Private Schools and Cultural Capital
Product details
- ISBN 9781835493113
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 07 Jul 2026
- Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Private schooling continues to be a divisive issue. In Britain, there has been a rapid expansion of overseas branches being opened by elite British private schools. Private Schools and Cultural Capital offers insight into the workings of private schools that continue to provide an advantage for their students. Author Rachel Louise Stenhouse reports on the role played by teachers’ social and cultural capital in reproducing privilege in private schools and how this capital is transmitted to students through their preparation for application to elite universities.
Drawing on data from interviews with teachers, observations of lessons and teachers’ own reflections to provide an insight into the workings of one private school in England, Stenhouse contributes to an understanding of how private schools are able to continue to reproduce the privilege that their students enjoy. Using the theories of Pierre Bourdieu as a fitting framework in which to understand how private school privilege is reproduced, the chapters also provoke discussion about the prominence of “cultural capital” in the Ofsted school inspection framework and the role played by teachers in private schools in developing cultural capital in their students.
A timely addition to the literature on private school advantage, this is a compelling resource for international readers working in policy, academia, or education with an interest in social inequality and in particular the workings of private schools.
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.
