolic distinction of students by teachers and

administrators at Wilton and Campbell Hall: Wilton is a public school in a Midwestern suburb

populated by predominantly middle-class students while Campbell Hall is a private school in Los

 37

Angeles populated by predominantly upper-upper class students. Nonetheless, symbolic

distinctions of some students as privileged persist in a very similar way at both schools. The

difference is in the criteria for distinction as privileged or unprivileged. At Campbell Hall, the

dominant symbolic distinction occurs when designating the upper-class students from the

relatively-middle class students. At Wilton, the dominant symbolic distinction occurs when

designating athletes from non-athletes.

Just as Meredith explained how the disciplinary system at Campbell Hall distinguishes

upper-class students from relatively middle-class students by favoring upper-class students,

Demerath’s interlocutors explain how the disciplinary system at Wilton distinguishes athletes

from non-athletes by favoring athletes:

‘It’s just disturbing. And it’s kind of like, everyone cheats as well even though, they know it’s wrong to cheat…. And it’s sort of the same with the drug and alcohol policy and over the years there has been, like, numbers of teens and tons of individuals who have been caught abusing the policy, grossly abusing the policy. But yet nothing is done because, oh they’re athletes and you know what would happen if on a Friday night half the football team didn’t show up for the game. Then the newspapers are going to report it, they’d probably make a big story out of it, and our school would get a bad rap…. I mean, it’s a known fact we’ve had a good football team here for the past couple of years, this year they’re, like, really good. (Demerath 2009:120).

For Wilton, the athletes, and specifically the football players, give the school credibility and have

a large impact on their reputation. This issue of reputation echoes Alice’s introduction to the first

chapter in which she outlines Campbell Hall’s reputation as reliant on capital. In what

Bourdieu’s words might be, economic capital is not a major determinant of privilege at Wilton,

but for that community social capital is (Bourdieu 1986:241-258). At Campbell Hall, as a

function of the structural distinction of Campbell Hall as an elite, wealthy private school, the

wealth of the school and the families of its students give the school credibility and have a large

impact on its reputation. Thus, unlike Wilton, economic capital is the major determinant of

privilege at Campbell Hall. As a result of this institutional and communal emphasis, the

 38

distinction of being wealthy and upper-class is all the more relevant and valuable at Campbell

Hall. As the next section of this chapter will delineate, just as it is a “known fact” that Wilton

had had “a good football team,” many interlocutors from Campbell Hall describe the wealth of

upper-class students and their treatment by the school as obvious.

While Demerath’s interlocutor does begin to discuss cheating and academic infractions,

at Wilton it seems as if the selective leniency manifests most strongly in the context of drug and

alcohol violations. Differently, Campbell Hall actually manages to hold a rather steadfast

position of intolerance for drug use on-campus and an even hand that does not engage much with

drug and alcohol use off-campus. Nonetheless, the disciplinary system at Campbell Hall does

have selective effects, identifying and favoring the upper-class students while simultaneously

identifying and monitoring the relatively middle-class students. This occurred through a process

of symbolic distinction based on students’ economic capital (Bourdieu 1986:241-258).

The Haves and the Have-Mores “You just knew.” One of my interlocutors had a very simple way of describing the experience of

identifying the wealthiest, upper-class students at Campbell Hall:

You just knew when someone had money, and they flaunted it. And it, it was like something that wealthy people like showed off. Like, I remember, Linea Bennett started saying how much her outfit cost.

So it began, my interrogation of how “you just knew,” and what it would take to be part of the

upper-class tier of students at Campbell Hall, directly from the eyes and ears of the students

themselves. Part of me felt I knew this process instinctually, but in studying and investigating it

the dimensions of the process became even clearer. This process of either being identified as an

upper-class student or the “knowing” of relatively middle-class students that others “had money”

 39

is a process of symbolic distinction. In this section, we understand this distinction of students as

it is carried out by students.

The passage above came from an interlocutor named Hudson who did not receive

financial aid while at Campbell Hall, but who also did not consider herself part of the upper class

of students. She had another sibling in private school, adding further economic burden on the

family, and her parents did not fare particularly well in the economic downturn in 2008. She had

also gone to Campbell Hall since Kindergarten, compounding the depletion of her family’s

economic capital to tuition and fees. In comparison to students who attended cheaper primary

and junior high schools6 before coming to Campbell Hall for high school, families who had

students at Campbell Hall for all 13 years often had put forth more money for students’

educations. Thus, she identified more with the relatively middle-class student rather than the

upper-class student, despite the fact that she did not receive financial aid. Another interlocutor

introduced in the first chapter, Megan, actually characterized this discrepancy quite well:

I mean obviously there’s like the cliques of people that are like cool and uncool, but then there’s also the cliques of like, I would say like among the kids that were like considered more cool there was like, the kids with money and then the kids that like, they still had money but they wouldn’t, their parents wouldn’t give them unlimited amounts of money.

Megan, like Hudson, never received financial aid during her time at Campbell Hall. She, unlike

Hudson, joined Campbell Hall in high school and had a very stark confrontation with learning

the landscape of the community.

At first, I like dreaded going to school because I felt like it was really hard to make friends because I felt like everyone had already made friends…. and also I had come in like hanging out with like, the rich girl crew, ‘cause, like Abby Carter, the only one [at the school] that I knew, was friends with all of them. Even though, like, she’s not necessarily as rich as most of her friends.

                                                                                                               6 Even if they did not attend Campbell Hall in particular for primary school, most students did attend a private school in the area

 40

Here, Megan talks about the disposition of the students at Campbell Hall, upper-class or

otherwise, and even addresses both “the rich girl crew” and Abby, one of my interlocutors who

best embodies the divide between the upper-class students and the relatively middle-class

students.

Abby was one of the 24% of students who received financial aid while at Campbell Hall.

This characteristic immediately places her in the relatively middle-class minority at Campbell

Hall. Yet, as Megan describes, she was friends “with like, the rich girl crew” and when Megan

came to Campbell Hall, that is the friend group she was exposed to. Abby Carter, similarly to

Hudson, told me about her experience in coming to learn how wealth manifested itself in upper-

classness and affected friendships at Campbell Hall.

CD: Do you think wealth every played a role socially, like in friendships? AC: Oh, yea. I didn’t realize it until 8th grade. Even in 7th grade when people were coming in with more money than I ever experienced I still hadn’t noticed it. In 8th grade, I noticed the size of someone’s house meant that they made more money…. Wealth made things more fun, if I’m being honest. I had amazing experiences. Especially if I went to a school that wasn’t private, I would’ve never had that experience. So I appreciate that.

Meredith, who we heard earlier discussing Campbell Hall’s Academic Honor Board, also

mentioned this “house size” barometer of wealth and class status. Meredith learned of this

barometer from one of her friends, Lucy, who was trying to create and maintain friendships with

“the rich girl crew,” as Megan put it. This caused strain on Meredith’s and Lucy’s friendship. At

one point, Lucy told her that she felt she couldn’t invite anyone of her friends, other than Lucy

and a select few others, to her home because it wasn’t big enough.

A similar sentiment was echoed by many of my interlocutors. Clothing and general attire

were a marker of class status and served as one avenue in which students were symbolically

distinguished both by and from each other. Abby shows us that another layer of symbolic class

 41

distinction exists – the square footage and degree of luxury of their homes – as students’ off-

campus identities play a role in a student’s status on-campus.

Abby went on to explain that she, similar in relative class as myself, was friends with the

wealthiest people but did not have the same large quantities capital as their families did. She was

the exception to her close group of friends when it came to money and had to be “very realistic”

about her economic situation while her peers, and particularly her best friends, did not. In

describing this particular friend group, Megan actually gave the following characterization of

“the rich girl crew” in comparison to her own, more relatively middle-class friends that she

found a few years into her time at Campbell Hall.

For example like in our grade there was like a girl clique that literally had an unlimited amount of money to do whatever they wanted to do, and like, that’s fine, but like, my, my friends and I would be like the type of friends that would like sit outside in a backyard and like drink a bottle of ‘two buck chuck’ as opposed to like, like, go to [the expensive sushi restaurant called] Nobu and be like, “we spent seven hundred dollars on dinner it’s so funny!”

Megan clearly describes the upper class girls as separate and distinct from her own experience,

characterizing the upper class experience as having “an unlimited amount of money.” Her own

experience consisted of cheap wine and backyards.

Abby offered yet one more anecdote to help paint the picture of the upper-class lifestyle

led by some of these high school students at Campbell Hall. She told me that she realized the

role of wealth in friendships only when her family started to struggle more with money than it

had before, beginning around Junior High and into High School. One weekend in Junior High

she was out shopping with some friends and one of their mother’s. They were in a large

department store and the girls found themselves in the sunglasses section, trying on pair after

pair in the mirrors. By the time they left the store, Abby’s friend’s mom had purchased her

daughter, and each of the friends including Abby, a pair of brand name sunglasses. Abby

 42

commented, “I’d like to think my friendship with this person wasn’t about money, but I think it

started that way.”

Adolescence, and the consequent site of high school, is a state of constant self-reflection

that occurs both internally and through recognition and confirmation from others (Ito et al.

2008:vii-ix). The distinction, or classification, of individuals is thus not only unsurprising, but

maybe even expected. These distinctions of status based on material markers have immaterial

effects on social groups and the experiences of students related to the two major class statuses. In

this process of symbolic distinction between students and their peers, the economic capital upon

which the original distinction is based actually spawns social capital between the members of

each social group, or each class status.

As part of the upper-class at Campbell Hall, students must be wealthy enough to live in

large homes, wear inconspicuously expensive clothes, and spend lots of money on entertainment.

This is what Thorstein Veblen coins as “conspicuous consumption” (Veblen 2007). Veblen

argues that “conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the

gentlemen of leisure” (Veblen 2007:90). The observable behaviors of conspicuous consumption

serve as the markers by which students are distinguished by their own peers. Once this

distinction occurs, a commonly experienced social phenomena called homophily – recognized by

the common phrase, “birds of a feather flock together” – takes place and social groups form

predominantly between the distinctions of upper-class and relatively middle-class students

(McPherson et al. 2001:415-444). It is this process of homophily that establishes friend groups

like the “rich girl” clique where economic capital can spawn specific forms of social and cultural

capital (Bourdieu 1986:241-258). For upper-class students, their social capital is derived from

having access to each other, or the network of their class status, to reach from socially and, in the

 43

future, professionally. For relatively middle-class students, they, too develop social capital

within their network of friends. However, the value of social capital is embedded in the status of

the individuals one knows or has access to. Thus, knowing people of upper-class status is worth

more social capital than knowing people of relatively middle-class status. As a result, upper-class

students receive even more social capital than relatively middle-class students do simply by

interacting within theit upper-class social group. This culmination of both economic capital and

social capital and its discrepancy between the status groups at Campbell Hall is investigated

further in the following third chapter of this thesis.

One more fine differentiation in my data must be acknowledged to give full credence to

the understanding of symbolic distinction. Of the four interlocutors featured above, only one

received financial aid. However, the other three did not consider themselves part of the “rich

girl” clique, or part of the wealthiest bracket of individuals at Campbell Hall at all. Two of them

had particular economic struggles within their families, though they were able to maintain a full-

tuition paying status at the school. One of my other interlocutors, Keith, similarly did not receive

financial aid and was definitely part of the upper-class of students at Campbell Hall. When I

asked him in our interview if he felt like wealth played a role in his friendships, he quickly

replied, “I don’t think so. The only thing, like I remember Rob Thorp used to steal from us. That

like, basically ended our friendship because of that. But, um…” I interjected as Keith paused,

“It’s fine if the answer is no.” He replied, “Yea, no.” Keith’s position as definitely part of the

upper-class status coupled with his lack of acknowledgment of the role that wealth played in

friendships supports Sherry Ortner’s argument in her 2003 book New Jersey Dreaming about

“who, then, sees, or acknowledges, class, and why?” (Ortner 2003:41). She quickly answered

this research question: “By and large, people higher up on the ladder did not see class” (Ortner

 44

2003:41). As a result, symbolic distinction had different degrees of impact on, and internalization

by, students depending on which class they belonged to. As Ortner describes it, “most of those to

whom class was not just visible but almost tangible were from the lower end of the economic

spectrum” (Ortner 2003:42). That line strongly echoes Abby’s description of her handling of her

own economic positioning as “very realistic” and grounded in experience of material

consumption, like the sunglasses in the department store. Ultimately, symbolic distinction results

in an entire set of norms and ideals that affect students of each of the two dominant classes at

Campbell Hall in distinctly different ways.

Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence is fundamental to understanding these assumed

values. Seth Holmes discusses symbolic violence as “the normalizing… of stereotypes and

prejudices” (Holmes 2013:43). It indicates “the interrelations of social structures of inequalities

and perceptions” (Holmes 2013:44). Thus far, Holmes’ definitions and explanations relate

almost identically to conditions of symbolic distinction. Symbolic distinction is concerned with

the “normalizing of prejudices:” in this case, a prejudice in favor of the upper-class. It is also

concerned with “inequalities and perceptions” as they are enacted by various actors within a

social structure: in this case, the various groups of people that make up the Campbell Hall

community.

The process of identifying and defining students as upper-class or relatively middle-class

and the subsequent selective treatment by administrators as well as the social awareness of peers

is concerned with the normalized identification and experience of class and capital based on

certain archetypical ideals of class value and distinction. As a result of symbolic distinction, the

students of each of the two dominant classes at Campbell Hall have different relationships to the

archetypical, ideal Campbell Hall student.

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CHAPTER III TWO EDUCATIONAL HABITUSES: “Our prep school fucked us up”

Bridging the gap between relatively middle-class students and upper-class students

requires the acquisition of economic capital, an act of upward social mobility that represents two

different forms of class aspirations: one of the relatively middle class and one of the upper class.

These aspirations are embedded and embodied in the attitudes and experience – or what

Bourdieu calls the habitus – of students at Campbell Hall. I argue that the combination of

structural and symbolic distinction at Campbell Hall defines and creates two Campbell Hall

student habituses: the first is what I call a maintenance-oriented habitus, experienced and

reinforced by the upper-class students who desire to “maintain” their class statuses, and the

second is what I call a mobility-oriented habitus, experienced and reinforced by the relatively

middle-class students who seek to be upwardly “mobile” and increase their class statuses.

These two habituses have different relationships with Campbell Hall’s class-based ideals

of success; these ideals are most often defined by receiving great grades, prestigious college

acceptances, and lucrative careers. The effect of these dichotomous distinctions of students is

that two entirely different student experiences – or habituses – exist for students at Campbell

Hall (Nash 1990:431-447). While the ideals of getting great grades, getting into a great college,

and being wealthy all exist regardless of one’s class, the way those ideals do or do not play a role

in the lives of students differs relative to their respective statuses. For a relatively middle-class

student, getting great grades, getting into a great college, and gaining wealth from a lucrative

career are ambitions embedded in efforts toward upward mobility and upper-class status;

reaching those goals represents “success.” I argue that the structural and symbolic distinction of

relatively middle-class students results in a mobility-oriented habitus, or the embodiment and

reproduction of a mobility-oriented relationship (Nash 1990:431-447; Bourdieu 1984:613).

 46

Among upper-class students, the archetype of the ideal student actually necessitates a

relationship of superiority over the relatively middle-class status and one of equality with the rest

of the upper-class students. The archetype of an ideal, wealthy student at Campbell Hall is the

upper-class student. Thus, a maintenance-oriented habitus is formed for the students of the upper

class as a result of their structural and symbolic distinction. This chapter addresses the varying

definitions of success and the varying relationships to those ideals of success as defined by

grades and college acceptance.

So what is success, after all?

I wanted to get straight A’s, make friends for life, and I wanted to be in every production I could be. A huge part of it was that I wanted to get into a great school, I’d been sort of programmed to think that way. – Survey completed by Meredith, February 12, 2015

The excerpt above is from a familiar friend by now, Meredith, who we met in the

previous chapter discussing the Academic Honor Board. Meredith did not receive financial aid

but her wealth is still modest in comparison to those in the upper-class of students at Campbell

Hall. This chapter considers Meredith’s relationship to Campbell Hall as a member of the

relatively middle-class based on her own classification of herself as such throughout the

research. Meredith explained to me that she was “sort of programmed” to consider good grades,

social acceptance, extra curricular activities, and college admission as ideals of her high school

experience. Her understandings and experiences of success were guided by the archetypical ideal

of a Campbell Hall student that she would have to work toward from her status of relatively

middle-class to that of the upper-class. Her articulation of feeling “programmed” is an astute

acknowledgement of the strong socialized nature of the exclusive sub-culture that is Campbell

Hall.

 47

An upper-class student named Bridget who did not receive financial aid articulated a

different perspective and response to the ideals of an archetypical Campbell Hall student. An

excerpt from her survey illustrates the contrast between her experience and Meredith’s:

I have a pretty firm idea of what I value and what matters to me, so for the most part, my priorities came from me and from what I really genuinely cared about. What was your number one concern in high school? Mostly issues of social justice. I wasn’t too worried about my academic performance, and I certainly didn’t care about my social life. So I cared about advocating for new policies at school, bringing important issues into the collective consciousness of the student body, and probably really annoying the administration. – Survey completed by Bridget, February 12, 2015

Bridget “wasn’t too worried about [her] academic performance, and [she] certainly didn’t care

about [her] social life.” Instead, she chose to occupy her time with other things that aligned more

with her “priorities” that came “from what [she] genuinely cared about” like “issues of social

justice.” Bridget felt comfortable dedicating most of her time to pursuits that were personally

fulfilling rather than pursuits and ideals that were thrust upon her. She acknowledges that she

chose not to be concerned with “academic performance.” This is a luxury of the upper-class,

maintenance-oriented habitus. For Bridget, her upper-class status was nearly secured as a result

of her family’s wealth and she did not have the worry nor the pressure of seeking increased

socioeconomic status. Meredith, on the other hand, felt the pressure of social mobility. At other

points in my research, aside from the surveys, Meredith told me that her parents reminded her of

her obligation to aspire toward good grades so that she could not only get into a great college but

also have scholarship offers. Thus, Meredith’s perspective on success at Campbell Hall was

framed by her mobility-oriented habitus as a relatively middle-class student.

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Success as measured by degrees of social mobility is not uncommon in academic

literature nor in popular discourse. However, success measured by the maintenance of one’s

socioeconomic status is less investigated. Beginning with Ortner’s explanation of success we can

understand Campbell Hall’s ideals of success:

Success is, to dust off an old concept, a key symbol in American culture…. Like all key symbols, ‘success’ has highly variable meanings in American culture. Probably the dominant meaning is… making a lot of money (Ortner 2003:188).

Because of Campbell Hall’s orientation as an educational institution preparing students

for an elite college experience, the dominant meaning of the key symbol of success,

“making a lot of money,” takes different forms while still representing wealth. Instead of

having a profession or income bracket to represent socioeconomic success at Campbell

Hall, the high grades, college acceptances, and social popularity of students mark them as

successful, largely based on the presumption that those qualities will further lead

explicitly to the “making a lot of money” iteration of socioeconomic success.

Relationships to this first iteration of socioeconomic success in high school are however

still indicative of students’ actual relationship to their families’ economic status. That is

to say that students’ perspectives of success within the Campbell Hall ideals of success

are indicative of their situation as upper-class or relatively middle-class students. Thus,

success is one avenue on which the maintenance-oriented and mobility-oriented habituses

can be understood. The contrasts between Meredith’s and Bridget’s visions of success are

stark examples of this.

The Metrics: Grades, GPAs, and College

High school grades are another avenue on which classed student experiences can be

analyzed and understood. Campbell Hall is not alone in the educational struggle between the

 49

hunt for A’s or a 4.0+ GPA7 and the desire for an enriching education. The ideal of getting not

just good grades, but the best grades possible, is an incredibly powerful aspect of the student

experience. The metrics for success of being a good student, one of the ideal characteristics of a

Campbell Hall student, are the letter grades students receive in courses as well as their respective

GPAs.

Part of the title of this chapter comes from a text message I received from Megan, an

interlocutor introduced in the previous chapter. She, like Meredith, did not receive financial aid

but also did not identify as part of the upper class of students and instead identified with a

relatively middle class status. She was contemplating her current semester in college and the

value of her college experience in light of having felt overwhelmingly stressed out about her

courses and achieving collegiate academic success. In her words, “I’m afraid to fail. Our prep

school fucked us up really well.” I later asked Megan’s permission to use this information as a

part of my research. What is so striking about this short bit of data is that she offered it to me

completely unsolicited.

This statement illustrates how Megan carries the same mobility-oriented habitus with her

in college as she developed at Campbell Hall. Furthermore, the pressure of academic success at

Campbell Hall is uniquely wedded to the pressures of college admission and attendance. Grades

and GPAs are not necessarily important as indicators of learning, but rather as means toward

gaining admission to the best (read: most prestigious) colleges as possible. The colleges students

are accepted into as well as the college they respectively attend are measurements of success in

the college application and selection process. Since high grades and GPAs are only preparation

for and means toward colleges, the same logic seems to be brought toward the college

educational experience. The difference is that the stakes in college are perceived as higher: high                                                                                                                7 Grade Point Average

 50

grades and GPAs are assumed to provide access to yet more academia, a graduate program, or to

open the doors to career opportunities, which are distinct markers of socioeconomic status. The

pressure and fear Megan was feeling not to “fail” is part of the mobility-oriented habitus that

relatively middle-class students learn to cultivate during their time at Campbell Hall and after

they leave.

While Megan did not refer specifically to parental pressure as a factor in the overall

academic pressure of success for the relatively middle-class, another interlocutor from the

previous chapter did. Abby, who did receive financial aid and is therefore surely not part of the

upper-class but rather the relatively middle-class, explained the academic pressure of Campbell

Hall in terms of her socioeconomic status: “I wanted to do well in school because I knew my

parents sacrificed a lot to send me there.” For Abby, not only did she feel as if the burden for

upward mobility were squarely on her shoulders, but also she understood that the burden was on

the shoulders of her parents in contributing the tuition that remained after her financial aid award

and generating the other resources required to be a part of that community. While for Abby her

understanding of her parents’ sacrifice instilled additional pressure to aspire toward academic

success at Campbell Hall, for students of the upper class, their parents’ sacrifices were

considered advantages and lead them further away from the pressures of academic success.

Like Abby, Jensen occupied a unique social space in which his friend group was

comprised predominantly of upper-class students while he identified as a relatively middle-class

student. He offers a very strong characterization of this experience:

I had the privilege to be surrounded by wealth. Uncomfortable wealth. Wealth that stares down at you as you try to run for cover. I will never regret that privilege. The uniqueness of being surrounded by individuals who will literally never have any idea that consequences exist for most people…. There was no sense of urgency within my friend group. They felt that they had the pillow of wealth to fall into if need be.

– Survey completed by Jensen, February 12, 2015

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It is interesting that Jensen characterizes his experiences with upper-class friends as a “privilege”

while describing their wealth as “uncomfortable.” As much as it can be uncomfortable to be

constantly reminded of one’s relative inferior socioeconomic status, Jensen felt that having that

cultural experience advantaged him in some way. If I were to infer what he meant by “privilege,”

it would be an acknowledgment of both the rarity of his experiences as well as the opportunity to

value his own socioeconomic status and relative wealth in contrast to his friends’ possible lack of

reverence.

Ultimately, Jensen explains that his peers felt “no urgency” to do well at Campbell Hall

and that regardless of their academic success, “they had the pillow of wealth to fall into if need

be.” In other words, Jensen explains that in the eyes of his friends who were part of the upper

class, their immense wealth made them nearly impervious possibility of downward social

mobility. This strong sense of security meant that they did not feel as if they had to worry about

even maintaining their status. Thus, the maintenance-oriented habitus can in fact be so extreme

as to not even be concerned with maintenance at all, for downward mobility is so unlikely.

Another one of my interlocutors, a former classmate named Fiona, has looked back on her

experience at Campbell Hall and identified this distancing from standard academically motivated

socioeconomic ideals of success.

Fiona offered very thoughtful responses to my survey and reflected deeply about her time

at Campbell Hall. One question in the survey asked whether or not the survey-takers felt very

happy, happy, neutral, unhappy, or very unhappy with their experiences at Campbell Hall.

Depending on the answer to that question, the survey generated appropriate further questions.

Fiona responded that she was unhappy with her high school experience. The following excerpt

comes from the next question in the survey:

Why were you unhappy with your high school experience at Campbell Hall?

 52

“How materialistic it was and how I fed into it. It did not matter if you had brains, someone else would have a tutor. No one cared about learning at all, and I fed into that as well…. I don’t necessarily think I would have loved high school anywhere, but I do wish I hadn’t been in such a privileged, egocentric bubble.” – Survey completed by Fiona, February 12, 2015

Some of the most descriptive terminology Fiona used in her response was that she “fed into”

certain patterns of behavior. Fiona did not receive financial aid at Campbell Hall and was part of

the upper class of students on campus. In other parts of the survey she, too, mentions having a

tutor. While having a tutor may initially seem indicative of supporting the “grades, GPAs, and

college acceptance” measures of success, Fiona makes the distinction between some people

“having brains,” other people “hav[ing] a tutor,” and therefore those efforts of the people with

“brains” effectively “not matter[ing].” Her point is nuanced, but what it indicates is that those

people with “brains,” or students that were genuinely working hard to pursue the grades, GPAs,

and college admissions portfolios, could ultimately be out-competed by those students who could

afford to, and did, hire tutors. Therefore, in her words as an upper-class student, “no one cared

about learning at all.” The students of that upper class tended to not care about learning, and as

we heard from Meredith in the second chapter of this thesis, often benefitted from unregulated

over-tutoring to placate the standard ideals of success without actually pursuing them.

In conclusion, Fiona voices regret about having been “in such a privileged, egocentric

bubble” as the one at Campbell Hall, and particularly the upper-class social group at Campbell

Hall. Reinforcing the voices of other interlocutors in this chapter, the relatively middle-class

students work with a mobility-oriented habitus geared toward getting good grades and

maintaining a high GPA to get into college, while the upper-class students work with a

 53

maintenance-oriented habitus that distances itself from those archetypical ideals of success

instead of actively pursuing them.

While my research discusses the comparative experiences of upper-class students and

what I have been calling relatively middle-class students in comparison to their extremely

wealthy counterparts, a similar if not identical phenomenon has been documented as occurring at

the other end of the status spectrum: the working class. As introduced earlier in this thesis, Paul

Willis authored Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs wherein

he conducted ethnographic fieldwork with a group of working class males investigating their

experiences in high school (Willis 1981). One of Willis’ most enduring contributions to

educational and anthropological literature is the counter-school culture which he describes as

occurring when the working-class students feel as if high school offers no realistic benefits to

them due to their lower-class status and lack of adequate resources.

Though Willis attributes the counter-school culture to the working class and uses it as a

partial explanation for how they become alienated from high school and further entrenched in

their need for working-class labor, the same phenomenon occurred at Campbell Hall with my

interlocutors; instead of working-class students creating a counter-school culture to distance

themselves from what they perceived as a useless high school, at Campbell Hall the upper-class

students often create a counter-school culture because they do not feel the need for the promises

of a prep school – upward mobility and the preparation for a great college career followed by a

lucrative professional career. This extension of Willis’ argument to include a new section of the

population exemplifies both prominent habituses at Campbell Hall: the maintenance-oriented

habitus is defined by a distancing from the archetypical ideals of a successful high school student

ironically similar to Willis’ working-class interlocutors, and the mobility-oriented habitus is

 54

defined by a constant striving and dedicated work ethic, exemplifying the internalization of the

pressures and aspirations that come with those ideals.

 55

CONCLUSION

In chapter one I argued that the classed experiences of Campbell Hall students have

proven to be complex and embedded in an institution and community of wealth. This

institutional structure actually defines and distinguishes itself through rites of class distinction

required of its potential community members – the acquisition of access to and membership in

the Campbell Hall community. By limiting access to the school to individuals and families of

high capital – economic and/or social and cultural – the institution structurally distinguishes

itself as elite through the distinction of its future members as elite and upper-class as well.

Once students are admitted to Campbell Hall, I argued in chapter two that they undergo

symbolic distinction both from their authority figures and from their peers. In the ways they are

disciplined, by whom, and for which infractions, students see and learn their own distinction into

either the upper class or the relatively middle class. Though all students are considered laudable

and in some regard elite enough to have been admitted to the school in the first place by

surviving the rites of class distinction, a discrepancy prevails among students based on the

distribution of their capital that got them into the school – economic, social, and/or cultural. It is

predominantly the degree of economic capital that ultimately determines students’ classed

identities at Campbell Hall as either upper-class or relatively middle-class even if substantial

cultural and social capital earned them membership into the community.

I ultimately argue in chapter three that these classed distinctions are embedded in

students’ embodied dispositions or what Bourdieu calls habitus. Students of the upper class

manifest a maintenance-oriented habitus concerned primarily with retaining their own status and

not relying on education to do so, as it likely provides little help in the way of maintaining their

high status. Students of the relatively middle class manifest a mobility-oriented habitus

 56

concerned primarily with upward mobility and gaining the upper-class status that so many of

their peers already experience. These students often do rely on their education as a means to

achieve upward mobility, as education does typically provide increased opportunities for

advancement for those students who are in a position where there is still room for upward

mobility to be had.

As with any site-specific, ethnographic research project, this thesis is only poised to make

claims about the interlocutors who participated in the project. That said, there is no glaring

reason to believe that these experiences are particularly unrepresentative of students of other

graduating classes at Campbell Hall, or even students at other schools similar to Campbell Hall.

Working within the bounds of this project, I used portraits of specific interlocutors to illustrate

my claims. Naturally, a broader subject pool would afford those explorations and comparisons.

If the scope and resources for this project were greater, I would increase the breadth of

the research by expanding my interlocutor pool to include Campbell Hall students of a wider age

range: possibly students from the Class of 2008 all the way to the Class of 2018, with the Class

of 2013 (the subject pool of this thesis) at the center of the spectrum. Analyzing other aspects of

the student experience in addition to class status, like students’ sex and physical features, would

also enrich the research and provide more insight into the multi-dimensional student experience.

Nonetheless, this thesis does detail the ways in which students’ relationships to their

school, each other, and themselves are especially defined by wealth and class in a private

institution guided by its constant pursuit of economic funding. Unfortunately, for the sake of

education, this creates an environment in which “majority rules, but not all are the majority;” a

former Campbell Hall Junior High teacher of mine used that phrase in explaining the issue of

income diversity on the Campbell Hall campus. As he described it, income diversity is no

 57

different than many other kinds of diversity in that those belonging to the majority group have

the privilege of having their voices heard and their needs catered to, but that those in the minority

become essentially neglected. Campbell Hall would not exist were it not for the immense

donations from families of current and former students – it relies on the economic capital of its

community members to survive.

As a result, Campbell Hall has little choice but to cater to and please those individuals

and families who have the necessary funds. Though the students of these upper-class families

may not be especially concerned with what the school has to offer on account of their counter-

school culture, their parents often are, and their parents’ voices are heard. Money becomes a

value and virtue of the institution and, in plain term, ends up controlling the institution and the

community itself.

I would like to end this thesis by referring to another one of my former Campbell Hall

teachers, Russell Hvolbek, who taught my 10th grade World History course. Hvolbek was elected

to be the end of the year speaker at the culminating secondary school event for the 2010-2011

school year – the speech he gave is incredibly illustrative of the problems that privatization poses

for our education system today. Each year Campbell Hall’s high school students vote to select a

faculty member speaker for the end of the year event. Sometimes students choose a faculty

member who is leaving the school, in which case the speech then tends to serve as a final

“hurrah!” for the teacher, leaving the students with whatever wisdom he/she has to offer.

Hvolbek was asked to leave around halfway through the 2010-2011 school year, a

decision widely understood to be the result of particular parent complaints; the fact that the

student body elected him to speak demonstrates that the upset of some parents and students did

not reflect the sentiments of the larger student body. He was a profound teacher and truly

 58

changed the educational paths of many students, including mine. Some might call him an

educational revolutionary – he would not be the first revolutionary to be resisted by powerful

individuals and institutions and certainly won’t be the last. I have included the most pertinent

passages from the speech he gave at the end of the school year in 2011 (that was later published

with the Teachers College of Columbia) and accompanied them with reflections on the

experiences of my interlocutors during their time as active members of the Campbell Hall

community (Hvolbek 2012). In his speech, Hvolbek argued that:

The root of the problem is that we have absorbed the socio-economic and intellectual values of our age, an age ruled by business and science. The pragmatic values of business and science have become the values of our educational practices. Within these two orientations there is little understanding of and no place for the life enhancing studies of philosophy, history, literature, and the arts. Today we train students. A practical utility determines our thinking.

This passage immediately reminds me of Alice, who we met in chapter one, as she

explained that she felt Campbell Hall’s priorities lay in its reputation and its quest for

money rather than in the “experience and education” of its students. Further along in the

speech, Hvolbek continued to explain exactly what the effect of the values of business are

on schooling and education:

Pragmatic and useful things, of course, are easy to evaluate and quantify, but when the useful is quantified it precipitates a judgment: 5,500 square foot houses are superior to 1,500 square foot houses. An “A” is superior to a “B” and an “A” student is superior to a “B” student. Measurements. Judgments. The accountant’s truths are what are now deemed important.

Moreover, the goals of business humans are to make money and do it as efficiently and quickly as possible. They desire exact facts and data to help them make money. Business humans live for a goal.

Here I turn back to Megan’s text message to me, featured in the title and body of chapter

three. Her message exemplifies this mutation of education into a measured goal of success

or failure. “I’m afraid to fail,” she said. “Our prep school fucked us up really well.” He

elaborates further on the slippery slope of goal-orientation and material accumulation:

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We have created educational institutions that do the same. We have reduced education into a goal, a goal that is antithetical to education itself. Our educational practices are ruled by haste, guided by the belief that acquiring information is important, but simultaneously and contradictorily that the information serves a higher end, viz., getting a good grade; which in turn serves a higher end: getting into college; which in turn serves a higher end: getting a good job; which in turn serves a higher end: getting a house on Mulholland.

This passage calls Meredith’s honest insight into the disciplinary structure of academic

infractions back to light. Through her experiences on the Academic Honor Board in chapter

two, she proves that the accumulation of economic capital is the goal of both Campbell

Hall itself and its ideal, archetypical student. An institution that calls itself a school

inculcates the values of capitalism – “the business human” – rather than a true education.

Hvolbek ends his speech by saying:

Education is not chasing a grade. It is not chasing a college or a job. If you do that you may get what you want, an “A” or a “B,” but you will never be educated. An education is a process. It has a beginning but no end. It continues throughout life. It is learning to see and think.

Ultimately an education is a deep unfolding involvement with life here on earth. The deeper the involvement in seeing and thinking, the more complex is the dance in which you participate.

- Russell Hvolbek

We are living in a crisis in which students’ educations are being usurped by the goals of

maintenance-oriented and mobility-oriented habituses: students’ habituses should be education-

oriented. Campbell Hall school does have many programs of enrichment including experiential

education trips and thorough arts and athletic programs that this research could not duly explore.

Unfortunately, this enrichment can never compensate for the foundational losses in students’

values and lack of appreciation for an education as an end in itself and not a means toward an

exterior goal.

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Many of my friends are currently finding that the credentials they have – an esteemed

high school diploma and some college experience – are not necessarily providing the

opportunities for personal fulfillment and happiness that they had been told it would. While

personal fulfillment and happiness were not qualities oft-emphasized at Campbell Hall, the

implication was that the best grades, the best schools, the best jobs, and the best houses and other

material things would in fact lead to personal fulfillment and happiness. Many of my former

peers are facing disillusionment of this promise before even graduating from the “college”

checkbox on the to-do list of capital accumulation. The saddest part is that some of these

students feel they have nowhere to turn. By and large, our system of education no longer

educates. It should be clear now that the solution is not privatization. Instead, it is our duty to

support education “as a deep unfolding with life here on earth,” without the distractions and

poisons of an insatiable, always-consuming, capital-accumulating, real-life enactment of

Hungry Hungry Hippos.

 

(Wolk 2015)

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Bourdieu, Pierre 1984 Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Campbell Hall a 2010-2019. Electronic document, http://www.campbellhall.org/about-ch/history/2010-2019/index.aspx, accessed March 10, 2015.

Campbell Hall b Admissions Checklist & Procedures. Electronic document, http://www.campbellhall.org/data/files/gallery/ContentGallery/10._Admissions_Checklistfinal.pdf, accessed March 29, 2015.

Campbell Hall c Campbell Hall Financial Aid Application Checklist. Electronic document, http://www.campbellhall.org/data/files/gallery/ContentGallery/Affording_EducationChecklist.pdf, accessed March 29, 2015.

Campbell Hall d The Community of Inquiry. Electronic document, http://www.campbellhall.org/about-ch/welcome-from-the-headmaster/biography/the-community-of-inquiry/index.aspx, accessed April 23, 2014.

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Holmes, Seth 2013 California Series in Public Anthropology, Volume 27 : Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies : Migrant Farmworkers in the United States. Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California Press.

Hvolbek, Russell 2012 The End of Education. Electronic document, http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=16686, accessed February 26, 2015.

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Wolk, Josh 2015 'Candy Land'... the Movie? What's next, 'Hungry Hungry Hippos: The Motion Picture'? Electronic document, http://www.ew.com/article/2009/02/05/candy-land-is-a, accessed April 10, 2015.

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Appendices

Appendix A – Semi-Structured Interview Questions for Student Interlocutors

How long did you go to Campbell Hall? Did you receive any financial aid? What were you involved in? What kinds of grades did you get? How often did you meet outside of the classroom with teachers? Did you ever feel like teachers played favorites in the classroom? If so, what was the trend? Who

was favorited? Did you ever feel like income or wealth played a role in your friendships? Did you ever feel like income or wealth played a role in the classroom? Did you ever have friends that attended public schools? Did you ever go to a public school? Do you know what your local high school is? Did you want to go specifically to private school? Whose decision was it for you to go to Campbell Hall? To stay as long as you did? Did you ever consider going to public school? Did you feel like you were connected to the Campbell Hall community? How close do you live to school? Did you feel like you were connected to your neighborhood? Did you feel like you got to know a lot of different kinds of people at Campbell Hall? Did you feel like the people at Campbell Hall were an accurate representation of the local

community? In hindsight, would you still choose to attend Campbell Hall? Would you send your children to Campbell Hall?

Appendix B – Semi-Structured Interview Questions for Teacher Interlocutors

How long have you been a teacher? Why did you get into teaching? What degrees or certifications do you have? Which degrees or certifications are required for your position? Where did you go to college? Have you taught at any other schools? If so, were they private or public? Predominantly wealthy

or poor? Was there diversity of physical features and skin tone? What are the biggest differences between that/those school/s and Campbell Hall?

Why did you decide to teach at a private school, and why specifically Campbell Hall?

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Are you unionized? What, if any, job security do you have? What is your favorite aspect of your job? What is your least favorite aspect of your job? What is it like to teach classes where some or many students’ families are very wealthy? Is the income discrepancy in the classroom ever a problem? If so, how do you deal with that? Do you feel pressure to treat any students differently based on your knowledge or perception of

their wealth? Explicitly or implicitly What is it like to deal with parents that are so very wealthy? To what extent do you observe or experience parental involvement at the school? Do you feel that there is a strong Campbell Hall community or not? What does it take to be a part of the Campbell Hall community? Who is considered to be a part of that community? Do you feel that there is a strong local community encompassing Campbell Hall’s surrounding

area? Do you feel that the Campbell Hall community is representative of the surrounding area? How do you feel the mission of Campbell hall, as a school and educational institution with a

mission to teach, is affected by the school as a business and financial institution with a mission to attract and retail loyal, wealthy families and donors?

Were/are you surprised by anything about your job or the school in general? Do you see yourself staying at Campbell Hall? Why or why not? What are your future career plans, and why? Would you send your children to Campbell Hall? Why or why not?

Appendix C.a – Survey Questions for All Student Respondents

1. For which years did you attend Campbell Hall? Please select all that apply: o Kindergarten o 1st Grade o 2nd Grade o 3rd Grade o 4th Grade o 5th Grade o 6th Grade o 7th Grade o 8th Grade o 9th Grade o 10th Grade o 11th Grade o 12th Grade

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2. Please select your biological sex: o Male o Female

3. Did you receive financial aid at any point during your time at Campbell Hall? o Yes o No

4. Please describe what you wanted your high school experience to be while you were at Campbell Hall. What were your goals? Academically, socially, in athletics, in the arts, etc.

5. Were you happy with your high school experience while you were at Campbell Hall? o Very Happy o Happy o Neutral o Unhappy o Very Unhappy

Appendix C.b – Survey Question for Student Respondents Who Selected “Very Happy” or “Happy” in Response to Question #5

6. What in particular made you happy about your high school experience? Appendix C.c – Survey Question for Student Respondents Who Selected “Neutral” in Response to Question #5

6. What could have been different for you to feel more strongly about your high school experience?

Appendix C.d – Survey Question for Student Respondents Who Selected “Unhappy” or “Very Unhappy” in Response to Question #5

6. What in particular made you happy about your high school experience? Appendix C.e – Remaining Survey Questions for All Student Respondents

7. In hindsight, do you regret your high school experience? Why or why not? In other words, would you do it again?

8. What did you do to try and be successful while you were in high school? Academically, socially, on-campus, off-campus, during the week, on the weekends, etc.

9. In what ways do you think you were successful during your high school years? Academically, socially, on-campus, off-campus, during the week, on the weekends, etc.

10. In what ways do you think you were NOT successful during your high school years? Academically, socially, on-campus, off-campus, during the week, on the weekends, etc.

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11. Now that you’ve graduated from Campbell Hall and may be in college, do you still have the same ideals of leading a successful life as you did when you were in high school? If so, what are those ideals? If not, what were your ideals of success at Campbell Hall, and what are they now?

12. Overall, while you were in high school, did you feel satisfied with yourself? If so, why? If not, in what areas were you unsatisfied with yourself? Or some of both?

13. What was your number one concern in high school? Feel free to elaborate on any other major concerns, or even things that jump out at you as having been particularly unimportant.

14. How did you decide what to worry about and what not to worry about? Peers? Family? Teachers? Media? CH community? Los Angeles lifestyle?

15. Because I know you and all students from our class at CH, this research is particularly delicate. In order to preserve validity of the project, I need to ask how it is that you perceive me as a researcher, former classmate, and friend. So, as honestly as possible, please write 4-6 words that you associate with me or you think describe me. Honesty is super important for my research, so please don’t be too shy.

16. Open Forum. Feel free to add any other information you would like to share about your high school experience – everything is relevant.