Hidden Curriculum and its significance in Class room situation Dr.Goutam Patra

INTRODUCTION School curriculum is generally accepted as an explicit, conscious, formally planned course with specific objectives. Hidden curriculum‟ that includes values, intergroup relations and celebrations that enables students‟ socialization process. For many years, hidden curriculum theorists have tended to focus on how students experience an „unwritten curriculum‟.

 Various studies have been conducted on review of hidden curriculum theories.  

1.       Drebeen (1968) argues that each student has different parental background and when each attends to school, he/she  encounters the norms of schools that will prepare them to involve in the life of public sphere(s). He defines these norms as „independence‟, „achievement‟, „universalism‟, and „specificity‟ and suggested that these norms are required to teach them in order to collaborate with modern industrial society.

2.       Lynch (1989) argues that schools have universalistic and particularistic hidden aspects that enable an unequal environment for students. Although some of them are visible such as syllabuses, school time and exam procedures that might be accepted as universalistic, some of them are hidden such as social activities, reward systems that might be accepted as particularistic.

3.       Giroux (2001) identifies hidden curriculum as what is being taught and how one learns in the school as he also indicates that schools not only provides instruction but also more such as norms and principles experienced by students throughout their education life.

4.       Margolis (2001) argues that hidden curriculum, the school and classroom life, is the reproduction of schooling that enables to understand schools‟ hegemonic function(s) that also maintains power of state. The works of former researchers will be summarized in the following paragraphs in detail. In that context, citing Margolis,

5.       Emile Durkheim observes that more is taught and learned in schools than specified in the established curriculum of textbooks and teacher manuals. Even though it is not directly mentioned as „hidden curriculum‟, this refers to hidden curriculum. In Moral Education Durkheim (1961) writes: "In fact, there is a whole system of rules in the school that predetermine the child‟s conduct. He must come to class regularly, he must arrive at a specified time and with an appropriate bearing and attitude. He must not disrupt things in class. He must have learned his lessons, done his homework, and have done so reasonably well, etc. There are, therefore, a host of obligations that the child is required to shoulder. Together they constitute the discipline of the school. It is through the practice of school discipline that we can inculcate the spirit of discipline in the child".

6.       Accordingly, Philip Jackson (1968) enhances the meaning of the term „hidden curriculum‟ in his book “Life in Classrooms” where he identified features of classroom life that were inherent in the social relations of schooling. According to his analysis, there were values, dispositions, and social and behavioral expectations that brought rewards in school for students and that learning what was expected as a feature of the hidden curriculum

7.       Margolis (2001) notes that the works of Durkheim, Jackson and Dreeben collected under the heading of consensus theory, provides the foundation for the general definition of the hidden curriculum as the elements of socialization that take place in school. However, it is not the formal curriculum in school. These include the norms, values and the belief systems throughout the curriculum, the school and classroom life. Students are informed the formers through daily routines, curricular content, and social relationships. Although this approach provides the foundation for the general properties of the hidden curriculum and confirms that schools exist to serve the interests of the larger society

8.       Vallance (1973) notes that there are three dimensions of hidden curriculum: (I) Contexts of schooling, including the student-teacher interaction unit, classroom structure, and the whole organizational pattern of .the educational establishment as a microcosm of the social value system. (2) Processes operating in or through schools, including values acquisition, socialization, and maintenance of class structure. (3) Degrees of intentionality and depth of „hiddenness‟ by the investigator. She claims that there might be unintended outcomes of schooling; however, these outcomes may not be nearly as unintended as one thinks (Arieh, 1991).

9.       Another theorist Martin (1976), defines hidden curriculum as a set of learning states, ultimately one must find out what is learned as a result of the practices, procedures, rules, relationships, structures, and physical characteristic which constitute a given setting. Therefore, a hidden curriculum cannot be found directly just for seeking, the researcher should examine it and search for reasons behind the events.

To sum up, the hidden curriculum as a socialization of schooling can be identified by the social interactions within an environment. Thus, it is in process at all times, and serves to transmit tacit messages to students about values, attitudes and principles. Hidden curriculum can reveal through an evaluation of the environment and the unexpected, unintentional interactions between teachers and students which revealed critical pedagogy.

 Significance and  Practical Implications:

 Sometimes, teachers positively use hidden curriculum without awareness through their behaviors and methods of teaching in the classroom. However, some teachers purposely use the hidden curriculum because they are aware of this kind of curriculum and its influences and results. Teachers want to teach their students several knowledges, beliefs, and experiences, but they cannot do this for some reasons. For instant, teachers can not teach these items for their students because these are not parts of the regular curriculum, so they implicit what they want to teach through the hidden curriculum of teaching approaches consisting learner centered ideology. In addition, when teachers wants to teach and develop the skills and languages of their students, but they do not have enough time to do this directly by the regular curriculum. As a result, they can use this type of curriculum. For example, they use the collaborative learning and give their students opportunities to interact each other to improve students’ language and skills through indirect way that similarity of Vygotsky’s ideology of development the language. Sometimes, I have used the hidden curriculum in education and dealing with my daughter when she was three years and until now. This means I want to send indirectly positive messages to my daughter, so I send these messages through the implicit curriculum. For example, I want to encourage her to share her friends playing with her toys, so I talk with her father about this matter and ask her about her opinion after expressing my agreement of sharing with my friends and giving example of it.

 In short, the hidden curriculum is an important curriculum in the school because it has strong and effective influence in the students in many ways. However, it can be issue of the school’s staff, especially teachers who do not use this type of curriculum effectively and positively. Therefore, schools or professional educators should prepare many courses about hidden curriculum importance and how work with it and provide teachers with these knowledge and skills. Indeed, schools have to recognize the importance of hidden curriculum with its advantages and disadvantage, so they work to improve students’ behavior and believe through hidden curriculum.

References:

1.        Cornbleth, C. (1984). Beyond hidden curriculum. Journal of Curriculum Studies 16 (1):29–36. 2.

2.       Jerald, C.D. (2006). School Culture: The Hidden Curriculum. Washington, DC: The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement. It retrieved from www.centerforcsri.org 3.

3.       Myles, B.S., Trautman, M., & Shelvan, R. (2004). Asperger Syndrome and the Hidden Curriculum. Shawnee Mission, KS: Autism Asperger Publishing Company. Schiro, M. S. (2008). Curriculum theory: Conflicting visions and enduring concern. Los Angeles: S

4.        M. W. (2004). Ideology and Curriculum, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. APPLE, M. W. (1982). Education and Power.

5.        Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul. DREEBEN, R. (1967). On What is Learned in School. London: Addison-Wesley.

6.        DURKHEIM, E (1961). Moral Education. New York: Free Press. GIROUX, H. A. (2001). Theory and Resistance in Education. London:

7.       Bergin&Garvey. GORDEN, L. (1984) ‟Paul Willis - Education, Cultural Production and Social Reproduction‟, British Journal of Sociology of Education, vol.5, 105-115.

8.       JACKSON, P., W. (1968). Life in Classrooms. New York: Holt, Reinhart & Winston.

9.        LEWY, A. (1991). The International Encyclopedia of Curriculum. New York: Pergamon Press, 41-42.

10.   LYNCH, K. (1989). The Hidden Curriculum: Reproduction in Education, A Reappraisal. London: The Flamer Press.

11.   MARGOLIS, E. (Edit). (2001). The Hidden Curriculum in Higher Education. New York&London: Routledge. VALLANCE, E. (1973).