After pointing out the inadequacy of the terms elite or bourgeoisie to label those in possession of great wealth, this article maintains that the dominant classes are constantly constructing and mobilizing themselves in every way to assure their extended reproduction and their everyday coexistence with the aim of preserving and transmitting dominant positions to their descendents. Ideological development within the family and the school years are important elements in the process of class construction. Studies on schooling of class generally address universal education, stressing the problems that afflict the underprivileged population. The education of the dominant class is not often explored as a topic and the few studies available present original results, such as the instrumental relation to education, which would distinguish the case of Brazil from the strategies of affluent classes in economically more advanced countries. Brazil was found to have a lower standard of schooling for some parts of the dominant classes, as if power were so consolidated that they were able to renounce the symbolic resources provided by formal education. However, since the dominant classes are heterogeneous, they can make use of other strategies of schooling to guarantee their positions and their class reproduction.
schooling of dominant classes; school education of the wealthy; socialisation of dominant classes; wealth and education