Private Schools and Cultural Capital

Rachel Louise Stenhouse is Senior Lecturer in Education at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. She has worked in education for around 20 years, in primary and secondary schools, in both state and private sectors, and most recently, in initial teacher education. She has been a governor of a local primary school for 10 years. Her research concerns social justice, mathematics education and initial teacher education.

• Chapter 1. Introduction: Private school advantage and the formation of privilege Chapter 2. Private school privilege: Admission to university Chapter 3. Bourdieu’s Cultural capital: What is it and why does it matter? Chapter 4. Private school distinction: The Northwell Difference Chapter 5. The Northwell Teacher: Private school teachers’ social and cultural capital Chapter 6. Transmission of Capital in Private Schools: The Northwell ApproachChapter 7. Misrecognition of privilege: The legitimation of cultural capital Chapter 8. Conclusion - Private schools: Reproducers of privilege

In this book Rachel Stenhouse brings new insight to the processes of sustaining privilege in the U.K via the education system. Using the evidence from her unique study, readers are offered a new perspective on how capitals are mobilized within the private education system, specifically in relation to Oxbridge, and more broadly, Redbrick university acceptance. Policymakers, educational sociologists and those interested in societal inequalities will find this book useful, and it is written in an accessible format that will appeal to both undergraduates and pots-graduate studying education, childhood and/or sociology. It is particularly useful in applying Bourdieu’s theoretical framework to an analysis of new evidence on the internal working of private education focusing on the under researched aspect of Oxbridge preparation. Rachel’s new knowledge and analysis is a important contribution to the field at a time when educational and societal inequalities are increasing.