Elite Private Schools Research Articles

Evaluating the Impact of School-Based Smoking Prevention Interventions on Students' Physical Activity Intentions, Perceived Social Expectations, and Self-Efficacy

This study evaluates the impact of school-based smoking prevention interventions on students' physical activity intentions, perceived social expectations, and self-efficacy. With increasing rates of adolescent smoking and its associated health risks, school-based interventions have been widely promoted as effective strategies to prevent smoking initiation. However, little research has been conducted in Pakistan to assess their broader effects on health behaviors. This study addresses this gap by analyzing data from 240 school students in Lahore, Pakistan, using a structured questionnaire. The respondents were approached while visiting at their schools. The data was obtained using simple random sampling technique from one of the Lahore based elite private school. The findings reveal significant positive relationships between the interventions and all three outcome variables. Smoking prevention programs had the strongest effect on physical activity intentions (β = 0.4441), followed by perceived social expectations (β = 0.3359) and self-efficacy (β = 0.3089). These results suggest that these interventions not only reduce smoking tendencies but also encourage broader health-promoting behaviors among students. By promoting positive social expectations, self-efficacy, and physical activity, these interventions can create a lasting impact on adolescent health. Future research should focus on the long-term sustainability of these outcomes and their potential application to other health areas.

The accumulation economy of private schools: extraction, mystification and depletion

ABSTRACT Too few studies of elite private schools consider how they derive power and prestige from their relationships and interactions with other social and political groups and institutions, including the State. This paper contributes to elite school studies by examining the relationality between the Australian State and private sector schools around how government funds public and private education. Of all Australian students, 35.5% attend private schools. All private schools, including elite schools, receive significant amounts of taxpayers’ money. After explaining the complex policy architecture of this funding regime, this paper offers a fresh set of conceptual resources to help deepen the analysis of this situation. We argue that the whole Australian private school sector operates as an accumulation economy, essentially utilising public sector resources to enlarge, enrich and sustain itself. This happens via three dynamics – accumulation by extraction, by mystification and by depletion. We show how elite schools are part of, and benefit from, each.

Constructing Inclusive Citizenship: Fundamental, Cultural and Religious Rights Narratives in History Textbooks Taught in Elite Schools in Pakistan

Given the crucial role of history education in shaping civic identity, this study investigates citizenship rights perspectives constructed in the history textbooks of elite private schools in Pakistan. Following Gagnon and Pagé’s analytical model, this study adopts a qualitative content analysis to probe fundamental rights, cultural rights, religious rights, and related concepts within textbooks. The findings highlight problematic silences, selective narratives, and externally imposed frameworks on rights issues. Deterministic and politically skewed historical accounts impede the development of critical faculties and introspection, which are essential for engaged democratic citizenship. This study has notable implications for reforming unbalanced curricula and decolonizing history teaching toward the objectives of citizenship education, such as educating future citizens to contribute to a peaceful, just, inclusive, and democratic society in Pakistan. The paper not only presents its findings but also looks at what the findings entail for the development of inclusive citizenship education.

The changing class and educational composition of the UK political elite since 1945: implications for representation

AbstractDebates over the changing nature of the UK political elite have focused on questions of representation and the extent of class convergence between the leaderships of the Conservative and Labour parties. We present a new comprehensive survey of the class and educational composition of the membership of Conservative and Labour cabinets and shadow cabinets since 1945. Some convergence in the class composition of the leaderships is apparent, but intra-class differences in terms of sector and occupation point to persisting differences in adult experience in profit-making versus public/third sector organisations and in technical versus sociocultural professions. Educationally, there is a decline in the Conservative leadership in the numbers coming from elite private schools but not from private schools in general, and attendance at elite universities remains more common on the Conservative side. Changes in the class origins and previous employment of the Conservative leadership do not suggest any weakening in the party’s capacity to represent business interests. In contrast, while there has been no decline in the proportion of the Labour leadership from working-class origins, there has been an almost complete disappearance of those with adult experience of working-class life.

Indonesian Teachers' Beliefs and Competencies in Implementing the Indonesian Prototype Curriculum to Promote SDG Goal 4

This qualitative study explores how Indonesian teachers align their beliefs and competencies with curriculum reform, specifically Kurikulum Merdeka and Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) - Quality Education. Semi-structured interviews with teachers from elite private and international schools reveal key themes, such as holistic student development, innovative teaching, and curriculum flexibility. ATLAS.ti aids thematic analysis. The study emphasizes the crucial role of external professional support in addressing teachers' mental health challenges and promoting overall well-being. The research provides insights into the complex relationship between teacher beliefs, competencies, and curriculum implementation. It offers valuable perspectives for policymakers, curriculum developers, and educators striving for quality education. The research recognizes potential limitations, including its focus on specific Indonesian teachers and the qualitative nature of the study. Future studies could diversify participants and further explore the impact of teacher well-being on educational practices.

Neoliberalism, Compulsory Education and Compulsion to Pay: Magnitude, Patterns and Determinants of Household Expenditure in Indian Punjab

Based on a recent primary survey, this study aims to examine the magnitude, patterns and determinants of household expenditure on compulsory schooling in Punjab. Our findings suggest that the increasing presence of private schools in the education marketplace, particularly in the contemporary era of neoliberalism, has commodified the education in the state, and these education providers offer compulsory schooling in diverse forms, with varying costs depending on the demand of their student clientele. Parents who enroll their children in elite private schools pay approximately seven times more than those choosing low-fee private schools. Private schools exert undue financial burden on their parent clientele (particularly those from low- and middle-income groups). This situation highlights the concept of ‘compulsion to pay’, especially in the absence of an acceptable quality of service provided by state-owned schools. Our regression analysis results on determinants of household expenditure reveal that households from socially and economically marginalised sections (for example, scheduled castes and the poor) spend significantly less than their more affluent counterparts. We recommend that the state take a more stringent approach to regulating these non-state education providers, particularly in terms of exorbitant fees, which would prevent further widening of the existing socio-economic inequality in the state.

In a Class of Its Own? The Origins and Early History of Tennis in the 19th-Century Cape Colony

This article endeavours to awaken a scholarly interest in the origins and early history of tennis in the city of Cape Town and the Cape Colony more broadly. By drawing on newspaper accounts and other supplementary materials, the article maps out a social, political and cultural landscape that shaped this particular history prior to 1892, the year that tennis was established on a national basis in the region that would become the Union of South Africa in 1910. Much of this history has disappeared or has been erased from public consciousness and therefore events are called up that may appear insignificant to the modern reader. In recovering this history, this article seeks to demonstrate that the history of this sport matters because of its place in the social and political unfolding of 19th-century Cape colonial society. It then unpacks this history as it evolved predominantly among the English-speaking colonial middle class, in elite private residences, hotels, schools and clubs within the culture associated with these institutions.

Level of Challenges in the Implementation of Online Learning Classes among the Teachers

The paper's main intent is to identify the challenges in implementing online learning classes among the teachers in the elite private schools of Butuan City, Philippines, related to technology access, assessing students' progress, and preparing content for online learning. The study also ascertained whether or not there is a significant difference in the participants' level of challenges when grouped according to participants' profiles. The study's result served as the foundation for developing a localized training design. This study utilized a quantitative research design and collected data through online survey questionnaires for the data analysis. The results revealed that the participants' level of challenges related to technology access, assessing students' progress, and preparing content for online learning is moderately high. In addition, the participants, as grouped according to school taught and sex, showed no significant difference in their level of challenges. It is recommended that addressing and taking action to address the teachers' concerns about the challenges they have experienced in implementing online learning classes is vital to improving the quality of education.

The Machuca experience: A retrospective case study of school-based socio-economic integration

This paper explores the experiences of former low-income children that, in the late 1960 s and early 1970 s, were integrated into Saint George’s College, an elite private school in Santiago, Chile. Using a primarily qualitative, retrospective case study design, we focus on the experiences and perceptions of former students to explore lessons from this evocative case study of socio-economic integration. Findings point to key situational differences in low-income students’ integration experiences and sense of belonging. Heterogenous experiences ranged from negative, such as bullying, discrimination, and experiences that deepened class-based identities, to experiences of support, inclusion, and friendship. Factors affecting the level and nature of integration experiences are considered in relation to contact theory and refinements to the theory are proposed to account for developmental differences in integration experiences.

Pay for elite private schools or pay for higher housing prices? Evidence from an exogenous policy shock

This study provides the first direct empirical evidence on whether private school lottery enrollment program affects school district house prices and residential sorting behaviors. Although the new lottery enrollment policy for private schools in China aims to promote equal and affordable education, it also introduces uncertainty. We assessed the policy impact using the panel data of residential housing transactions from the largest real estate agent in Chengdu during 2018–2020 and controlling for grid-level demographic and economic variables from mobile Internet data. We found that the lottery-based private school enrollment uncertainty leads to a substantial rise in the value of the key and elite school district house (SDH) prices. The house price premiums of the key SDH and elite SDH increased by 2.8% and 7.8% in the post-policy period, respectively. We also observed a significant intensification of residential sorting behavior within the elite public school districts afterwards. These results suggest that parents pay higher house prices when access to quality private schools becomes uncertain.

Chile's Digital Learning Strategy During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The change from in-person to in-home schooling and the rapid digitalization of the system impacted the access to education and the quality of the outcomes during the pandemic, but the extent to which digital measures helped school administrators to face that impact is difficult to understand without hearing from them directly. To give those who had to adapt to digital learning some voice, this report discusses the experiences of one national education policy expert, one Learning Resources Coordinator in a public school in Northern Chile, and one Technology Coordinator in an elite private school in Santiago during the process of adapting to digital learning. The goal of these semi-structured interviews was to explore the different digital learning strategies among systems and regions at the school-home level, to then compare them with the national vision and the information that official documents and Aprendo en línea provide. The interviews took place from November, 2020, to February, 2021, right between the end of Chile’s 2020 school year and the beginning of the 2021 one.
 The findings of the exploration indicate that school administrations, but also the type and position of schools within the education system, determined which digital strategy schools adopted and how successful it was. They further revealed the social disparities that prevailed by the lack of digital tools, but also new socio-educational challenges. In all, current Chilean officers stood out as the ones accountable for addressing the digital divide, which in this case can be understood as those who learned how to use digital tools (US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), 1999), and those who are learning to create them.

A Study on the Social Determinants Affecting Nutritional Status of the Children of Guwahati City, Assam

The present study aims to understand the nutritional status of the pre-adolescent urban Guwahati boys and girls belonging to the age group of 6–10 years in relation to some social determinants such as parental education, parental occupation, family income, food habit, family type, and consumption of fast food. A total sample of 471 boys and girls going to the elite private schools of the city were collected cross-sectionally and measured for their stature and body weight. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cutoff for body mass index was used to study the nutritional status. Result shows that the boys are more malnourished than the girls. On contrary, the girls are found to be more at risk of overweight but are also healthier than the boys. The relationship of parental education and nutritional status is found to be statistically significant at 5% level among the boys. Further, this was supported by multiple logistic regression analyses performed to understand the association between the nutritional status and the social determinants which shows significance in fathers’ education and underweight (odds ratio [OR] – 3.043) and overweight (OR – 4.612) at 5% level. Father’s occupation and nutritional status are also found to be significant with underweight (OR – 2.961) at 5% level for the same. Maternal occupation and fast-food consumption are also found to be significantly associated with the nutritional status of the children. It may, therefore, be concluded that the nutritional status of the boys and girls is dependent on a number of social factors, thus making them vulnerable to malnutrition.

How Capital generates capitals in English elite private schools: Charities, tax and accounting

The sociological literature on elite private schooling is frequently informed by Bourdieu’s signature concepts of cultural, social and symbolic capital. Yet, his insistence that economic capital is the ‘root’ of these other capitals is often overlooked or downplayed. This paper addresses this lacuna. While it gestures to Bourdieu’s other capitals, its primary focus is on finance itself and the various legal and accounting regimes that facilitate schools’ financial capital acquisition, accumulation and conversion into other individual and organisational capitals. We interrogate these schools’ income-generating and spending strategies on fees, infrastructure and scholarships, explicating how charity law, tax regimes, and accounting rules work to their advantage. In so doing we demonstrate how ambiguous law and accounting regimes enable them to produce exclusivity through pricing and luxury infrastructure. In short, we show how elite private schools in England keep fees high, scholarships low and luxury pervasive KEYWORDS Private schools; financial capital; charities; tax; accounting; social class.

Covid-19 and the entrenchment of a virtual Elite private school: Rethinking education policies in Zimbabwe

By using a critical emancipatory research framework, this theoretical paper discusses the COVID-19-induced commercialisation of the education system in Zimbabwe. It argues that COVID-19 exposed and widened the digital gap between privileged and underprivileged learners, regardless of the learners’ geographical location. The digitalisation of the education space –in adherence to World Health Organization’s COVID-19 guidelines – has resulted in the creation of virtual elite schools. Learners from privileged families found sanctuary in digital learning, whilst underprivileged learners continue to be exposed to the reality of commercialised education. This trend has revealed educational inequalities between privileged and underprivileged learners. The paper answers two major questions: 1. What are the inequalities that were reintroduced by the COVID-19 pandemic in the Zimbabwean education system? and 2. How effective is stakeholders’ response to COVID-19-induced inequalities? The paper argues that COVID-19 has dashed the hopes of free education for all, by creating a digital gap that perpetuates and entrenches inequalities in relation to learners. In light of these findings, the study suggests that education stakeholders invest in digital infrastructure, with special attention being paid to learners’ economic status, as opposed to their geographical location.

Being More: Stress and Moral Worthiness in an Elite Private School in Ecuador

This article examines why a group of elite students assured of their life‐chances willfully engaged with stress‐inducing school experiences. Unlike common portrayals of "stress culture" as being the result of economic uncertainty, I found that stress was viewed as a necessary prerequisite for students’ understandings of moral worthiness. I conclude by discussing how students' affective and evaluative engagements with stress are informative for broader conversations about elite socialization and social reproduction in Ecuador.

Teaching Vocabulary through CAVI: An Action Research Project

Vocabulary learning is a fundamental aspect of language learning for ESL or EFL learners. The speedy modifications within the advancement of technological and pedagogical ways have proven to be quite captivating for instructors. Therefore, educational practitioners attempt to induct these digital and technological sources in their ESL or EFL classrooms for teaching diverse language skills. This study evaluates ESL learners’ performance after computer-assisted vocabulary instruction (CAVI hereafter) induction for about ten (10) weeks. In addition, this experimental study also aims to serve the purpose to examine the attitude of the learners towards CAVI practices. It is an action research (AR) project, where convenience sampling has been used to sort out the target population (n= 74) from an Elite Private School (EPS hereafter) in Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan. Moreover, the collected data has been analyzed statistically through SPSS software. According to the results, the learners expressed their eagerness to learn vocabulary through digital resources, and data witnessed that their overall performance pre and post CAVI seems to be going towards improvement. This study is significant because the efficacy of CAVI will promote awareness among Educational practitioners, ESL, and EFL teachers to improve their vocabulary instructional ways.

The Effectiveness of using EyeRIS to Improve English Communication Skills of Primary Students

The arrival of technology has opened doors to different opportunities. A number of institutions have integrated technology effectively in their learning environments to improve teamwork as well as to reform education as a whole. The aim of this study was to explore the effectiveness of EyeRIS to improve English Communication skills at the Primary School level at one of the elite private schools in Lahore, Pakistan. The study employed a qualitative structured interview for data collection. A purposive sampling technique was used to select the sample. The sample comprised five primary English language teachers. The findings of the study revealed that EyeRIS has a significant impact on improving the Communicative Skills of primary students. It helps to improve the receptive as well as productive skills of the primary level English language learners. Moreover, it is a powerful engagement and motivational tool in educational institutions. Overall, EyeRIS holds the potential for improving students' English language learning, academic performance as well as classroom behaviour.

Critical Literacy as a Lens for Students’ Evaluation of Sources in an AP World History Class

Critical literacy is an appropriate learning outcome for social studies courses because it has the potential to teach students how to critically evaluate sources of information relevant to historical texts and current news media. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to examine the process through which students learned to apply critical literacy strategies while completing an end-of-unit research project in tenth grade AP world history. This study looks as student and teacher interviews to examine how students use critical literacy approaches and perspectives to analyze texts. As a result of this study it was determined that: (1) students at the elite private school had limited experience with source evaluation and critical literacy prior to this research project, (2) critical literacy served as an effective evaluation tool for reliability and bias for some students, (3) certain students experienced challenges in using critical literacy as an evaluation tool, and (4) students believed that critical literacy would benefit them personally and academically. Results include implications for instructors who wish to teach critical literacy and source evaluation in this information age.

BRITISH ELITE PRIVATE SCHOOLS AND THEIR OVERSEAS BRANCHES: UNEXPECTED ACTORS IN THE GLOBAL EDUCATION INDUSTRY

ABSTRACT Our paper examines the opening of branches overseas (‘satellite colleges’) by elite private schools mainly located in England (‘founding colleges’), largely in emerging economies of the Middle East and South East Asia. We trace the development of these ‘satellite colleges’ over three successive waves of growth, from opportunistic venturing in Thailand in the late-1990s to their recent rapid growth in numbers in a phase characterized by the market entry of new actors and geographic diversification. We argue that the emergence of these schools occurs in line with the continued intensification and diversification of the Global Education Industry. This implies a significant shift in the modes of legitimation on which British elite schools typically rely.

Gender Dynamics in Schooling: A Comparative Study of Co-educational Practices in Two Socio-cultural Milieux

Different forms of schooling, single sex or co-educational, have been discussed in educational academia from the perspective of their impact on gender equality. The debate revolves around the question: which form of schooling (single or co-educational) will be effective in combating prevalent gender stereotypes? With the contradictory evidence, this discussion remains inconclusive. With the help of inferences from evidence both factual and anecdotal, the paper attempts to delineate the need to consider socio-cultural dimensions for developing a deeper understanding of gender dynamics in schools. Understanding the role of the social context called for a comparative analysis of two co-educational schools from different socio-cultural contexts: a rural government school in a state characterised by traditional gender norms and an elite private school in a metropolitan city. By drawing linkages between socio-cultural aspects and schooling practices, it endeavours to analyse parental concerns, the role of the school as an agency, the interface of caste, culture and tradition and their impact on peer behaviour in both the schools. The study has led to the conclusion that a combination of factors retards or promotes the accomplishment of education policies in individual schools.