Elite Schools in International Education Markets in East Asia: Emerging Patterns, Successes and Challenges

There has been growing academic interest in elite schools in recent years with a focus on the various educational benefits they offer students relative to their non-elite school counterparts (see Cookson and Persell, 2009; Gaztambide-Fernández, 2009; Howard, 2008; Kenway and Fahey, 2014; Khan, 2013; Koh, 2014; McCarthy et al., 2014; Weis, 2014; Wright and Lee, 2014a, 2014b). In particular, McCarthy and Kenway (2014: 169) describe studying at an elite school as like travelling with a first class airline ticket where once ‘you are on board, you have just about the best of everything’. Furthermore, the function of elite schools has been viewed as providing a socialization process for entry to what Mills (1956) called ‘the power elite’ in society.