ABSTRACT
A society’s values are manifest in the settings and circumstances of its institutions and
organizations where the business of its people is conducted. We gain access to different
perspectives depending on our focal point. Consider what can be learned about values by
exploring, for example, the workings of the military, the welfare establishment,
corporations, retirement homes, and transportation systems-to take a disparate lot by
way of illustration. We learn something important and different from each of these
vantage points. What each reveals is partial, overlapping, and sometimes at odds with
what we might learn from the others. My window to American Values is through schools
and what happens to children in them. More specifically, I reflect here on the
ramifications of elite schools.
