John Wakeford (1969) The Cloistered Elite: A Sociological Analysis of the English Public Boarding School, London: MacMillan

This excellent book takes Goffman’s theories of total institutions and applies them to a study conducted in boarding schools. It examines how children are systematically stripped of their individual identities and expected to conform to the regime of the school where they live and work seven days a week. It looks at how subcultures emerge from these arrangements and the consequences for the individual.

Available here.

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