What are the main goals of socialization in preparatory and boarding schools described in Preparing for Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools?
             The elite of a nation desire to perpetuate themselves, and their values, and the institutional codes of behavior that will enable them to stay in power from generation to generation. Preparatory boarding schools enable the children of the elite to become entirely immersed in such values, from a young age, with little exposure to other institutional values and ways of life. This is the central thesis of Preparing for Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools by Peter W. Cookson, Jr.; Caroline Hodges Persell (New York: Basic Books, 1985).
             Over the course of their study, the authors examined the role of private school preparation in a variety of national contexts, and based their conclusions on observations, interviews, questionnaires and statistical data from mostly American, but also some British, Cuban, and Israeli boarding schools. The picture they present is of a scholastic institution that does not simply reinforce economic and academic advantages, but creates an entire and all-absorbing culture where privilege is assumed and accepted and hierarchical power is valued and trusted. Prep schools are part monastery, part boot camp, part prison, and part country club.
             The authors suggests that for a child to go to boarding school means that child enters into a culture, he or she not simply get a better chance of getting into a top college. The prep school curriculum is based upon a classical, humanities tradition with little emphasis on modern, much less multicultural literature. Competitive sports reinforce the idea that healthy competition is good, particularly in the name of a team, school, or a cooperative institution of like-minded individuals of the same class. Teachers and headmasters show benign but unquestioned discipline. The Socratic method is favored, where the teacher stress...