The Wealthy, the Brilliant, the Few

Download or read book The Wealthy, the Brilliant, the Few written by Sophie Spieler and published by transcript Verlag. This book was released on 2021-06-30 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does the US make sense of its elite educational system, given that it seems to be at odds with core American values, such as equality of opportunity or upward mobility? Sophie Spieler explores scholarly and journalistic investigations, self-representational texts, and fictional narratives revolving around the Ivy League and its peers in order to understand elite education and its peculiar position in American cultural discourse. Among the book's most surprising and groundbreaking insights is the tenacity and adaptability of meritocratic ideology across all three sub-discourses, despite its fundamental incompatibility with the American educational system.