Cultivating Specialness and Defining Difference in an Elite All-Boys Elementary Classroom

• In Event: 63.059 - Remixing, Remaking, and (Re)Imagining Resilience in Black Males

Abstract

This ethnographic study examines how white boys attending an all-boys elite private school conceptualize difference, and the potential implications of that for their developing view of their social standing. I find that boys in this third grade class are, indeed, being socialized into “the elite class” by being trained to think highly of themselves and develop the skills to articulate their own unique gifts and talents. They are also being taught to treat each other thoughtfully and respectfully, which manifests in the gentle and protective ways boys treat two classmates with cognitive or learning differences. However, for this idyllic world of individuality and community to function, certain social problems had to be ignored resulting in the perpetuation of colorblind racism.

Author

• Nora Gross, University of Pennsylvania