A Rejoinder to Cookson
| Autor: | Arthur G. Powell |
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| Rok vydání: | 1997 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | American Journal of Education. 105:510-513 |
| ISSN: | 1549-6511 0195-6744 |
| Popis: | I am grateful for the chance to respond to a review that is not merely negative, but astonishingly hostile toward the very existence of independent prep schools, as well as my approach to them. Peter Cookson's main point is that the only thing to learn from these schools is how they perpetuate "class power" (p. 506) and inequality in the United States. Examining them from any other angle seems to him deviationist heresy by "opponents of public education" (p. 505) who might even destroy democracy through "ideology camouflaged by self-interested research" (p. 509). Obviously, privileged schools, both private and public, help perpetuate the socioeconomic status of well-to-do students (and also advance that of students on financial aid). My book explicitly recognizes this social function at the outset and notes that many social scientists (Cookson among them) have written extensively about it. But Lessons from Privilege is about a different subject. That subject is whether the educational practices of prep schools might be of constructive use to all schools. These practices may not interest Cookson, but they may well interest parents, public school educators, policy makers, and citizens who wonder whether hefty prep school tuitions are buying anything that could be educationally useful to other schools. Even those who dislike prep or other private schools in principle may reasonably ask whether any of their practices might help other schools improve. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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