Readings for Cultural Politics in Education Assignment 1

As I said in my previous post I have to interview 3 people about their educational background. Nobody has gotten back to me yet but I hope that my volunteers will get back to me soonish. One is easy to persuade as I live with him!
My aim today on this Friday of the long weekend is to read and summarise some important points in the articles for use in the assignment as I did for the previous on.
I want to focus on Class and the Hidden Curriculum.

Article 1 - The Hidden Curriculum: An overview. A sociology of educating (4th ed., pp.65-76. Continuum.

Interesting points from the article:

Hidden Curriculum: Reid (1986)

“a concept that refers to all of those socialising practices that are not included in the official curriculum but that contribute toward the reproduction of our culture.

Hidden Curriculum (Adapted from Postman & Wiengartner, 1971)

• Passive acceptance vs active criticism
• Knowledge creation is beyond the power of students (not their concern)
• Recall is the most important skill – recall of unrelated facts
• Authority is valued – independent judgement is not
• Individual and peer ideas are not important
• Emotions are unimportant
• Single, unambiguous correct answers
• Each subject is separate from the other
• Hierachy of subjects – minor and major subjects p.65

Drama teachers always complaining that this is the case in school - what other subjects are affected?
Look at the HSC syllabus - core subjects - Maths, English, Science

Hidden curriculum: Further (Meighan & Siraj-Blatchford, 2003)

• Competition rather than cooperation
• Helping yourself better than helping others
• Reading, writing and maths more important than talking, thinking and creating
• Adults more important than children
• Men more important than women
• Whites more important than other ethnic groups
• Western world more advanced than other parts of the world p.66

Hidden Curriculum can mean: (Portelli, 1993)

• Unofficial expectations of implicit but expected messages
• Unintended learning outcomes of messages
• Implicit messages arising from the structure of schooling
• Created by the students p.66

Change in education often opposed by those who have been through the system

(reproduction of values?)

• E.g. not accepting play as an acceptable form of learning (e.g. Scandanavian countries use this extensively)
• Mass schooling begun in an ‘information impoverished society” – this has changed now so should schools look and act differently? P.68

See Edpod - Interview with David Salter at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/edpod/stories/2007/2000292.htm about Schools for the 21st century

Language - (de Bono, 1971)

The English language has a marked tendency toward dichotomies good/bad, black/white, strong/weak etc and a consequence is an oversimplification of complex ideas p.71

See shows such as Difference of Opinion as a confirmation of this!

Hidden Curriculum - Jackson (1968)
3 R’s – Rules, Regulations and Routines.
Students must also learn to cope with the delay, denial and interruptions in most classrooms. P. 71.

Instilling in children/adolescents behavior expected of then in the workplace?

Britain – dominant ideology of meritocracy

“Place in the class structure is assumed to be, at least in part, a result of his or her own qualities and endeavours (or lack of them)” Connell (and others)

Is Australia similar in this respect??

Bowles and Gintis (1976) – Correspondence Theory

Attitudes passed on by schools correspond directly to those of the social relations of work in a capitalist economy and therefore constitute a preparation for life in a class-divided society. P. 72

Is this why philosophy departments are shrinking and business studies is the most popular course in the HSC?

New Sociology of Education

Writers such as Bordieu, Passeron (1977), Wexler (1976) Bernstein (1977) - empahsised the relative autonomy of the school to the social structure (as opposed to the ideas of Bowles & Gintis) and focussed attention of the ‘hidden curriculum’ and ‘invisible pedagogies’ which operate to the advantage of the power groups in society.

New Sociology of Education

Writers such as Bordieu, Passeron (1977), Wexler (1976) Bernstein (1977) - empahsised the relative autonomy of the school to the social structure (as opposed to the ideas of Bowles & Gintis) and focussed attention of the ‘hidden curriculum’ and ‘invisible pedagogies’ which operate to the advantage of the power groups in society.

Further notes on this can be found on My Work link.

Cultural Politics of Education

As part of this subject we have to keep a Personal Learning Journal for the purpose of:

• looking back at our own learning
• review notes and record later interpretations or reflections

This is the aim of my blog - to record notes from articles, propose questions, challenge ideas and to collate website and articles.

Notes from: Education.com.au? by Holmes, Hughes & Julian in Australian Sociology - A Changing Society (2003)

Hidden Curriculum - social learning - learning social conventions and about one's role in the social hierachy. p.223.

Functionalism - 'society as an organic entity made from interacting parts that seeks balance and coherence. Social change to these parts occurs in these parts in order to achieve balance. The ultimate aim is social cohesion'. p.223

Meritocracy - social structures such as class, race, sex and ethnicity are not seen as disadvantaging people. Individuals are equally able to achieve in a meritocracy (a system where particular attributes are highly valued e.g. intelligence). p.224

Education (according to functionalism)- functions as a sorting house whose role is to develop a country's human resources for economic purposes (as well as social ones) p. 224

Education (according to functionalism) - functions to develop a shared culture or set of common values in children - social expectations outside the family micro world. Adolescence are exposed to a much more complex range of social expectations - i.e the level of education needed to achieve certain outcomes, how their shared culture looks at their particular class, ethnic group or gender and how gender is developed. p. 224

Schooling in Captalist American buy Bowles & Gintis (1976) & Reproduction Theory
Children learn about the social hierachy in schools, the structure of power and authority. Schools are places where the status quo is reproduced, persuading children to fulfill the social expectations set for them so they do not aspire to economic positions above their social position. p. 225. (see Schooling in Capitalist America revisited post for more information on this)

Further notes available from My Work link on main page.