How Has Diversity Affected St. Pauls Students?

Shamus Kahn spent one year teaching at St. Paul’s School, a high school that is one of the wealthiest in the country. Shamus’ main interest was to observe how elites have shifted in the last 40 years. This interest was fueled by the fact that while there has been a demographic change in elite schools (more women and minorities enrolled), there are still big increases in inequality.
So how has increased diversity impacted St. Pauls’ students? Kahn discovered that it has caused a change in the way that these students classify themselves. 40 years ago, students would have considered themselves upper class, however now they tend to consider themselves “classless”. Instead, they consider themselves a group of talented and bright individuals. However,
In other words, “The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer.” Kahn argues this is a problem because if a student explains that they are in an elite institution because of hard work, and fails to mention that it is also due to the fact that their family invested in them and provided them with opportunity, it begins to explain other parts of society inaccurately. For example, this sort of argument would also claim that the reason as to why people are not in college is because they are lazy and unintelligent, which is simply not always true. Many other factors, such as SES, or an individuals position in a stratified social order, may contribute to a lack of upper-level
He believes that this overall has negative consequences on society. Kahn explains elite thinking as this: “I earn more because I deserve it. I deserve to be rewarded because I am doing what not many others can do. Without me, society would not function the same.” Hence, Kahn argues that elites behave differently in sense of overall responsibility to society. An example he gives is tax rate on high earners in society. In the 1960s the tax rate was 91% for high earners. This allowed redistribution of wealth and forced elites to be major contributors to society. Now, the tax rate is about 37%, and still, many elites argue that the tax rate should be lowered further. Some even argue that government should have no part in redistributing wealth and that it should be an individual choice. With this argument, elites are arguing that their responsibility to society should be in the form of philanthropy, or a personal choice to contribute money to specific causes. However, Kahn claims that the concept of “giving for themselves” will only have a negative impact on society as distribution of wealth becomes sparse and the elite continue to inflate their