Social Education in the Classroom: The Dynamics of the Hidden Curriculum

TLDR

The hidden curriculum, a covert pattern of socialization that prepares students for workplace and society, has been largely ignored by social studies curriculum developers, leading to a fundamental failure to shape school programs. The paper aims to deepen understanding of how classroom life relates to broader society by identifying social processes that define the hidden curriculum and arguing that new processes are needed to achieve social education goals. The authors propose a new set of social processes for classroom life that could serve as the foundation for a progressive social studies curriculum.

Abstract

Abstract This paper reviews recent studies on the relationship of classroom life to larger social/political institutions. It analyzes the phenomenon which Philip Jackson has identified as the “hidden curriculum”, that covert pattern of socialization which prepares students to function in the existing workplace and in other social/political spheres. The authors argue that this pattern has been largely ignored by social studies curriculum developers. By ignoring the values contained in the social processes of schooling, social studies developers failed to influence school programs in a fundamental way. To promote a more complete understanding of the dynamics of classroom life and its relationship to the larger society, the authors have identified social processes of school and classroom life which give specific meaning to the term hidden curriculum. They argue that a new set of processes will have to replace existing ones if the goals of social education are to be realized. In the latter part of the paper, a new set of social processes are described which could form the basis for a new and more progressive approach to social studies instruction.