The Public Military High School

Abstract

This article explores an innovative secondary educational institution: a public military academy. Data were collected through observations, interviews, paper content analyses, and surveys in an urban military high school. The data reveal how the school's unique military subculture develops students by enabling them to accrue various forms of social capital, including military capital, and by developing cadets’ civility, leadership skills and agency, discipline, and propensity for education. Therefore, the institutional product or academy graduate should possess enhanced life skills and increased chances to achieve upward mobility, making this school a potentially powerful educational institution for underprivileged urban-minority youth. Future research should explore how this school compares to other urban public schools, parochial schools, and private military schools and the life outcomes of the students from these different schools. The research has broad implications for the potential power of public military schools, especially in urban environs.