In the past few decades, a multi-billion-dollar “therapeutic boarding school” industry has emerged largely for America’s troubled upper-class youth. This article examines the experiences of privileged youth in a therapeutic boarding school to advance social restoration as a new form of social reproduction. Drawing on interviews and fieldwork inside a Western therapeutic boarding school for young men struggling with substance abuse, I explore how students leverage a stigmatized, addict identity in ways that can restore privilege. Findings suggest that students engage in social restoration by constructing an overarching restorative narrative that works through three mechanisms: (1) experiential reframing, (2) appropriated therapeutic discourse, and (3) boundary maintenance through “othering.” Using these narrative strategies, students are able to transform a stigma into a symbolic marker of character that they use to reclaim privileged positions and dominant roles. This process of social restoration illuminates previously unexamined issues at the intersections of power and privilege, stigma, and inequality.

中文翻译：

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任性的精英：从治疗寄宿制学校的社交繁殖到社交恢复

在过去的几十年中，数十亿美元的“治疗寄宿学校”产业已经出现，主要是为美国陷入困境的上流社会的青年人提供的。本文探讨了治疗性寄宿学校中特权青年的经历，以促进社会恢复作为一种新的社会再生产形式。借助西方治疗寄宿学校中针对滥用药物而苦苦挣扎的年轻男子的访谈和实地考察，我探索了学生如何以可以恢复特权的方式利用被污名化的瘾君子身份。研究结果表明，学生通过构建一种主要的恢复性叙事来参与社会恢复，该叙事通过三种机制起作用：（1）体验式重构，（2）适当的治疗性话语和（3）通过“ othering”进行边界维护。使用这些叙事策略，学生能够将污名化为品格的象征性标记，他们可以用来收回特权地位和主导角色。社会恢复的这一过程阐明了权力与特权，污名和不平等的交汇处以前未被审查的问题。