Processes

• The hidden curriculum is the informal teaching done in schools that socialises children to societal norms.
• Introduction

  • There are certain factors within schools (internal factors) that influence the student and teacher experience of education.
  • The factors include subcultures, pupil identities, and organisation
• idden curriculum

  • The hidden curriculum prepares children for the adult world.
  • Children learn how to deal with bureaucracy, rules, expectations, waiting for their turn, and sitting still for hours during the day.
  • Schools in different cultures socialise children differently to prepare them to function well in those cultures.
• School ethos

  • The ethos of a school refers to specific things that make up the particular character of the school.
  • For example, schools might emphasise high academic success or pupil wellbeing; they might hold specific religious values or encourage parental involvement.
• Ethos/hidden curriculum

  • School ethos is also often referred to as the ‘hidden curriculum’, which includes things such as school uniform, school rules, ability grouping and school assemblies.
• Labelling and stereotyping, as well as wider teacher-pupil interactions, can influence the construction of positive and negative pupil self-concepts (pupil identities).
• Stereotypes

  • Stereotypes held by teachers might include labels such as bright or slow learner, conformist or disruptive, hard working or lazy.
  • These stereotypical impressions can result in teachers making assumptions about pupils that are often wrong.
  • For example, assuming that a 'well-behaved' pupil is also 'hardworking'.
• The ‘halo effect’

  • This phenomenon is known as the ‘halo effect’.
  • Waterhouse (2004), carried out a case study of four primary and secondary schools, finding that teacher labelling of pupils as either normal/average or deviant types (as a result of impressions formed over time) has implications for the way teachers interact with pupils.
• Waterhouse

  • Once these labels are applied and become the dominant categories for pupils, they can become what Waterhouse terms a ‘pivotal identity’ for students.
  • That is, a core identity providing a pivot that teachers then use to interpret and reinterpret classroom situations and student behaviour.
• 'Pivotal identities’

  • These ‘pivotal identities’ can then lead to various pupil responses, including conflict, confrontations and the formation of a range of pro-social and anti-social subcultures.
• Schools have hierarchies (with teachers above students)

  • Students learn to respect authority.
• To wear uniform

  • Students learn the importance of dressing smartly and sticking to dress codes.
• The importance of punctuality

  • This prepares student to turn up to work and other events on time
• Misbehaving incurs punishment

  • This teaches students the importance of following orders.