Curriculum theorists distinguish between the formal or official curriculum from the actual or hidden curriculum. Hidden Curriculum is the norms, values and social expectations indirectly conveyed to students by the styles of teaching, unarticulated assumptions in teaching materials and the organizational characteristics of educational institutions. The hidden curriculum can foster both empowering and disempowering behavior.
Social scientists find that the influence of the hidden curriculum on educational outcomes is equal to or greater than the overt or intended curriculum. Curriculum theorists argue that the hidden curriculum always has a normative, or moral, component and that educators have a responsibility to make the hidden curriculum as explicit as possible. Exposing the Hidden Curriculum (Portelli, John P). Many recent treatments of the hidden curriculum have overlooked historical antecedents of the early progressive curriculum literature. Hidden curriculum refers to knowledge gained in school settings, usually with a negative connotation where the school strives for equal intellectual development.
Learning and social change: The formal and the hidden curriculum -
Bonni Yordi
Abstract This article reviews the learning process and ways in which it can hinder or
contribute to intellectual development, the development of critical consciousness (as
defined by Paulo Freire), and social change. Interviews with students illustrate that
Freire's concepts are applicable to understanding the process students describe as they
extrapolate the hidden curriculum, examine the effect on their learning process, and
struggle to free themselves from this socialization
process.
Critical Race Theory,
Multicultural (Multiculturalism) Education, and the
Hidden Curriculum of Hegemony -
Michelle Jay, University of North Carolina.
Embracing a critical race theory perspective, the researcher argues
for a revisiting of the role of the hidden curriculum in education, particularly as it
pertains to multicultural education. Through its failure to
appreciate the challenges posed by the hidden curriculum, multicultural education gets
appropriated as a "hegemonic device" that secures a continued position of power and leadership for the dominant groups in society. The author
calls on those who conduct research on multicultural education to turn their attention to
the ways in which the hidden curriculum keeps multicultural education stagnant.
Staying On At 16+: a
hidden curriculum of tutoring - Eggleston J.
Abstract: Staying on after minimum school leaving age has long been a key indicator of the
distribution of educational opportunity and life chances. Its growing incidence has been a
major component of the expansion of school and post school education in Britain in the
closing quarter of the twentieth century.
What Should We Do
With a Hidden Curriculum When We Fine One? - Martin, Jane R.
A hidden curriculum consists of those learning states
of a setting that are either unintended or intended but not openly acknowledged
to the learners in the setting unless the learners are aware of them.
Consciousness-raising may be the best weapon of individuals who are subject to
hidden curricula.
Integration and the hidden
curriculum in business education
Ottewill, Roger; McKenzie, George; Leah, Jean.
Abstract: Purpose - The principal aim of this paper is to present the case for securing
greater affinity between the formal curriculum and the hidden curriculum with respect to
integration in business education. Consideration is given to
the concept of the hidden curriculum, as manifested in the compartmentalised nature of
academia and the need for this to be offset by business educators. A number of principles
for configuring the hidden curriculum in ways that support the goal of integration are
suggested. The paper complements the very
limited literature on the hidden curriculum in higher education, in general, and business
education, in particular.
What do Students Learn when we Teach Music? - An Investigation of the Hidden
Curriculum in a University Music Department - Stephanie E. Pitts, University
of Sheffield.
Students and staff gave their views on the messages and values communicated through the
teaching and atmosphere of the music department, so building up a preliminary picture of
the hidden curriculum, which runs alongside more formal teaching. The results of the study show a realization that responsibility for learning
lies with the students, despite a high level of dependence on teaching staff for
motivation and guidance. Implications for teaching and pastoral care in higher education
are also considered, with the conclusion that the 'hidden' curriculum has an important
role to play in shaping the student experience of university.
The hidden curriculum in undergraduate medical education: qualitative study of
medical students' perceptions of teaching
Heidi Lempp, senior qualitative research and Clive
Seale, professor of sociology.
Abstract: Objective To study medical students' views about the quality of the teaching
they receive during their undergraduate training, especially in terms of the hidden
curriculum.
Conclusions: Following on from the recent reforms of the manifest curriculum, the hidden
curriculum now needs attention to produce the necessary fundamental changes in the culture of undergraduate medical education.
Hidden curriculum in the university - G. Bergenhenegouwen
Abstract This article contains the results of two research projects in the faculty of
social science of the University of Amsterdam into the hidden curriculum in university.
The results show that students do experience something like a hidden curriculum in
university study. The article goes into the question what the hidden curriculum in
university is and what extra things are learnt in addition to the official curriculum.
There appears to be a tendency among students to study not only for the sake of a diploma
(exchange value), but also to make the study more
practicable in their personal lives and find a link with their own everyday experience
(practical value). The latter attitude towards study appears to be an important factor to
minimize the effect of the hidden curriculum and so to do more justice to the official
curriculum.
The Hidden Curriculum:
What do we really want our students to learn?
Edward F. Redish, University of Maryland, College Park MD.
We are rarely explicit about what we want our students to learn in introductory college or
university physics. We often say we want them to "learn problem solving", but we
usually have in mind complex, expert problem solving skills. I
refer to this gap between what we want and what we do as representing a "hidden
curriculum". At the University of Maryland, the Physics Education Research Group has
been exploring some of the components of the hidden curriculum.