The Hidden Curriculum in Higher Education

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

The Hidden Curriculum in Higher Education The Hidden Curriculum in Higher Education The Hidden Curriculum in Higher Education edited by Eric Margolis ROUTLEDGE New York and London Published in 2001 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. Copyright © 2001 by Routledge All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or here- after invented, including photocopying and recording or in any information storage or retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The hidden curriculum in higher education / edited by Eric Margolis. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–415–92758–7 (Print Edition) — ISBN 0–415–92759–5 (pbk.) 1. Education, Higher—Curricula—Social Aspects. 2. Curriculum planning— Social aspects. 3. Educational anthropology. I. Margolis, Eric, 1947– . LB2361 .H53 2001 378.1'99—dc21 00–062818 ISBN 0-203-90185-1 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-90189-4 (Glassbook Format) As always, my dedication is to Mary Romero Contents Acknowledgments ix 1. Peekaboo 1 Hiding and Outing the Curriculum Eric Margolis, Michael Soldatenko, Sandra Acker, and Marina Gair 2. Hiding in Plain Sight 21 Marina Gair and Guy Mullins 3. Schooled by the Classroom 43 The (Re)production of Social Stratification in Professional School Settings Carrie Yang Costello 4. The Hidden Curriculum of Dissertation Advising 61 Sandra Acker 5. “In the Image and Likeness . .” 79 How Mentoring Functions in the Hidden Curriculum Eric Margolis and Mary Romero 6. Training Capitalism’s Foot Soldiers 97 The Hidden Curriculum of Undergraduate Business Education Kenneth N. Ehrensal 7. Downward Mobility 101 115 Learning to Be “Flexible” in an Age of Uncertainty Caroline Childress 8. “Powder Puff Brigades” 135 Professional Caring versus Industry Research in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Curriculum Linda Muzzin 9. “Plotting Something Dastardly” 155 Hiding a Gender Curriculum in Engineering Karen L. Tonso 10. Preparing to Be Privatized 175 The Hidden Curriculum of a Community College ESL Writing Class Mary Jane Curry 11. Radicalism in Higher Education 193 How Chicano Studies Joined the Curriculum Michael Soldatenko Bibliography 213 Contributors 233 Index 235 Acknowledgments The editor would like to thank Mary Romero and Sandra Acker for their editorial assistance. Marina Gair was indispensable as a research assistant and helped shepherd this project through all of its many phases. The visual ethnography seminar, especially Guy Mullins, Luis Fernandez, Marina Gair, and Lydia Montelongo, helped develop the notion of making the hidden curriculum visible through photography. Guy Mullins deserves special thanks both for videotaping the inter- views reported on in chapter two, and building and maintaining the web site that allowed chapter authors to read each other’s work in var- ious drafts and thus helped this collection become more internally con- sistent than the usual edited volume. Most of all I would like to thank the chapter authors who conducted the detailed research that made this collection possible. It was a pleasure working with all of you. Peekaboo 1 Hiding and Outing the Curriculum Eric Margolis, Michael Soldatenko, Sandra Acker, and Marina Gair Most of those who write on hidden curricula focus their attention on “curriculum.” We want to begin by making a few observations on the concept of “hidden.” In her important article, “What Should We Do with a Hidden Curriculum When We Find One?”, Jane Roland Martin identified two sorts of hiddenness: “Something can be hidden in the sense of which a cure for cancer is hidden or in the sense in which a penny in the game Hide the Penny is hidden.” Is the curriculum yet to be discovered or has it been hidden by someone? Martin also noted that a curriculum can be revealed to some, while remaining hidden to others: “Until learning states are acknowledged or the learners are aware of them, however, they remain hidden even if sociologists, bureaucrats, and teachers are all aware of them. Thus a hidden cur- riculum can be found yet remain hidden, for finding is one thing and telling is another” (Martin 1994, 162). This discussion is helpful, but does not go far enough in investigating hiddenness. We hide to conceal or protect. To secrete. We hide our wealth in a hoard, we hide our feelings, we hide our intentions. In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Purloined Letter,” a seasoned investigator has been called upon by the French police to lend his intuitive skills to solv- ing a mystery. He asks the police about their search for critical clues: “I presume you looked to the mirrors, between the boards and the plates, and you probed the beds and the bed-clothes, as well as the cur- tains and carpets?” To which they reply: “Certainly; we opened every package and parcel; we not only opened every book, but we turned 2 • Eric Margolis, Michael Soldatenko, Sandra Acker, and Marina Gair over every leaf in each volume. We also measured the thickness of every book-cover, with the most accurate admeasurement, and applied to each the most jealous scrutiny of the microscope . .” The investi- gator continues: “You explored the floors beneath the carpets? And the paper on the walls? You looked into the cellars?” To which the police again affirm, “We did.” “Well then,” speculates the investiga- tor, “perhaps the mystery is a little too plain.”1 In this sense some of the hidden curriculum may be intentionally hidden in plain sight, pre- cisely so that it will remain undetected. Much of the built environment, issues related to the body, the statuses of disciplines, and the ranks of higher education institutions are hiding in plain sight. We use hides to cover our nakedness. As another important story in Western culture teaches, curricula can be hidden by a general social agreement not to see. The reader will recall in the fairy tale “The Emperor Has No Clothes” that the vain emperor was bamboozled by two tailors who invented a cloth so light and fine that it looked invis- ible to anyone “too stupid and incompetent to appreciate its quality.” When presented with the new garment, the emperor thought, “I can’t see anything. If I see nothing, that means I’m stupid! Or, worse, incom- petent!” When he paraded naked through the city, “Everyone said, loud enough for the others to hear: ‘Look at the Emperor’s new clothes. They’re beautiful!’”2 Only when an (unsocialized) child observed that the emperor was naked was the truth revealed. Some of the ideological content of higher education intends to bamboozle, to pull the wool over people’s eyes. Disengaged intellectuals both pro- mote and deconstruct the clever subtleties and fine quality of ideology embedded in literature, television, rock music, fashion design, and so on because to do so seems competent and smart. Universities teach those who produce neither for use nor for exchange but produce ide- ology: labor management, mass communication, advertising, and the like. In this sense the university curriculum itself may be seen as a “hide” like a duck blind. The nineteenth-century writings of Wilhelm Dilthey (1961) revealed human existence as a process of interpretation. Given that, one might consider curriculum itself to be a hiding place, a cache. Meanings are hidden in texts. Hermeneutics (the science of interpre- tations) emphasizes the non–apparent meanings of texts—meanings that may not even be understood by the authors. Because we humans tell ourselves lies and come to believe them, meanings can be hidden Peekaboo • 3 from us. Similarly, cultural meanings are hidden in symbolism; mean- ings that may involve obscure allusions and connections lurking in texts but remaining beneath the surface. It is also possible, as Vance Packard (1957) alerted us, that there are “hidden persuaders” that subliminally convey messages. Perhaps they can only be revealed by hermeneutic psycho- and socioanalysis. Fruitful work can be done in the secret garden of the curriculum where sexuality, power, and knowledge lie coiled like serpents. Moreover, at least in the West, knowledge is guilty knowledge. One turns away from certain curric- ula, hides his or her face in shame, hides his or her eyes. This process is one essential part of what Elliot Eisner (1985, 97–98) called the null curriculum—that which is left out. Another widely beloved story contains parallels relevant to the hidden curriculum. Elements of curriculum might be thought of as hidden behind the scenes, like the mechanisms run by the bumbling Wizard of Oz. Hidden curricula that are more or less overt—some- times called the “other curriculum”—fit this model. Leadership, entre- preneurship, manners, and class dispositions—the qualities once called “finishing”—and certain glib pseudointellectual styles are elements of this hidden curriculum. These aspects are what Dorothy Smith (1990) termed “the relations of ruling”: elements of superstructure, including the curricula of class consciousness, whiteness, patriarchy, hetero- sexuality, and of the West. Although these dispositions and relations are taught and learned, the reproduction of what Bourdieu (1973, 40) called habitus (discussed below) is very often hidden by a wink. Some of the behind-the-scenes machinery of social stratification is consid- ered “legitimate,” and in fact we “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” There are infernal mechanisms as well. We hide the evidence of wrongdoing. Many kinds of socialization are indeed covert, will not work if made visible, and in fact will pro- duce resistance if revealed.
Recommended publications
  • A S R F 2007 ASA PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS Frances Fox Piven Can
    3285 ASR 1/7/08 10:32 AM Page 1 A Washington, DC 20005-4701 Washington, Suite 700 NW, Avenue York 1307 New (ISSN 0003-1224) American Sociological Review MERICAN S Sociology of Education OCIOLOGICAL A Journal of the American Sociological Association Edited by Barbara Schneider Michigan State University Quarterly, ISSN 0038-0407 R EVIEW SociologyofEducationpublishes papers advancing sociological knowledge about education in its various forms. Among the many issues considered in the journal are the nature and determinants of educational expansion; the relationship VOLUME 73 • NUMBER 1 • FEBRUARY 2008 between education and social mobility in contemporary OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION society; and the implications of diverse ways of organizing schools and schooling for teaching, learning, and human 2007 ASA PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS development. The journal invites papers that draw on a wide range of methodological approaches that can contribute to a Frances Fox Piven F EBRUARY Can Power from Below Change the World? sociological understanding of these and other educational phenomena. Print subscriptions to ASA journals include online access to the current year’s issues MARGINALIZATION IN GLOBAL CONTEXT at no additional charge through Ingenta,the leading provider of online publishing 2008 V Eileen M. Otis services to academic and professional publishers. Labor and Gender Organization in China Christopher A. Bail 2008 Subscription Rates Symbolic Boundaries in 21 European Countries ASA Members $40 • Student Members $25 • Institutions (print/online) $185, (online only) $170 (Add $20 for subscriptions outside the U.S. or Canada) RELIGION IN SOCIAL LIFE Individual subscribers are required to be ASA members. To join ASA and subscribe at discounted member rates, see www.asanet.org D.
    [Show full text]
  • “Go After the Women”: Mothers Against Illegal Aliens' Campaign
    “Go After the Women”: Mothers Against Illegal Aliens’ Campaign Against Mexican Immigrant Women and Their Children ∗ MARY ROMERO INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................1355 I. INTERSECTIONALITY AND MOTHERING DISCOURSES ..................................1363 A. Domesticity and Motherhood............................................................1363 B. Latina Immigrants and Domesticity..................................................1365 C. Race, Ethnicity, Class, Citizenship, and Unfit Mothers....................1367 II. CONSTRUCTING ANTI-IMMIGRANT CAMPAIGN AGAINST IMMIGRANT MOTHERS ...................................................................................................1370 A. Nativism and Mothering Discourse ..................................................1371 B. Establishing Economic and Security Threats ...................................1380 CONCLUSION........................................................................................................1388 INTRODUCTION “Protect Our Children, Secure Our Borders!” is the rallying cry adopted by Mothers Against Illegal Aliens (MAIA), an Arizona-based women’s anti-immigration group founded by Michelle Dallacroce in January 2006.1 Like other race-based nativist groups emerging in the United States, MAIA targets immigrants as the reason for overcrowded and low-achieving schools, increased crime, unemployment, poor access to affordable health care, and the overall drain on public benefits.2 As mounting
    [Show full text]
  • Advisory Panel Palais Des Congrès De Montréal, 524B, 7:00-10
    7:00 am Meetings enable and constrain the experience of everyday racism. Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline (FAD) Advisory 155. Thematic Session. Encountering the Law Panel Palais des congrès de Montréal, 511A, 8:30-10:10am Palais des congrès de Montréal, 524B, 7:00-10:10am Session Organizer: Brian Gran, Case Western Reserve University Journal Archives Advisory Group Presider: Brian Gran, Case Western Reserve University Palais des congrès de Montréal, 523B, 7:00-8:15am Right without Duties? The Sociological Origins of an Absence. Christopher Nigel Roberts, University of Minnesota Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance Council Meeting Navigating U.S. Law along the United States-Mexico Palais des congrès de Montréal, 520E, 7:00-8:15am Borderlands. Mary Romero, Arizona State University Section on Global and Transnational Sociololgy Council Law's Struggle with Religion: Equality and Inclusion. Bryan Meeting Turner, City University of New York-Graduate Center Palais des congrès de Montréal, 517C, 7:00-8:15am Now more than ever, people across the world are encountering law in manifold areas of social life. As human rights are implemented, institutions Section on Sociology of Children and Youth Council Meeting and cultures of rights are created and sometimes suppressed. Newcomers encounter different ideas, languages, beliefs, and practices, often through legal Palais des congrès de Montréal, 520D, 7:00-8:15am systems, whether local, national, or international. Actors running these legal systems, which are often corrupt, may take a dim view of strangers’ legal Section on Sociology of Culture Council Meeting concerns. Individuals who are vulnerable may turn to “law” for protection, Palais des congrès de Montréal, 520C, 7:00-8:15am even while many people are discovering that law increasingly serves as a panopticon across multiple hierarchies and in many parts of their societies.
    [Show full text]
  • Moral Education in a Non-Traditional Setting in Vietnam
    BENDING BAMBOO: MORAL EDUCATION IN A NON-TRADITIONAL SETTING IN VIETNAM Eric J. Buetikofer A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of The requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS August 2009 Committee: Patricia Kubow, Advisor Christopher Frey William Wiseman ii © 2009 Eric Buetikofer All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Patricia Kubow, Advisor Vietnam is a country rich with culture and tradition. This thesis examines the cultural practice of teaching morality in a non-traditional school in Vietnam. This qualitative case study took place in a non-traditional school located in central Vietnam that caters to street children. Findings from the participant interviews are discussed through the use of vignettes. The vignette themes include morality, citizenship, philosophical association, gender and one’s ability to be moral, bending bamboo and morality, morality and role playing, street children and moral education, learning and importance of language, learning English as a Second Language in the school, and debates and learning good citizenship. Each vignette is discussed using information from participant interviews and Western and Eastern moral education practices. Research for this paper has been completed utilizing educational and psychological theoretical literature concerning moral education and moral philosophy in conjunction with empirical studies conducted in Vietnam. iv This thesis is dedicated to my wife Jessica Turos and my mother Kathy Buetikofer, who have been supportive in all of my educational endeavors. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my Thesis committee, Dr. Kubow, Dr. Frey, and Dr. Wiseman, for all of their guidance. I could not have completed this formidable project without you.
    [Show full text]
  • Journal of Curriculum Studies Research Critical Teaching in Classrooms of Healing: Struggles and Testimonios
    https://curriculumstudies.org E-ISSN: 2690-2788 Journal of Curriculum Studies Research June 2020 Volume: 2 Issue: 1 pp. 95-111 Critical teaching in classrooms of healing: Struggles and testimonios Brian C. Gibbs* * The University of North Carolina at ABSTRACT Chapel Hill, School of Education, Chapel Using testimonio methodology, this article describes the Hill, North Carolina, USA. testimonio and struggle of two Chicanx activist social studies E-mail: [email protected] teachers teaching in a large urban high school serving socio- economically poor Latinx students. Both teach critically, Article Info working to develop their students’ understanding of how their Received: April 24, 2020 ethnic and community histories contrast with larger historical Revised: May 16, 2020 narratives. Both teach the racism, misogyny, and homophobia Accepted: May 16, 2020 rampant in American history by connecting it to the present. They also engage a culturally sustaining pedagogy to give 10.46303/jcsr.02.01.6 students strength from their cultural inheritance. Each approached this differently, one developing an ethnic studies This is an Open Access article distributed course, and the second developing a circulo de hombres, and under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 embedding a youth participation action research. Each teacher International license. tackled critical teaching and healing simultaneously from (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- different perspectives yielding a variety of accompanying nc-nd/4.0) struggles. KEYWORDS How to cite Ethnic studies; critical pedagogy; social justice teaching; Gibbs, B. C. (2020). Critical teaching in restorative justice. classrooms of healing: Struggles and testimonios. Journal of Curriculum Studies Research, 2(1), 95-111.
    [Show full text]
  • Understanding the Use of Learner-Centered Teaching Strategies by Secondary Educators
    Walden University ScholarWorks Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies Collection 2020 Understanding the Use of Learner-Centered Teaching Strategies by Secondary Educators Carmen M. Cain Walden University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies Collection at ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Walden University College of Education This is to certify that the doctoral study by Carmen M. Cain has been found to be complete and satisfactory in all respects, and that any and all revisions required by the review committee have been made. Review Committee Dr. Heather Caldwell, Committee Chairperson, Education Faculty Dr. Michelle McCraney, Committee Member, Education Faculty Dr. Barbara Schirmer, University Reviewer, Education Faculty Chief Academic Officer and Provost Sue Subocz, Ph.D. Walden University 2020 Abstract Understanding the Use of Learner-Centered Teaching Strategies by Secondary Educators by Carmen M. Cain MA, University of Mary, 2016 BS, University of Mary, 2000 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education Walden University June 2020 Abstract Use of learner-centered teaching strategies (LCTS) in the classroom practices improves academic achievement. Secondary educators do not consistently demonstrate the use of these strategies. The purpose of this study was to investigate how secondary educators were using LCTS in their instruction and what support they perceived to need to use such strategies.
    [Show full text]
  • The Role of Hidden Curricula on the Resistance Behavior of Undergraduate Students in Psychological Counseling and Guidance at a Turkish University
    Asia Pacific Education Review Copyright 2006 by Education Research Institute 2006, Vol. 7, No. 1, 94-107. The Role of Hidden Curricula on the Resistance Behavior of Undergraduate Students in Psychological Counseling and Guidance at a Turkish University Sedat Yüksel Uludağ University Turkey Student resistance can be a very important problem for the instructors in universities. Student resistance includes the conscious and preplanned behaviors towards the information presented to them in the classroom and the institutional practices. Typically, student resistance takes the form of passive or active non-compliance with roles and outputs expected of them as students. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of hidden curricula on student resistance. The research was conducted on senior undergraduate students in a Turkish University, in the Department of Psychological Counseling and Guidance. Given the exploratory nature of this investigation, a case study methodology was employed. Data was collected from official documents, class observations, and interviews. The results of this research indicated that the students demonstrated resistance to some dimensions of the hidden and delivered curricula. Specifically, while the students showed resistance towards the delivered curriculum and ‘banking education’, they did not show similar resistance to symbolic violence and the ‘warming-up’ process. Key Words: Hidden curriculum, psychological counseling students, student resistance, teacher education Introduction been investigated (Margolis, 2001). The purpose of this 1 research is to examine both the positive and negative effects Student resistance to the schooling process has always of hidden curricula on student resistance in psychological been a problem for teachers and has become one of the most counseling programs in Turkey.
    [Show full text]
  • Student Voice and the International Curriculum: Connections, Contexts and Spaces
    Student Voice and the International Curriculum: connections, contexts and spaces Rohan Skene UCL Institute of Education Doctor in Education (International) i Declaration I Rohan Skene substantiate that the work produced in this thesis is my own. In the instances where information has been derived from other sources, I can confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. ii Abstract This thesis explores the relationship between student voice and the international curriculum and the significance of this relationship for learning in secondary schools. Framed within a social realist epistemology and employing individual and focus group interviews to gather teacher and student perspectives, this work employs an interpretive research approach, underpinned by established work on student participation and wider concepts of the curriculum and curriculum design. Curricular developments within a growing international secondary school sector, an under-realisation of the recognised benefits of greater student-teacher collaboration and a deficit in research available on the relationship between student voice and the international curriculum created the need to explore these notions further. Three European international schools are researched and contrasted, each one distinctly offering a linear, constructivist or mixed approach in delivering the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) or International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (IBMYP) secondary curriculums. This study confirms that the authentic engagement of students and teachers in learning conversations is similarly problematic in an international context as in a national one. However, impediments to student voice can be negotiated through the creation of a shared space where pedagogical dialogical encounters are encouraged and where teacher and student interior authenticities are affirmed.
    [Show full text]
  • Sociology News
    WINTER 2016-2017 INSIDE Letter from the Chair 1 Eva Kahana awarded Frank and Sociology News Dorothy Humel Hovorka Prize 2 Gunhild Hagestad delivers lecture on Case Western Reserve University Department of Sociology scholars’ personal experiences of aging 2 Pamela Herd, director of Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, visits CWRU 3 Visiting sociologist Mary Romero leads three panel discussions 3 Letter from the Chair Department welcomes Full-Time Lecturer Karie Feldman 4 Department welcomes new adjunct Dear friends and colleagues: and secondary faculty members 4 Erdmans and Black receive recognition for recent book 5 Welcome to the Winter 2016-17 edition of CWRU Sociology News! Eva Kahana and Jeffrey Kahana’s new book available April 2017 5 For a number of reasons, this is the first edition of Sociology News published Two faculty members receive since last year. Thus, even if it had not been prestigious appointments 5 an event-packed year in the Department of Three sociology faculty members Sociology, we would have much to catch up elected to ASA and SLLS offices 6 on! This newsletter contains updates on a Sociology doctoral candidate Alicia Smith-Tran receives Woodrow Wilson wide array of accomplishments and honors Dissertation Grant 6 of faculty, students and alumni, and on some Gran and Flatt nominated for new faculty appointments. It reports on the mentoring and teaching awards 6 appointment of our alumna and colleague Karie 2016 Inclusion and Diversity Feldman as a full-time lecturer, our bumper Achievement Award Winners 6 crop of 2016 PhD graduates, and a star-studded Cassi Pittman receives Glennan list of visitors, beginning with our colleague Fellowship from UCITE 6 and friend Gunhild Hagestad, who visited from Eva Kahana named one of Cleveland Norway to deliver a typically scintillating lecture Jewish News Difference Makers 7 Karie Feldman and Brian Gran featured early last year.
    [Show full text]
  • EXPLORING the HIDDEN CURRICULUM WITHIN a DOCTORAL PROGRAM a Dissertation Submitted To
    “IT’S NOT ALWAYS WHAT IT SEEMS”: EXPLORING THE HIDDEN CURRICULUM WITHIN A DOCTORAL PROGRAM A dissertation submitted to the Kent State University College and Graduate School of Education, Health, and Human Services in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Rachel Elizabeth Foot August, 2017 © Copyright, 2017 by Rachel E. Foot All Rights Reserved ii A dissertation written by Rachel E. Foot B.A. (Hons), University of the West of England, 2000 M.Sc., Clarion University, 2003 Ph.D., Kent State University, 2017 Approved by __________________________________, Director, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Alicia R. Crowe __________________________________, Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Joanne Kilgour Dowdy __________________________________, Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Tricia Niesz Accepted by __________________________________, Director, School of Teaching, Learning Alexa L. Sandmann and Curriculum Studies __________________________________, Dean, College of Education, Health James C. Hannon and Human Services iii FOOT, RACHEL, E. Ph.D., August 2017 TEACHING, LEARNING AND CURRICULUM STUDIES “IT’S NOT ALWAYS WHAT IT SEEMS”: EXPLORING THE HIDDEN CURRICULUM WITHIN A DOCTORAL PROGRAM (pp. 315) Dissertation Director: Alicia R. Crowe Ph.D. The purpose of this qualitative, naturalistic study was to explore the ways in which hidden curriculum might influence doctoral student success. Two questions guided the study: (a) How do doctoral students experience the hidden curriculum? (b) What forms of hidden curricula can be identified in a PhD program? Data were collected from twelve doctoral students within a single program at one university. Participants took part in three sets of semi-structured interviews and data were analyzed using a cross-case analysis. Findings suggest that doctoral students experience mixed messages related to the values and norms of the program when the intended, explicit curriculum is contradicted by a hidden curriculum.
    [Show full text]
  • Unschooling and Social Justice/Multicultural Education: (Un)Realized Potential Kristan Morrison Radford University, US
    Other Education: The Journal of Educational Alternatives ISSN 2049-2162 Volume 7(2018), Issue 2 · pp. 97-117 Unschooling and Social Justice/Multicultural Education: (Un)Realized Potential Kristan Morrison Radford University, US. Abstract An online survey of unschooling families (student-directed form of homeschooling) sought to discover whether and how unschooled children experience a social justice curriculum (one that seeks equity between cultures, ethnicities, genders, classes, and sexualities). The 2016 survey asked about unschooled children’s relationships with/recognition of people different from themselves, their degree of critical analysis of systems and institutions in society which created, maintain, and perpetuate inequities, and whether they had opportunities to envision and work for a just and equitable society. The philosophical tenets of unschooling complicate this query, and are explored. Findings illustrate that unschooling’s educational philosophy of “curriculum-as- lived” (as opposed to “curriculum-as-plan”) (Aoki, 2004) has the potential (though not realized by all unschooling families) to provide a unique approach to social justice/multicultural education, allowing unschooled children to learn about minoritized cultures, systems that led to the minoritization, and the possibilities and pathways to a more equitable society. Keywords unschooling, multicultural education, social justice, student-directed learning, homeschooling Introduction Unschooling defined Student-directed learning in the home, termed unschooling (Farenga, 1999), is a form of education in which parents eschew a formal or standardized curriculum and instead allow their children curricular freedom. In unschooling, “the learner’s freedom and autonomy [is] limited as little as possible, ...learning always starts with the individual’s needs, goals, and desires, and not with any supposed body of knowledge or societal demands” (Miller, 2004).
    [Show full text]
  • The Politicization of University Schools of Education the Long March Through the Education Schools Jay Schalin
    The Politicization of University Schools of Education The Long March through the Education Schools Jay Schalin FEBRUARY 2019 The Politicization of University Schools of Education EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Few institutions receive more attention and more funding than our education system. And it certainly warrants that attention; after all, education plays a big part in determining the future. Reformers abound, for both higher education and the K-12 system. But they have largely missed one of the most crucial components of education, our schools of education, where future teachers are trained. They are out of sight and unapproachable for the K-12 reformers, and too technical and too much on the periphery for those who focus on higher education’s shortcomings. That has proven a grave error. Education schools are fundamental to all education. They are serving the nation badly, and it’s not just about test scores and graduation rates. Teacher education has become one of the most politicized corners of academia, an institution that is already out of step with the rest of the country politically. Education schools are leading the charge to “transform” the nation, and that transformation is not leading us to a better, freer, more prosperous, more humane society. This politicization of the education schools is not new, it is not invisible, and it is not occurring through random happenstance or by good ideas pushing out bad ones. It started over 100 years ago in the Progressive era, when the education schools first emerged as a body of experts who focused on “teaching” as a science; many of those experts were socialists who were open about their intentions to change the nation.
    [Show full text]