"globalized" elite the next generation of P readers

[Paulo Freire]

At a place like Midwood, which draws on a less elite
population than city schools with admission exams, like the
traditional powerhouses Stuyvesant and the Bronx High
School of Science, the Intel contest provides the flame that
heats a new, high-tech version of the melting pot myth.
Many of the students competing for next year's prizes lived
just a few years ago in places like Uzbekistan, Ukraine,
Vietnam and Bangladesh, and English is often a second
language. Many come from households with difficult
financial or familial circumstances. Like a test-tube
version  of the teenage strivers immortalized in the movie
"Fame,"
they see the science-fair competitions as a path to
attention  and acclaim, to scholarship money and a better
college
education and, ultimately, to a better life. For many
students,  merely doing the research and producing a paper
is a
transforming experience.



http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000604mag-nerds.html