Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Producing success -- Community, home, and school settings -- The Wilton way: middle-class culture and practice -- Parental support, interventions, and manipulations of policy -- The role of the school: institutional advantaging -- Student identity and practice -- Identities for control and success: the acquisition of psychological capital -- Teaching the "point-hungry" student: hypercredentialing in practice -- Costs of personal advancement -- "Generation stress" and school success -- Alienation, marginalization, and incivility -- Conclusions -- Appendix: WBHS 2002 student survey.

The result of four years at Midwestern "Wilton High," this book seeks to understand the merciless, competitive culture of an upper-middle-class American high school, showing the various things parents, students and community members do to secure different kinds of advantages for themselves and their families.