hidden curriculum

(noun)

A curriculum that goes beyond the explicit demands of the formal curriculum. The goals and requirements of the hidden curriculum are unstated, but inflexible. They concern not what students learn but how and when they learn.

Related Terms

Examples of hidden curriculum in the following topics:

  • The Hidden Curriculum

    • To succeed in college, students must learn a second, hidden curriculum to meet unstated academic and social norms.
    • In this conflict, students struggle to meet unstated academic and social norms, or a hidden curriculum.
    • Those who master the hidden curriculum excel while those who do not often fail, no matter their academic abilities.
    • According to Snyder, the hidden curriculum goes beyond the explicit demands of the formal curriculum.
    • The goals and requirements of the hidden curriculum are unstated, but inflexible.

  • School

    • In this example, teamwork and reciprocity are examples of the "hidden curriculum. "
    • Although this aim is stated in the formal curriculum, it is mainly achieved through "the hidden curriculum", a subtler, but nonetheless powerful, indoctrination of the norms and values of the wider society.
    • School serves as a primary site of education, including the inculcation of "hidden curricula" of social values and norms.

  • The Social Reproduction of Inequality

    • From teaching style to the formal curriculum, schools are a means to convey what constitutes knowledge and appropriate behavior as determined by the state—those in power.
    • Children from lower-class backgrounds face a much tougher time in school, where they must learn the standard curriculum as well as the hidden curriculum of middle class values.
    • These students have the benefit of learning middle class values at home, meaning they come to school already having internalized the hidden curriculum.

  • The Gifted

    • Gifted education programs are justified by a two-pronged argument: First, gifted and talented youth are not adequately challenged by the standard curriculum and therefore require accelerated curricula or enrichment activities to reach their full potential.
    • Acceleration programs may compact curriculum or allow students to self-pace.
    • In pull-out programs, gifted students spend most of the school day with a regular classroom of mixed abilities, but may be pulled out for an hour or part of a day to practice critical thinking drills, creative exercises, or subjects not introduced in standard curriculums.
    • Pull-out programs are generally ineffective at promoting academic achievement since they do not align with the regular curriculum.
    • Finally, summer enrichment presents gifted students with extra material above and beyond the standard curriculum.

  • Standardized Tests

    • It may be difficult to account for differences in educational culture across schools, difficulty of a given teacher's curriculum, differences in teaching style, and techniques and biases that affect grading.
    • However, critics feel that overuse and misuse of these tests harms teaching and learning by narrowing the curriculum.
    • While it is possible to use a standardized test without letting its contents determine curriculum and instruction, frequently what is not tested is not taught, and how the subject is tested often becomes a model for how to teach the subject.
    • However, critics charge that standardized tests have become a mandatory curriculum placed into schools without public debate and without any accountability measures of its own.

  • Teachers: Employees and Instructors

    • Teachers may use a lesson plan to facilitate student learning, providing a course of study that is called the curriculum.
    • In primary schools, each class has a teacher who stays with them for most of the week and will teach them the whole curriculum.

  • Intelligence and Inequality

    • For example, it is not stated in the curriculum that children learn social skills at school, but as a result of being around and working with other children, socialization occurs.
    • In these cases, social skills training is part of the curriculum for those particular children.
    • Pierre Bourdieu and Basil Bernstein explored how the cultural capital of the dominant classes has been viewed throughout history as the "most legitimate knowledge. " How schools choose the content and organization of curriculum and instructional practices connects scholastic knowledge to dynamics of class, gender, and race both outside and inside our institutions of education.

  • Summary

    • These approaches can be particularly helpful in seeking the "hidden logic" or "latent structure" of more abstract dimensions that may underlie the interactions of many specific actors across many specific events.

  • Informal Economy

    • This may manifest as unreported employment, hidden from the state for tax, social security or labor law purposes, but legal in all other aspects.

  • High School Dropouts

    • School structure, curriculum, and size may increase the exposure of students to academic risk factors.
    • For example, students are more likely to drop out when they attend schools with less rigorous curriculum, when they attend large schools, or when they attend schools with poor student-teacher interactions.