Topic 5: Hidden Curriculum Flashcards
What is the hidden curriculum?
The norms and values taught indirectly through school processes, teachers and managers.
Does everyone accept the hidden curriculum?
Nope.
Some accept it unquestionably whilst others reject it (Paul Willis).
What is the functionalist view on the hidden curriculum?
They value it as it helps foster cooperation, competition and the meritocratic spirit.
Are all theorists favourable of the hidden curriculum?
NO.
Marxists, feminists, and anti-racists disapprove of how it justifies and reproduces ruling class, male, or white dominance.
What dod Cotton, Winter and Bailey (2013) state about the hidden curriculum in contemporary education?
Places highest value on hard work, efficiency, and value for money, rather than equality and opportunity.
There are token attempts to promote equality, contrasted with continual emphasis on hard work - shows the true message of education.
What are ways in which the hidden curriculum is transmitted?
- Hierarchy of management.
- Insistence on punctuality (correspondence).
- Uniform imposes school’s identity over the individual’s.
- Classroom organisation: pupils look up to teacher; teacher looks down.
- Teacher expectations over certain groups.
How can the hidden curriculum be detected in the organisation of schools?
Cotton, Winter, and Bailey found that geography courses promote sustainability, whilst the schools and unis did not adhere to this due to cost and convenience concerns.
What is Giroux’s (1984) view of the hidden curriculum?
A neo-Marxist, he believes that schools do NOT transmit one unambiguous message as they are sites of ideological struggle.
Some teachers may emphasise certain rules, whilst others don’t - lead to other informal messages.
How can one summarise the hidden curriculum?
It shapes experiences and outcomes within schools; some positive, some negative, and some challenged.
They encourage certain beliefs whilst discouraging others.
