Education and Elites

Abstract

In this chapter we set out to survey the exciting field of the history of elite education – a subfield that intersects with the history of elite groups more generally, and with the history of education, but is owned outright by neither. The chapter begins by looking at ruptures and fusion in studies of educational institutions and global and transnational studies of elite education, consistent aspects of elite education now finally gaining traction in a field that was hitherto nation-focused. It then looks at the borderlands of elite education. In this second section, we survey new histories of domestic education of elite families and childhoods and ask questions of histories of gendered education now emerging. We end with some reflections on future directions, especially the possibilities afforded to historians by the advance of mass digitization of name-rich sources.