Catlin Gabel School’s commitment to social justice overlooks education about privilege
By Aarushi Phalke ‘20
Students at Catlin Gabel School hold differing opinions on education around privilege. Illustration by Lauren Mei Calora ‘20 and Aarushi Phalke ‘20
Most Catlin Gabel School (CGS) students benefit from systems of power, and students could leave the institution furthering social inequities without proper education about their privilege.
CGS defines privilege in their glossary of inclusion terms as “systemic access to unearned advantages, resources, and opportunities which come at the expense of others.”
CGS is an example of an elite community, with a majority white student body and three-quarters of students paying full tuition to attend the school located in a wealthy suburb of Portland. Despite its elite nature, the school makes efforts to educate students on social justice and teach tolerance by increasing diversity and inclusion.
“We value the diversity of our students, families, faculty, and staff… To that end we actively work to create inclusive classrooms and community spaces and we encourage our students to engage in the greater Portland community in a reciprocal fashion,” the school states on the CGS website.
CGS encourages community engagement in and out of the classroom, which Iowa State University assistant professor Katy Swalwell describes as “work to disrupt rather than reproduce inequalities” in her article about the education of students in privileged communities titled ‘“With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility’ Privileged Students’ Conceptions of Justice-Oriented Citizenship.”
According to Swalwell’s framework, justice-oriented privileged students can act as allies. The CGS glossary of inclusion terms defines an ally as “someone who recognizes their privilege, and works in solidarity with marginalized groups in the struggle for social justice.”
The first step in allyship is to place oneself within systems of power. In elite communities where people already have access to social and financial power, this results in education around privilege and the responsibility it entails to produce justice-oriented members of society.
In conversations about justice and equity, the focus on marginalized voices can often take attention away from people with a lot of power.
“Those of us who are committed to social justice often direct our attention toward those with disadvantages and rarely do we focus the same on those with advantages,” said Adam Howard, a professor of education at Colby College, in an interview over email. “Elite institutions often do the same - even those that publicly state that they are committed to equity and inclusion.”
Howard’s areas of expertise include social class issues in education and elite schooling for affluent youth.
“There are many things in the lives of privileged people that protect their privilege by keeping it unacknowledged,” said Howard.
One example of how privilege can be hidden is through a disconnect between people with privilege and people who are more disenfranchised. CGS is an example of disconnect where the majority of students have financial and social power.
“Affluent families tend to live in highly segregated communities, which means their children attend hyper-segregated suburban, charter, and/or private schools, where they have little exposure to students from other racial groups, political ideologies, or economic backgrounds,” Indiana University assistant professor Quentin Wheeler-Bell wrote in an article titled, “Educating the Elite: A Social Justice Education for the Privileged Class.”
The disconnect gives students a false notion of what the larger world is like outside of their cloistered community, and allows students to avoid confronting their privilege.
“While the struggles of students and teachers in marginalized communities rightly receive much attention… children from elite communities… are likely to have access to a disproportionate amount of political, social, and economic power,” Swalwell wrote in her article.
Without a proper focus on the ways CGS students benefit from systems of power, students could leave the institution and further social inequities by denying their privilege.
So how well does CGS educate its students about their privilege? Recent graduates have mixed answers when they responded to a survey prompting them about their experiences at CGS. Some respondents chose to give their names while others chose to remain anonymous.
“Privilege’ is a loaded and divisive word,” said a 1987 graduate who did not believe that CGS should be educating students about their privilege.
Privilege can be tied to constant aspects of identity, such as race or gender. Other privileges can be tied to circumstance, such as socioeconomic status or body shape. All of these privileges however, actively impact how one goes through experiences.
The reason why many believe privilege to be divisive is this idea that the way people identify gives them unfair advantages in society. However, it is the power and abilities one receives with that identifying factor that gives someone privilege. In the example of race, it is not a person’s whiteness that creates inequity, but rather how whiteness is perceived in American society.
Understanding one’s identity as a set of aspects that hold social, political, and economic power is essential towards understanding how one forms opinions.
“We need to be able to at least recognize what is shaping our view of the world and how it is doing so in order to be informed citizens,” said Culla Galaher, Class of 2018.
CGS does take moments to encourage students to reflect on their learning at school and how that connects with the way they identify.
“I think that a lot of the coursework I did (particularly the Palma seminar) helped me to gain an academic understanding of my place in society,” said a 2018 graduate.
Yet some graduates do not believe that CGS taught them about their privilege at all.
“I can't immediately recall any school organized events that led me to more fully realize the range and extent of [my] privilege. Diversity Conference came the closest, but discussions of privilege were more tangential than central,” wrote a 2019 graduate.
These differing opinions on whether or not CGS teaches students about their privilege comes down to the way the subject is taught.
“There are multiple frameworks for teaching privileged students to think more critically about their privilege. The most effective frameworks are ones that transform privileged students' understandings,” said Howard. “There are many frameworks out there that just allow privileged students to gain new knowledge. But they don't develop or transform understandings.”
At CGS, students avoid confronting their privilege in a transformative way through self-segregation and denying that their privilege exists.
“Catlin seems to talk a big game in the social justice department, but we mostly just learned/read/talked about it and didn't get very involved past that,” wrote Galaher.
On the CGS Diversity and Inclusion page of the website, the only mention of privilege occurs in discussion of intersectionality.
“We understand that diversity goes well beyond race so our students are exposed to the concept of intersectionality, understanding that all people have facets of identity that give them power in this society and all people may have facets of their identity that may take that power away,” states the website.
Without a recognition of the ways CGS lacks diversity, privilege remains unacknowledged.
“I think the school tries, but may be lost in their messaging and image sometimes. This is difficult to navigate; sometimes this approach frustrates students who don’t buy in as much,” said Andrei Stoica, Class of 2019.
Some graduates believe they have more awareness of their power in society than most, but they claim that is due to entering an even more elite institution after graduating from CGS.
“I am in some positions here at NYU that give me immense privilege compared to other students. At the same time, there are some insanely privileged kids here as well. Stratification of wealth is really apparent in NYC/NYU specifically,” wrote Stoica.
Yet many graduates claim that they are exposed to more diversity in the elite institutions they attend after high school.
“Putting it very simply, [CGS] is a bubble,” said Riya Sivakumar, Class of 2019. “And while I have just barely escaped that bubble by attending a small private liberal arts school, I feel like I have significantly more awareness of my own privilege/power systems since leaving. In my first few months of college, I have interacted with people with significantly different experiences than my own.”
The lack of diversity at CGS is influenced by the demographics of Portland, Oregon. Portland is known to be the “whitest city in America,” with a dark racist history and persisting racial homogeneity within the city population. This also plays a role in terms of exclusivity and privilege at CGS.
“Learning about privilege is especially important in Portland,” said Levi Mindlin, Class of 2019.
CGS is not a representative microcosm of American society, with underrepresentation of certain identities on campus and overrepresenation of certain privileged identities, such as high socioeconomic status.
As a school that says it is inclusive and equity-focused, CGS needs to teach all students–not just those who are more marginalized–about their identities, including the many privileges and advantages they may benefit from.