Privileged Bonds: Lessons of Belonging at an Elite School

Abstract

Elite schools’ affective production of belonging constructs and reinforces privilege as a collective identity through which students activate their own privilege—not as what they have but as who they are. Drawing on ethnographic data, this chapter describes the lessons learned at an elite boarding school in Jordan that instill a sense of belonging: others are too different to relate to; success is achieved by working together; we are more alike than different; everyone’s voice within the community matters; and we are superior to others. It examines how these lessons of belonging embrace particularities that give shape and meaning to students’ self-understandings and reveal some ways privilege is produced and perpetuated within this elite educational context.