Transnational Class Formation in a School for the Global Elite

This thesis examines transnational class formation at the Leysin American School (LAS), a secondary boarding school in Switzerland. LAS is reputedly one of the most expensive schools in the world. It also educates an international cross-section of the financial elite. An emerging theory of class formation, put forward by Kenway et al. (2017), is that elite schools ‘choreograph’ this process. Practices and everyday experiences at LAS, however, suggest that another theory is needed to explain what is happening in that space. Importantly, Kenway et al.’s school sites are rooted in the former British empire, while LAS is informed by circulating images of Switzerland. ‘Choreography’ may therefore describe processes at some kinds of elite schools but not others. I thus proffer another, complementary theory. This theory is that class formation is ‘interpreted’. As another metaphor drawn from the performing arts, to ‘interpret’ in this context means to make a framework one’s own. In other words, I argue that at LAS, transnational class formation is a process adapted by institutional and student actors in ways that work for them. This case study of elite schooling is historical and sociological in nature. It draws from documentary, interview and observational data. The data were collected over 15 months in the field. My analyses use theoretical tools developed by anthropologist Aihwa Ong (1999). In particular, they employ her notions of ‘state strategies’ and ‘flexible citizens’ to make sense of LAS’s on-the-ground realities. This thesis makes a theoretical contribution to the field of elite school studies. Building another kind of theory through another type of school strengthens our understandings of both different processes of class formation and how they interconnect. It also suggests that we need to build an assemblage of theories around class formation. This is a significant addition to the existing literature