Prep School and Public School Graduates of Harvard

Abstract

French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu |4, 5~ has developed what he calls a theory of reproduction. In his view, those in power do not merely pass on their material wealth, or economic capital, to their offspring (though they do this), they also try to assure that their children acquire what he calls and Cultural capital consists of various forms of knowledge, dispositions, and skills. For instance, in a society that has very few literate members, knowing how to read and write gives one an enormous advantage over those who are illiterate |5~. Similarly, in a culture that depends increasingly on computers, those with early training in sophisticated computer skills may have valuable advantages over those who do not |26~. Social capital refers to benefits of knowing people who can be of help to one -- what in earlier times was referred to as making connections and, more recently, often referred to as networking.'' Bourdieu writes that social capital is often indispensable if one desires to attract clients in socially important positions.'' It our contention that Bourdieu's concepts are useful theoretical constructs for explaining differences that have been observed between public and prep school graduates and for predicting other differences. For example, studies from 1920s through early 1950s demonstrate that graduates of public schools outperformed graduates of private schools in their college academic work |12, 21, 22, 23, 29~. This, we believe, reflects that more effort was invested by public school graduates than by private school graduates in order to accumulate cultural capital through academic achievement. Because public school students were more likely than graduates of elite boarding schools to be upwardly mobile, doing well in college provided them with valuable cultural capital. The graduates of private schools, who were more likely to come from upper-class families, put more energy into accumulation of social capital than public school student. For those already at top of class structure, relationships with others who will hold power are likely to be much more important than doing exceptionally well academically. In previous studies, we have applied Bourdieu's concepts to undergraduate and postgraduate careers of public school and prep school graduates who attended Wesleyan, Yale, Mount Holyoke, and Smith in 1960s, 1970s and 1980s |33, 34~. We found that at those four colleges graduates of public schools continued to be more likely than graduates of private schools to be elected to Phi Beta Kappa. At two men's schools, Yale and Wesleyan, graduates of prep schools, and especially graduates of elite prep schools, were more likely than public school graduates to have been members of socially prestigious societies (at Yale, Skull and Bones, and at Wesleyan, The Mystical Seven) |33~. When we looked at experiences of Yale graduates twenty-five years after they had graduated, we found that public school graduates were more likely than prep school graduates to have earned higher degrees that provided them with credentials necessary to work in certain professions (for example, medical, legal and doctoral degrees). In contrast, we found that graduates of prep schools and, especially, elite prep schools, were more likely to have joined prestigious social clubs and that they were more likely to have entered occupations in which social capital would be especially useful (for example, business) |34~. Though Wesleyan, Yale, Mount Holyoke, and Smith are all highly selective schools, Harvard sits at pinnacle of undergraduate prestige hierarchy in America. In this study, then, we plan to apply Bourdieu's concepts to undergraduate and postgraduate experiences of Harvard students. To use Klitgaard's term, by looking within the right tail of bell shaped curve (in this case, those who have been selected to attend most prestigious undergraduate college in America), we hope to learn some valuable things about way American elite functions to reproduce itself. …