Coda

These interesting situations in which generics play a key role in interactional pragmatics sparked my memory of solid geometry and spherical trigonometry class at Stuyvesant High School in the early 1960s. Each morning our instructor, the somewhat irascible Mr. Burns, would start off by asking a question on the day's material, calling for a response by ‘[student surname]’. Stuyvesant, in those days an all-male institution, functioned, like prep schools, on a surname basis for both reference and address; the teachers’ names were prefaced by Mr. or Mrs. or Miss, while student names had no prefixed title.

Honorable Mismatch

The non-toleration requirement of military school honor codes requiring cadets to report their peers for honor violations is developmentally inappropriate for adolescents in terms of the state of their brain development and emotional maturity because it makes neurological and psychological demands on teens attending military prep schools—many not of their own choosing—that are beyond their developmental and emotional capabilities in several areas. This requirement extends beyond the ken of either the scope of the mission of military prep schools or the neurological and psychological developmental abilities of the adolescent students attending them. Research also shows that it is largely ineffective in reducing honor offenses. To enhance the effectiveness, schools can modify the self-policing aspect by replacing the non-toleration requirement with something more developmentally appropriate while still meaningful, adopt an honor continuum that allows for growth, and implement an honor development approach that contains positive reinforcement and encourages continuous development.

The forgotten kids: Experiences of potential student-athletes at a postsecondary football preparatory school

The first preparatory institution was founded in 1635 to prepare elite men for public service, a role in the church, or admission to Harvard (Boyer, 1983). Nearly 400 years later, the objective of such institutions is no longer Harvard, but often an avenue for potential student-athletes (PSAs) to participate in collegiate sport (Thamel, 2007). The NCAA does not define nor regulate postgraduate preparatory institutions; however, Curran (2014) describes a preparatory institution (commonly referred to as prep schools) as a postgraduate institute that provides PSAs another year at a secondary institution prior to making the transition to college. Framed by Mincer’s (1958) model of Basic Human Capital, the purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of those attending or associated with one specific preparatory institution (X Academy). The first research question which explores prospective student-athletes choices to attend a preparatory institution revealed three final themes: (1) eligibility concerns, (2) athletic exposure and development, and (3) academic improvement. The second research question explores the experiences of those attending a preparatory institution also revealed three final themes: (1) focus and preparation, (2) melting pot, and (3) survival.

Early Days

This chapter discusses the earliest days of Advanced Placement (AP) and the growing pains of its first two decades. At the outset, AP was explicitly intended for the strongest students at top high schools, those who “already had the luxury of being bound for prestigious colleges and universities, room to excel and an inducement to continue to work hard.” However, while the lore surrounding the program's birth associates it mostly with eastern prep schools, in fact the “pioneer schools” were a mix of independent and public institutions, the latter mostly located in upper-middle-class suburbs of major cities in the East and Midwest. Acceleration and degree credit were not the only appeal—or benefit—of AP. Many students were “content with the enrichment that the AP courses had provided” and “never applied for either AP credit or advancement in college.” For all the excitement and expansion, however, after two decades AP remained predominantly a boon for relatively privileged kids.

Elite Dropouts

This chapter examines how elite private schools rejected the Advanced Placement (AP) program. Advanced Placement emerged in large part from the labors of a small cadre of representatives from privileged private schools and colleges. A one-line version of its original mission was to ease the transition of high achievers from prep schools into Ivy League institutions and colleges, giving those kids a leg up—literally “advanced placement”—on their baccalaureate studies based on college-level work that they completed during high school. Today, AP can be found in many places and, while solid scores on its exams still denote serious academic accomplishment in high school, that is no longer exceptional. One need not enroll in a posh prep school to participate in AP. What does this mean for elite private schools? In practice, it means that a handful of them have in various ways distanced themselves from AP—and their number is likely to grow, albeit in slightly hypocritical fashion. At the postsecondary level, it means that selective colleges, again mainly the private kind, are making it harder to earn credit via AP exams—and much harder to shorten one's time to degree.

Creativity Class

The last three decades have seen a massive expansion of China's visual culture industries, from architecture and graphic design to fine art and fashion. New ideologies of creativity and creative practices have reshaped the training of a new generation of art school graduates. This is the first book to explore how Chinese art students develop, embody, and promote their own personalities and styles as they move from art school entrance test preparation, to art school, to work in the country's burgeoning culture industries. The book shows the connections between this creative explosion and the Chinese government's explicit goal of cultivating creative human capital in a new “market socialist” economy where value is produced through innovation. Drawing on years of fieldwork in China's leading art academies and art test prep schools, the book combines ethnography and oral history with analyses of contemporary avant-garde and official art, popular media, and propaganda. Examining the rise of a Chinese artistic vanguard and creative knowledge-based economy, the book sheds light on an important facet of today's China.