The Hidden Curriculum and Teacher Control Douglas Fleming

The Hidden Curriculum and Teacher Control Douglas Fleming Faculty of Education University of Ottawa

the hidden curriculum (Jackson) construction of subject identity and power governmentality (Foucault) Canadian Language Benchmarks LINC

Many studies/ theoretical frameworks have described what sts learn outside of formal classroom content. Blumberg & Blumberg (1994): the unwritten curriculum Eisner (1985): the null curriculum Jackson (1968): the hidden curriculum sts do not simply learn subject matter within classrooms; sets of implicit rules and the privileging of certain kinds of knowledge and classroom behavior; limited resources provided to individual students; the denial of desire and social distractions; the contradictory roles played by teachers and administrators unequal power relations found within schools.

deference to the authority of the teacher; what forms of knowledge are considered authoritative; the ways in which ownership of knowledge is represented; the valid ways in which this knowledge can be assessed; the valid ways in which student progress is measured; when it is permissible to speak; who is permitted to speak; how one’s physical presence affects one’s classroom role;

how behavior affects the ways in which punishment and penalties are allotted; how labels are used to reinforce social control; how conformity to recognized forms of social interaction brings long-term success; how non-conformity brings long-term penalties; and the need to suffer through short-term discomfort, humiliation and boredom in order to gain the long-term benefits of officially recognized educational success.

Bowles and Gintis (1976): schools replicate power relations in the outside world by perpetuating a hierarchical division of labor between administrators, teachers and students in ways that alienate and fragment the work that goes on within the institution. This underscores the point made by Bullivant (1987) that “the differences in social, racial, ethnic and class backgrounds that students bring to schools are maintained or magnified as a result of their interaction with its organizational structures” (p. 15). Giroux (1981): schools are “agents of legitimation, organized to produce and reproduce the dominant categories, values, and social relationships necessary for the maintenance of the larger society” (p. 72).

However, it is important to note the complexity of this aspect of the hidden curriculum: Paul Willis (1977) examined how a group of working class boys developed a counter culture within their school as a form of resistance. In this situation, power was a force not simply imposed from above. The boys both replicated and countered the dominant discourses within the institution in complex ways. The replication of societal power is not a simple process.

Lynch (1989) and Connell (1982) examined how the curricula used in particular schools were differently framed according to the gender and class of the students the teachers faced. Anyon (1980) noted how teachers used the same curriculum material in different ways according to the socio-economic neighborhood the various schools in her study served. This echoes Apple’s (1979) contention that curriculum knowledge is divided in to various levels of status, according to the socio-economic background (and other identity markers) of the students in question.

Hargreaves (1989) noted that since the 1970’s "assessment, more than curriculum or pedagogy, has been the prime focal point for educational change” (p. 41). Assessment and testing tend to restrict the choices that teachers have because we are increasingly being pressured to ‘teach to the test’, even when these standardized tests are becoming increasingly irrelevant. This reflects the way assessment has become that aspect of the hidden curriculum that is used to control teachers. An concrete example of how Foucault’s concept of governmentality operates in the context of the complexity of subject identity construction and power relations.