Abstract
This chapter examines how public schools and the public school system evolved in England and indicates how they were linked, over time, to shifting national and colonial social power relationships. We offer this history for a number of reasons. First, the particular model of elite schooling in the seven different former British colonies that we address began with these schools in England. Second, the very peculiar links between this type of school and dominant social groups/classes began there. Third, the elevated location of such schools within the wider education system also began there. Thus, when this particular model of schooling travelled to the many colonies of the vast British Empire, along with it went this public school history—not only of educational practices but also of power relationships. Our contention is that in order to understand both elite schools in the former British colonies and the former colonies in relation to their elite schools, one must start with the history of the boys’ public schools of England, and it this is what we explore in this chapter.
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Kenway, J., Fahey, J., Epstein, D., Koh, A., McCarthy, C., Rizvi, F. (2017). Little England’s ‘Public Schools’. In: Class Choreographies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54961-7_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54961-7_2
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