The Hidden curriculum



overview of the hidden curriculum



The term 'Hidden Curriculum' was first used by sociologist Philip Jackson in 1968, although the concept has been around longer.  Jackson argues that what is taught in schools is more than the sum total of the curriculum.  He thought that school should be understood as a socialisation process where students pick up messages through the experience of being in school, not just from things that they are explicitly taught. 

A recent definition of a hidden curriculum was given by Meighan ("A Sociology of Education", 1981):

The hidden curriculum is taught by the school, not by any teacher...something is coming across to the pupils which may never be spoken in the English lesson or prayed about in assembly. They are picking-up an approach to living and an attitude to learning.

Basically, school socialisation teaches us the "correct" norms and values that will teach us how to act when we go to the workplace so that we will fit in with everyone else in society.

Here is an interesting extract from an article by the Guardian:

"Given that people constantly pick up messages from their environment, it is clear that the way a school is designed, the materials used, and its subsequent maintenance and cleanliness has an influential role in education.  A building that looks and feels like a prison has one kind of impact, whilst a light and airy, inviting building has another.  The school building sends out a message to pupils and staff about how much they are valued and also about how much their education is valued.  This is an important consideration to have in mind when negotiating the school design process."

I found this interesting because recently The Marsh Academy has built a new school building that it much cleaner, has better maintanence and has been designed in a "better" way than the ol building. Therefore, according to this article the hidden curriculum will drastically change because students will feel more "valued" and therefore the hidden curriculum may make them aim for better jobs in the workplace and it could also alter thier norms and values.





Correspondence theory



Bowles and Gintis

correspondence theory- Bowles and Gintis claim that there is a close correspondence between the social relationships in the classroom and those in the workplace. This correspondence is essential for social reproduction- the reproduction of new generations of workers appropriately schooled to accept thier roles in capitalist society.

School and workplace- Schools, like the wider society, are based on hierachies-layers of authority. Teachers give orders, pupils are expected to obey. Pupils have little control over thier work or over the curriculum that they follow. This corresponds to thier later experience of a lack of control within the workplace. Schools reward punctuality, obedience and hard work; they discourage creativity, independance and critical awareness. This is directly linked to how employers treat employees in the work place.

Basically all of this means that the way you are made to think and learn in school is how you will think and learn in the workplace but also that if you are from a higher class background you are more likely to be noticed by teachers and get more attention which can result in these people having a higher chance to succeed and get a better job than a lower class student.

Gender and education

feminist poster

Feminist have been highlighting gender inequalities within education since the 1960's,for example:

Gendered language- usually, school text books tend to use "he", "him" and "his" when referring to a person or people, this results in women feeling invisible or downgraded.

Gendered roles- most school texbooks portray women as having traditional stereotypical roles such as mothers or housewives.

Gender stereotypes- people found that in reading schemes, for example in the 1970s showed:
. Boys being presented as more adventurous than girls
. Boys being physically stronger
. Boys having more choices
. Girls being more interested in domestic matters

Nowadays girls actually out-perform boys in nearly every subject area whereas boys used to outperform girls in most subject area, feminists might believe that this could be due to the fact that boys and girls are treated more equally compared to before. Some people might even think the discrimination has been completely turned around and now girls are actually treated better than boys.