McMegan:
Actually, I think it's really useful to understand how you're shaped by class, money, and the social capital of your parents. I've thought long and hard about whether I'd send kids to the kind of exclusive private school I attended. On the one hand, the education I got seemed to be noticeably better than that received even by Penn classmates who had gone to marquee public schools in affluent suburbs. On the other hand, going to private school doesn't just give you funny ideas about money and class; it gives you funny ideas about money and class that you don't even know you have...
Privilege describes how much scope your parents bequeathed you to shape your destiny. This operates in multiple and often subtle ways. It can be reading in the home, or a peer group carefully selected (usually through real estate purchase) to ensure that you "choose" to go to a competitive college instead of dropping out of high school and selling drugs. Or it might be the way having affluent, stable families enables people like me to opt for high-status, low-paying, personally enriching careers, because we know that if something really awful happens, our families can help out.
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