“We May Look Like Cream‐of‐the‐Crop Kids, but it's Tough Here”: Elite Identity, Emotional Burden, and Ethical Transgressions Among Students at an Elite High School

Abstract

This article explores the identity of students at an elite high school and how it contributes to privilege and inequality. Thirty‐two students from an elite high school in Israel were interviewed to examine two main questions: What characterizes these students' identity? How does their identity impact the cultivation and fostering of privilege and inequality? The findings identify three components of the elite student identity: (1) entitlement, as a natural experience of privilege and a developed awareness of rights; (2) the emotional burden of a competitive culture, leading to pressure to attain mind and body perfection and evoking feelings of hyper‐self‐consciousness; and (3) consequences of this burden, including pursuing corrective treatments, engaging in ethical transgressions and hazardous behaviors, and internal feelings of emptiness. The discussion interprets these characteristics of the elite student's identity in the context of their learning experience at an elite school, highlighting the consequences of these characteristics for cultivating and maintaining class privilege and social inequality.