HIDDEN CURRICULA Curriculum Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1997 Studying Hidden Curricula: developing a perspective in the light of postmodern insights ALAN SKELTON University of Sheffield, United Kingdom ABSTRACT This article provides an overview of research into the hidden curriculum. Following a consideration of functionalist, liberal and critical research studies, I focus in particular on recent insights which have arisen from postmodern thinking. In the light of postmodernism, I identify a personal perspective on how to study the hidden curriculum which moves beyond the established boundaries of discrete research paradigms. Why study the hidden curriculum? Had it not fulfilled all of its usefulness and potential by 1978, when David Hargreaves begged the question: “From whom, one wonders, is the hidden curriculum now hidden?” (Hargreaves, 1978, p. 97). In answer to these questions, I want to argue that it may be timely to revisit the concept for two main reasons. Firstly, although the initial wave of critical research into the hidden curriculum may have achieved its primary purpose of revealing covert political interference into the curriculum, the task of enabling people to understand what motivates such interference is perhaps even more important in the current context where political control over the curriculum is explicit yet offered up as ‘common sense’. Secondly, contemporary hidden curriculum research may seek to problematise the implicit and taken-for-granted rationality of most ‘modern’ curricula and the totality and coherence of the belief systems which inform them. Do current conceptions of curricula prepare students for the millennium? Do they reflect and anticipate the challenge of living in a world which is rapidly changing and becoming ever more complex, fragmented and uncertain? In short, then, contemporary hidden curriculum study might usefully embrace old and new challenges and, in so doing, might seek to draw on the wide range of analytical frameworks that have been applied to the study of education. What follows is a review of different research perspectives on the hidden curriculum. A concise summary of initial work into the hidden curriculum is presented for those unfamiliar with the field, since this work still has much to offer 177 ALAN SKELTON contemporary critique. The section on postmodern perspectives is more substantial since it offers ‘new’ possibilities for hidden curriculum study. Research Perspectives on the Hidden Curriculum Different perspectives on the hidden curriculum have been articulated over the past 25 years. A word of warning, however, must accompany the following discussion of hidden curriculum perspectives. Whilst the clarification of distinct perspectives communicates central ideas, it must also be recognised that such clarification is ultimately a reductionist exercise which inevitably simplifies reality and conveys a picture of order and progression. It is important to state from the outset, therefore, that: a perspective contains internal differences (sub-perspectives); perspectives do overlap in some respects and are not, in every respect, distinct; perspectives do not necessarily build on from one another in time or in quality. Also what one calls a particular perspective is contestable (Hammersley, 1992) and different names have been identified for the perspectives which are presented here (see Giroux, 1983; Lynch, 1989). The Functionalist Perspective Initial work on the hidden curriculum focused on the problematic of how schools played their part in maintaining social order and stability. This ‘functionalist’ perspective (for example: Parsons, 1959; Dreeben, 1968; Jackson, 1968), viewed schools as vehicles through which students learn the social norms, values and skills they require to function and contribute to the existing society. As Giroux (1983, p. 48) explains: The hidden curriculum is explored primarily through the social norms and moral beliefs tacitly transmitted through the socialization process that structure classroom social relationships. Parsons and Dreeben are explicit functionalists in that they both recognise and support the linking role schools play in social maintenance. Dreeben (1968), for example, maintained that the social experiences of schools enable students to learn those norms and characteristics which are both necessary to and inherent within adult public life. He identifies four specific norms which are transmitted though schooling, namely: independence, achievement, universalism and specificity. Jackson (1968) is less explicit in his functionalism and appears, at least initially, to be concerned about the school’s role in maintaining social order. He contrasts the hidden curriculum with the ‘official curriculum’ of schooling and describes how the crowded nature of the classroom requires students to cope with delays, denials of their desires and social distractions: Here then are four unpublicised features of school life: delay, denial, interruption and social distraction. (Jackson, 1968, p. 17) 178 HIDDEN CURRICULA These coping requirements give rise to norms and values which each student must comply with in order to progress satisfactory through the school. In short, schooling satisfactorily teaches conformity to students rather than creativity, since the former brings the ‘reward’ of satisfactory negotiation of school life. Jackson concluded that although teaching conformity was the antithesis to official curriculum goals, it nevertheless had a function in preparing students for the real world of hierarchical power relations, which for him, were ‘facts of life’ to which all people were required to adapt. For this reason, his work has been located, ultimately, as part of the functionalist perspective (Giroux, 1983; Lynch, 1989). Functionalist accounts have been criticised on a number of grounds. They assume, for example, an oversimplified, consensual relationship between school and society (Lynch, 1989). They also present students as over-determined, passive recipients of hidden curriculum messages (Lynch, 1989) and they do not address the potential significance of the hidden curriculum in the maintenance of class (Sharp, 1980) and sex (Stanworth, 1981) inequalities in society. The Liberal Perspective The liberal perspective views the hidden curriculum in a very different way to functionalists. It considers the hidden curriculum to be those taken-for-granted assumptions and practices of school life which although being created by various ‘actors’ within the school (for example, teachers and students), take on an appearance of accepted normality through their daily production and reproduction. Many liberal critiques of schooling, therefore, set out to expose those unquestioned and ‘hidden’ aspects of school life such as: school rules and codes of discipline; learning organisation (for example: streaming; mixed ability), and teacher-student relationships and interactions. They seek to make explicit the assumptions on which everyday practices come to light and describe the process of how these practices are created and maintained in classrooms. Hargreaves (1967) and Lacey (1970) studied the streaming practices of schools as a form of learning organisation. Whilst the official view of streaming is that it provides an appropriate learning milieu for students of differing abilities, these authors both found that once streams had been created, students, took on the ‘identity’ of the stream, leading to underachievement in the ‘lower’ stream classes. David Hargreaves (1978) explored the role of space and time in classrooms. He found that these implicit aspects of school life were a symbolic expression and reproducer of the power-relation between teachers and students. For example, teachers’ freedom of movement, central positioning, greater work space and control over the structuring, allocation and control of time within the classroom were evident, conveying messages about ‘appropriate’ teacher-student relations. Although Hargreaves suggested that some teachers do challenge dominant patterns of space and time usage, through 179 ALAN SKELTON adopting, for example, alternative seating arrangements, he suggests that these are exceptions to the prevailing pattern found in schools. Whilst a considerable amount of liberal scholarship focuses on exposing the assumptions behind school practices and uncovering teachers’ latent controlling devices, some studies within this perspective have shown how school practices are negotiated between teachers and between teachers and students. A number of studies, for example, have shown that teachers respond differently to school definitions of acceptable practice. Some inwardly conform, some outwardly comply and some seek to redefine school definitions (Becker, 1970; Woods, 1981; Scarth, 1987; Skelton, 1990). Woods (1979) also identifies a number of different modes of student adaptation to teachers’ attempts to exert control over the classroom which he calls: conformity; ritualism; retreatism; colonisation; intransigence and rebellion. A number of other studies have concentrated on student responses to educational experiences and have demonstrated that students ‘decode’ the official rhetoric of educational institutions and focus on what they really need to do to survive and succeed (Becker et al, 1961; Holt, 1964; Snyder, 1971). These studies demonstrate how the liberal perspective takes a different view of people in relation to society compared with the functionalist perspective. Drawing on the philosophical roots