Book 31 for 2009...

31. The best of the best: becoming elite at an American boarding school - Ruben A. Gaztambide-Fernandez. The book relates the results of an ethnographic study of the students at a New England prep school. In particular, it looks at social inequalities (race, class, gender) and how students from a wide variety of backgrounds and outlooks on life are able to find common ground and form a cohesive community. The formation of those bonds depends in no small part on each student's ability to internalize, validate and accept the part they each play in the community as a whole.