ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the development of school choice initiatives in both nations and explores the processes of elite education as they relate to what terms the publification of elite schooling, through which the production of eliteness is expanded beyond the traditional context of private education to include elite public school programmes. Drawing on examples of both specialized arts programmes in Canada and high performing urban charter schools in the USA, the examination of new patterns of exclusion operating through the discourse of choice that make inequality much less visible and actively misrecognise privilege and social advantage. In the USA, talent and interest-based discourses of choice became especially prominent in the 1970s and 1980s, when many systems implemented magnet schools in an attempt to promote racial integration and attract or retain white, middle-class students. Magnet schools usually feature a special theme or content focus, but are typically governed by a local school district.
