This paper reports the findings from the Scottish Independent Schools Project (SISP), developed to complement a range of other case studies supported by the Schools and Social Capital Network of the Applied Educational Research Scheme (AERS) in Scotland, which focused largely on ‘disadvantaged’ groups or communities. SISP, in contrast, sought to explore how social and other capitals work in and through a more privileged setting – that of independent schooling in Scotland. The assumption was that better understanding of the reproduction of privilege would assist understanding of inequalities in education with possible policy implications. Social capital embraces the idea that social networks are valuable assets for individuals and societies, and is one of a number of ‘capitals’ defined by Lin (2001, p.3) as ‘investment of resources with expected returns in the marketplace’. A preliminary analysis of independent school websites showed how such schools represent themselves utilising various capitals, revealing also the complexity of their categorisation. Case studies were then carried out of three independent schools involving the collection of data by means of document analysis, observations, interviews, focus groups and questionnaires. Case studies of three Scottish independent schools were undertaken. The main research question was ‘How do social and other capitals work in and through independent schooling in Scotland?’. The project worked with two theoretical approaches linked to the concept of social capital. The first draws on the work of Putnam (1993, 1995, 2000), Coleman (1988) and Woolcock (1998) to analyse bonding, bridging and linking as sub-types of social capital. This position argues for the building up of social capital in/through, for example, commitment to and support for family relations, community organisations and civic participation (Coleman, 1988; Putnam, 2000). The second social capital approach utilised was derived from Bourdieu (1977, 1986, 1991, 2003, with Wacquant 1992), and was used in the project to develop the notion of intersecting ‘multiple capitals’ (for example, economic, social, cultural, reputational, national, cosmopolitan). Bourdieu views the stock of such capitals as a zero sum game, in the sense that capital is limited and differentially distributed, and is used by elites to reproduce existing relations and practices of power. Other capitals were also taken up, such as ‘national capital’, developed in relation to the Scottish nation by McCrone (2005). A further interest was the impact of globalization, and the extent to which the case-study schools are constructed as Scottish, British or cosmopolitan.

For each case-study, data collection involved: • Examination of school documentation, including prospectus, promotional materials, websites, yearbooks etc.; • Interviews with heads and/or senior members of the school management team; • Interviews with (5) teachers in each school, including the head of sport/ physical education; • Tour of school and observations of use of space; • Observations of daily routines such as assemblies, refectory-use, beginning/end of school day; • Questionnaire completed by all Year 8 /S2 students; • Focus groups with 2 groups of Year 8 /S2 students; The websites were analysed for common characteristics with the aim of distinguishing the different usages of capitals by the schools. The interview, questionnaire and focus group were analysed using N-vivo. The questionnaire responses to the school question ‘School is like a….’ were analysed and emergent themes noted. The observational data and field-note data also underwent analysis through a capitals lens.

• Scottish independent schools are differentiated. • Social capital was a feature of the schools: utilisation of intra-school bonding norms, networks and connections. • Investment of large range of capitals (cultural, cosmopolitan), development of privileged ‘spatio-temporalities’ linked to production of advantage. • The websites invoked specific interpretations of school-group networks, norms and values; in social capital terms, the trust in which the particular school was held by fractions of Scottish society. • Distinct ‘gender regimes’ linked to different capitals. The single-sex schools demonstrated gender convergence in terms of subject choices and educational/career aspirations. The co-educational school had a more traditional gender regime in which boys constituted the ‘normal’ subject within the school. • The case-study schools utilised/developed cosmopolitan capital, but also used national capital in strategic ways. • Issues of access for research purposes to the independent sector provided some insights into how capitals work in the sector.