Forunderstanding the ways in which elite school students actively cultivate and maintain privilege as a component of their identity, this study relies on theoretical and empirical reports that suggest examining privilege as identity (Howard et al., 2014). Identity has been considered in terms of the descriptions by which individuals define themselves and offer accounts of themselves (MacLure, 1993). In line with post-structural approaches (Clarke, 2009) this definition of identity includes the personal, the social, and the political. This perspective does not underestimate the importance of privilege as an advantage that groups of people have over another, but emphasizes the connection between privilege and identity or privilege as a specific identity (Howard, 2010; Howard et al., 2014). The study examines two key questions: (1) How do high school students define and experience their identity? (2) Do these identities contribute to the production and maintenance of privilege, and if so, how? To resolve these questions, twenty high school students in elite schools in Israel, were interviewed.

Belonging to an elite school, which is often perceived as a privilege and marker of distinction, has been depicted, as a crucial influence on students' learning experience and identity (Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2009; Howard, 2008). Belonging to an elite school involves self-comprehension, which includes ways of knowing and acting in the world, and working in coordination with the set of justifications and legitimacies for students’ life advantages (Howard et al., 2014; Khan, 2011). In this context Khan argued that "Privilege is not something you are born with, it is something you develop and cultivate" (Khan, 2011, p. 15).

Several Studies have revealed that students in elite schools think in terms of traits, abilities, skills, and personal qualities (Howard, 2010; Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2009). Elite schools provide a wealth of resources and opportunities, such as unique curricula and access to prestigious colleges and universities, giving their students an advantage over students in other schools (Prosser, 2020). These educational experiences enable students to sustain academic success and predict a future of many opportunities for success (Demerath, 2009). These successes have been described by teachers and principals as an expression of meritocratic logic that is common in many elite educational arenas (Khan, 2011). Elite school students have reported that they deserve privileged status because of being intelligent and committed to the morals of challenging work and strict academic excellence (Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2009). Sense of Entitlement has been found to be fundamental to the establishment and maintenance of elite identities (Lareau, 2002). Researchers have described micro-interactive cultural processes associated with the development of a sense of entitlement (Calarco, 2011; Lareau & Weininger, 2003). Gaztambide-Fernandez and colleagues (2013) proposed that the sense of entitlement of students in elite schools is expressed through three components: belonging, alienation, and agency. Demonstrating entitlement was found involves cultivating a sense of ease that means meeting the expectations of the "best" effortlessly and while exhibiting a sense of control, ease, and naturalness. Self-comprehension that helps students internalize their identity and maintain their privileged status is also formed through the drawing of boundaries in relation to "others" who do not belong. students un elite school treated students belonging to the low SES and their families as lazy, indifferent to education, and making poor decisions as explanations for gaps in educational achievement (Maxwell & Aggleton, 2010). The actions of elite school students in relation to issues of social justice are based on this organizing principle of self-identity and the identity of the other. researchers described that the social work of elite students did not undermine the existing situation or strive to change the existing social reality (Howard & Kenway, 2015).

This qualitative study is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with 20 students in two elite high schools in Israel. The schools are usually populated by students from families of high socio-economic class and they boast graduates who hold key positions in Israel's legal, medical, academic, artistic, and economic elite. Participant recruitment was facilitated by four 10th-12th-grade homeroom teachers. The homeroom teachers posted an invitation in their WhatsApp groups of students and parents to participate in a study. The homeroom teachers encouraged their students and their parents to participate by explaining the importance of high school research for student well-being and organizational effectiveness. Five students volunteered to be interviewed in response to the homeroom teachers’ invitation. These students referred us to additional friends they thought would be interested in participating (snowball sampling). Participation in the study under 18 required parental consent. The interviews included questions regarding personal and school background; personal identity; culture and leisure; future orientation; the social situation in Israel reference to elite schools and their role in creating inequality. All students reported a close family member (usually a brother or sister) who had previously attended or is currently attending the school. Two-thirds of the students shared that at least one of their parents is a graduate of the school they are attending. To be admitted to the school, the students underwent a screening process that included several stages: examining academic achievements in previous schools, a personal interview, and tests in Hebrew language, in mathematics, and in English. The interviews, which lasted between 60-90 minutes, were recorded and transcribed. The research epistemology that guided us was Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA; Smith et al. 2009). IPA offers an analysis of personal lived experience, focusing on how individuals grant meaning to their personal and social life spheres. Thus, this analysis helps clarify how individuals understand their experiences in the world and elucidate their hermeneutic interpretations, actions, and sources of these understandings.

The main research findings are organized using four themes that express the elite identity or the privileged habitus of the students: three unique characteristics of sense of entitlement, sober pragmatism, a sense of best place, and apoliticism. The first finding, expresses the positive self-perception of the students and the sense of security that these positive perceptions matched the perceptions of the significant others in their lives. The third related to the sense of entitlement expressed by students and the awareness of their rights as elite subjects. The second finding, a sense of best place, reveal a sense of place that not only provides an existential experience of suitability for the field, but also creates and reinforces an experience of consecration, i.e., an experience of being separate, different, and sacred. The third finding, sober pragmatism related to the utilitarian decisions that the students have described in relation to various aspects of their lives. sober pragmatism is utilitarian knowledge or cultural capital that has characteristics reminiscent of the grit traits (Stitzlein, 2018), which help students plan their future and navigate their way toward staffing elite positions. The fourth finding apoliticism, expressed a strategic decision to dissociate from engaging in political issues and critical social consciousness, which depicted as weakening the elite individual and as characterizing disadvantaged subjects. Due to the prominent levels of class inequality in Israel, the preference for apoliticism as an expression of privileged habitus among the elite students begs for future research. It is likely that the elite students will serve as gate keepers. The apoliticism, along with the lack of programs dealing with social consciousness and inequality in elite schools may play a crucial role, as several researchers have noted (Howard, 2008; Seider, 2010), in the durability of inequality.

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