Sociology seminar – Thursdays

Time: 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm 
Date: 29 Febuary 2024
Place: room 3105

ZOOM LINK: https://zoom.us/j/97022088673?pwd=c0lkazlob2hIWE5zU2pnMlNpem5udz09 

Caroline Bertron (Université Paris 8) – Educating the Wealth Elite. Studying Social Class and Schools with Economic Sociology

Abstract:

In this presentation I wish to offer an overview of my research on Swiss international boarding schools by focusing on how I used economic sociology to study class, the formation of privilege and elite schools’ social history. The presentation will first draw on results taken from my doctoral thesis regarding the construction of a local market of entrepreneurially-driven elite schools since the 19th c., and how they embraced a financial turn in the 2000s. Secondly, I will present how the successive publics of these economically elite schools reflect wider changes among global elites. I will finally address how these schools are specific places for the economic socialization of wealthy inheritors. The presentation will rely on ethnographic materials (2012-2014), archives and the related student and school databases I constructed.

Organizers: Annina Cleasson, Paola Tubaro, Patrick Präg (CREST Sociology unit)

Sponsors: CREST