Education - The hidden curriculum

• What is the formal curriculum 


  The subjects which are in the school timetable
• What does the national curriculum require

  Certain subjects such as maths and English to be taught in schools
• What is the hidden curriculum

  Informal messages that come from the way schooling is organised and run
• What do the hidden curriculum messages encourage students to do

  Develop a particular set of norms and values which they will take when they leave school
• What does the hidden curriculum teach and do

  Punctuality, respect for authority, team skills, organisation, conformity and control behaviour
• How do the functionalist view the hidden curriculum

  The education system is an agent of socialisation which teaches norms and values that are beneficial to society as a whole
• What do the functionalists say norms and values do to helps society 


  Help society function smoothly and helps to integrate members into society
• Who is the main functionalist for education

  Durkheim
• What does Durkheim say 


  Schools help children to become part of the value consensus
• What is the value consensus

  Shared norms and values
• What does Durkheim say education is part of

  The organic analogy
• What does the organic analogy help and do

  All agents of socialisation much teach the value consensus to prevent anomie
• What is anomie 


  The breakdown of society
• What values does a school teach and how

  Cooperation by using teamwork, pride by the use of a uniform, British values by voting for head boy and girl
• Who is another functionalist and what do they say

  Parsons says that schools are meritocratic meaning students learn that those who work the hardest in school with be treated better by teachers and achieve the highest grades
• What is meritocracy 


  Those who work the hardest will achieve the better grades
• What does meritocracy do 


  Prepares students for the workplace in which you have to work your way up
• What does Marxists say about the hidden curriculum

  The hidden curriculum benefits the ruling class and not society as a whole
• Who are the main Marxists for education

  Bowles and Gintis
• What does Bowles and Gintis say about the hidden curriculum 


  It produces and exploitable workplace for capitalists which is referred to as the correspondence principle
• What is the correspondence principle 


  School are organised to correspond with the needs of the workplace
• How is correspondence achieved in schools

  Schools are based on a clear hierarchy in which pupils must obey teachers, students learn to be obedient, students are taught to be motivated by external rewards such as a pay packet which in schools is exam success, schools divide pupils by teaching them to compete for the highest grades preventing the collectivist outlook that is important for the development of trade unions
• Who also talks about education as a Marxists and what is their opinion

  Althusser believes education is part of the ideological state apparatus
• What is the ISA

  Education is used by the ruling class to transmit the norms, values and ideas that they want people to have to the working class
• What does the ISA prevent

  The working class from organising themselves to abolish capitalism and create a fairer society
• What doe Neo-Marxists say about the hidden curriculum

  Working class pupils are not as accepting as traditional Marxists suggests and believe that some pupils for not just passively accept the system
• Who is the main Neo-Marxist for education and their opinion

  Paul Willis found that many pupils do not accept the values promoted by the school and some rebel completely against those values by forming an ASSC
• What do Feminists say about the hidden curriculum

  The informal messages benefit men and not the interests of society as a whole
• Who are the main feminists for education

  Heaton and Lawson
• What do Heaton and Lawson say about the hidden curriculum

  The education system passes on patriarchal values, there is a gendered division of labour in schools and traditional family structures are shown in textbooks
• What did the Dfe find

  Females take up 2/3 of teachers while only 1/3 of headteachers
• What do interactionists say about the hidden curriculum

  Labelling is part of the hidden curriculum, the hidden messages that teachers pass on to students through how they act towards them has a significant impact
• Who is the main interactionist for education

  Becker
• What does Becker say for the hidden curriculum

  Teachers label students which could be positive or negative, teaches share an idea of an ideal pupil as someone who hands work in on time, is polite and achieves good grades
• What is an example of a positive and negative label

  Ideal pupil and disruptive pupil
• What social class is likely to receive positive labels

  Middle class
• What do teachers have and how does this have an impact

  Power and authority which is likely to impact a student and result in a self fulfilling prophecy
• What is a self fulfilling prophecy 


  A student lives up to their label
• Who is another interactionist and what did they find

  Chambliss found the roughnecks were from poor working class backgrounds in which they couldn‘t leave town to commit crimes meaning they were more likely to be given a negative label and be seen as deviant as opposed to the saints