Permissible Advantage?: The Moral Consequences of Elite Schooling

158 Pages·2000·0.91 MB·English

by  Alan Peshkin

Permissible Advantage?

The Moral Consequences of Elite Schooling
Sociocultural, Political, and Historical Studies in Education

Joel Spring, Editor

Spring • The Cultural Transformation of a Native American Family and Its
Tribe 1763–1995
Reagan • Non-Western Educational Traditions: Alternative Approaches to
Educational Thought and Practice
Peshkin • Places of Memory: Whiteman's Schools and Native American
Communities
Spring • Political Agendas for Education: From the Christian Coalition to the
Green Party
Nespor • Tangled Up in School: Politics, Space, Bodies, and Signs in the
Educational Process
Weinberg • Asian-American Education: Historical Background and Current
Realities
Books (Ed.) • Invisible Children in the Society and Its Schools
Shapiro/Purpel (Eds.) • Critical Social Issues in American Education:
Transformation in a Postmodern World, Second Edition
Lipka/Mohatt/The Ciulistet Group • Transforming the Culture of Schools:
Yup'ik Eskimo Examples
Benham/Heck • Culture and Educational Policy in Hawai'i: The Silencing of
Native Voices
Spring • Education and the Rise of the Global Economy
Pugach • On the Border of Opportunity: Education, Community, and Language
at the U.S.-Mexico Line
Hones/Cha • Educating New Americans: Immigrant Lives and Learning
Gabbard (Ed.) • Knowledge and Power in the Global Economy: Politics and the
Rhetoric of School Reform
Glander • Origins of Mass Communications Research During the American
Cold War: Educational Effects and Contemporary Implications
Nieto (Ed.) • Puerto Rican Students in U.S. Schools
Benham/Cooper (Eds.) • Indigenous Educational Models for Contemporary
Practice: In Our Mother's Voice
Spring • The Universal Right to Education: Justification, Definition, and
Guidelines
Reagan • Non-Western Educational Traditions: Alternative Approaches to
Educational Thought and Practice, Second Edition
Peshkin • Permissible Advantage?: The Moral Consequences of Elite Schooling
DeCarvalho • Rethinking Family-School Relations: A Critique of Parental
Involvement in Schooling
Borman/Stringfield/Slavin (Eds.) • Title I: Compensatory Education at the
Crossroads
Roberts • Remaining and Becoming: Cultural Crosscurrents in an Hispano
School
Meyer/Boyd (Eds.) • Education Between State, Markets, and Civil Society:
Comparative Perspectives
Permissible Advantage?

The Moral Consequences of Elite Schooling

Alan Peshkin
Stanford University

LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS

Mahwah, New Jersey London
Copyright © 2001 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced in any form, by photostat, microfilm, retrieval
system, or any other means, without prior written
permission of the publisher.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
10 Industrial Avenue
Mahwah, NJ 07430
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
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Cover art by Danny Silverman
Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Peshkin, Alan.
Permissible advantage?: the moral consequences of elite
schooling/Alan Peshkin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8058-2466-9 (alk. paper)—
ISBN 0-8058-2467-7 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Preparatory schools—Moral and ethical aspects—United
States. 2. Preparatory schools—United States—Case
studies. I. Title.
LC58.4.P58 2000
373.2'22–dc21 00–037615
CIP
ISBN 1-4106-0604-X Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-8058-2466-9 (Print Edition)
Copyright © 2008/2009 Mobipocket.com. All rights reserved.
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To my battalion
To say that the human condition is moral before it is or may be anything else
means…that whether we choose it or not, we confront our situation as a moral
problem and our life choices as moral dilemmas. What follows is that we bear
moral responsibilities…
—Zygmunt Bauman (1995, p. 2)
Contents

Preface
1 A Moral Outlook
2 Circumstances of Education
3 Judgments for Excellence
4 The Goodness of Teachers
5 The Goodness of Students
6 Privilege
7 American Values
References
Author Index
Subject Index