Although universities are often characterised as 'elite', institutions can attain status in multiple dimensions--reputation, research, money and selectivity. We studied 21st century public universities in the United States, using latent profile analysis to identify which universities followed each path to status. Most universities pursued none,…

Although higher education is positioned as a site of opportunity for young women in the UK, not all female applicants experience straightforward pathways into this arena. This paper focuses on a group of 16 high-achieving girls from working-class backgrounds who are striving for academic success, in the form of top grades and places at high-tariff…

"Elite" and "flagship" are two influential groupings used to conceptualize differences among higher education institutions, but rarely defined. We derive common features attributed to these groupings from a content analysis of 40 years of higher education literature. Next, we explore the relationship of these features to other…

A pervasive issue in the school choice literature is whether schools of choice cream skim students by enrolling high-achieving, less-challenging, or less-costly students. Similarly, schools of choice may "push out" low-achieving, more-challenging, or more-costly students. Using longitudinal student-level data from Indiana, we created…

Many American parents, whose dream is to have their kids enrolled in one of the elite American Universities, do not suspect that the realization of this dream will result in the almost guaranteed leftist indoctrination of their children. The dominance of leftist ideology at elite American universities has serious implications not only on the…

Beneath the veneer of prestige and promise, a hidden issue pervades the campuses of America's selective universities. In "Starving the Dream," Nathan F. Alleman, Cara Cliburn Allen, and Sarah E. Madsen reveal the startling contradiction between the celebrated opportunities of these prestige-oriented institutions and the food insecurity…

This article discusses the methodological challenges of researching elite boys' schooling, in a study involving interviewing alumni who attended these schools from the 1970s to the 2020s. In particular, through a feminist poststructuralist methodological framing, it considers the necessity for researcher reflexivity in engaging in research in such…

This book offers new insights and methodological tools to improve our understandings of how prestigious schools in Poland navigate the major political, social and cultural crosscurrents. The range of choice for elite schooling in Poland has expanded during its post-communist transformation. However, while elite education in countries such as the…

A pervasive issue in the school choice literature is whether schools of choice cream-skim students by enrolling high-achieving, less challenging, or less costly students. Similarly, schools of choice may "pushout" low-achieving, more challenging, or more costly students. Using longitudinal student-level data from Indiana, we created…

In England and Wales, fee-charging independent schools can be legally classified as charities and, therefore, receive associated benefits, the most obvious being taxation advantages. The high fees charged by many of these schools create financial exclusivity, which, it will be seen, confers significant social and cultural capital to those who can…

Affect and habitus are used in the paper to harness the intermingling of race and class in the young people's everyday identity practices at school, as they aspire to embody 'Black excellence'. This paper draws on ethnographic data collected with working-class Black-British young people aged between 16 and 18. Through the careful management of…

The fairness and efficacy of the elite stream in general senior secondary education have long been a contentious issue. Based on the longitudinal data of the students who were enrolled in five senior secondary schools in X City in western China in 2017 and 2018, this study examined the effects of elite class streaming in improving student academic…

This essay uses Paulo Freire as inspiration of thinking about the limits and possibilities of building bridges between elite universities in the Global North and communities around the world given the historic and present-day entanglements between these universities and empire, colonisation, and epistemic violence. It sheds lights on how…

In light of the current discourse around the alleged discriminatory nature of the SAT and ACT exams against underrepresented minority students, and the increase in American institutions of higher education choosing to adopt test-optional freshman admission policies, this study sought to identify weather these policies are associated with changes…

This article employs critical discourse analysis of the Spear's Schools Index of 'the best private schools in the world', the first such global ranking of schools, to understand representations of elite education in globalised societies. It argues that the Index is a powerful text that exemplifies a global gaze -- an imagined perspective from…