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The relationship of elite schools to economic capital is central to understanding the maintenance of their cultural power and institutional longevity. Since Glennerster and Wilson's analysis in 1970, there has been little analysis of how private schools in England manage their wealth or how they are differentiated hierarchically by the composition and scale of the capital they hold. Research has explored the financing of elite universities, with less attention on schools. Using detailed Charities Commission financial data, I examine the finances of 216 English private schools in the Head Masters' Conference association. The analysis entails a Principal Components Analysis followed by a Hierarchical Clustering on the Principal Components to reveal the economic hierarchy amongst elite schools in England. I then draw on the schools' published accounts to examine this hierarchy further. These analyses show how the economic field of elite schools is dominated by just five schools with almost unassailable levels of wealth in property, investments and fees. Beneath them sit a wealthy group with smaller capital holdings and more diverse incomes including lucrative satellite campuses in Asia. These wealthier schools are largely boarding schools located in southern England. The provincial day schools of northern England and less prestigious boarding schools have much lower incomes and almost total reliance on tuition fees. Proximity to and control over capital allow schools to maintain their dominance, underlining how the material basis for elite cultural and class power in and over education is ultimately economic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the English educational state has consistently acted to support private schooling in areas where fee-paying schools would be otherwise financially unviable. Educational data on private school participation since the 2008 financial crisis reveals the stark regional divides between London and the South-East of England and the rest of the country. This analysis of contemporary trends is framed within a historical understanding of the spatial dualism of the English middle class in relation to education. The paper traces the policy lineages of the spatial logic of state subsidies for elite models of schooling in northern England, noting the continuity between Direct Grant grammar schools, the Assisted Places scheme and the recent conversion of private schools into state-funded academy or free schools. A review of applications from private schools to become free schools highlights, how differentiated local class structures affect the viability of elite education without state support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the rise of a new elite of 'super‐state' schools in London, revealing a growing divide within the state sector which problematizes claims that the capital is a 'hotspot' for social mobility (Social Mobility Commission). Although recent research has revealed a 'London effect' in which students in the capital on Free School Meals outperform their peers in other regions (Greaves, Macmillan and Sibieta), inequalities between London's schools in access to elite universities have been overlooked. Drawing on a case study of a suburban London grammar school, 'King Henry's School', I show how ethnic‐minority suburbanization has combined with an institutional strategy to compete with elite private schools. Strategies of selection have been mobilized alongside elements of elite 'gentlemanly' educational culture in order to reposition the school within the hierarchy of London's schools. The result is a hyper‐selective school which provides a conduit to elite universities for upwardly mobile British‐Asian students. I show that this strategy has strong parallels with the school's attempts in the early twentieth century to compete with London's fee‐paying 'public' schools. The continuing symbolic value of 'traditional' forms of elite educational culture to a school seeking to reposition itself within the field reflects deep structural patterns of inequality in English education. To understand how apparent improvements in social mobility can sit alongside deepening inequalities between state schools, there is a need for a historical sociological approach that takes account of long‐term processes of institutional change (Savage ; Inglis). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]