Education and Enrichment

Abstract

This chapter explores academic hothouses: organisations designed to develop the talents and abilities of carefully selected ‘rising stars’, in preparation for professional careers and vocations. Students in elite boarding schools, prestigious universities and performing arts academies are expected to show more than the usual level of commitment to their work and to study with particular intensity, beyond conventional working hours. These institutions are predicated on a set of shared ambitions, oriented towards a future identity: students anticipate cultivating a new self, who is not only intellectually developed but radically transformed as a whole person. Going away to college represents an opportunity for self-discovery and self-actualisation, a chance to become ‘who I want to be’ (Karp et al 1998). At the same time, these RIs provide unique social environments, insular local worlds created by the interactions between students, staff and institutional arrangements. Inmate cultures develop as new recruits learn how to be a student, trainee or apprentice — roles defined by their potential — and compete to be the best in their field.