Hidden Curriculum

and Correspond

ence Theory

By Samuel Bowlesand

Herbert Gintis

HIDDEN CURRICULUM, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis

• American Marxist economist and sociologist Bowles and Gintis believed that through education there is a ‘Hidden Curriculum’

• Bowles and Gintis suggest that the school system promotes conformist students who submit to authority by attaching achievement and value on those students who display a submissive consciousness.

• “Submission to authority” is a phrase identified by Bowles and Gintis

• Hidden curriculum consist of those things that pupils learn through experience of attending school not educational objectives

• Hidden curriculum shapes the future work force by :

- Creating obeying, passive and docile workers

- Prepares school children for working life

educational system is a

gigantic myth making

machine which serves to create

inequality

education produces inequality by justifying those in privileged positions and efficiently disguised the fact theeconomic success runs in the family

Bowles & Gintis

• Hidden Curriculum – a set of extras about the world and a person’s place in it, which is taught by the school, although it’s not part of the official learning.

• ‘What is important about what pupils learn in school is not primarily the 'overt' curriculum of subjects like French and Biology, but values and beliefs such as conformity, knowing one's place, waiting one's turn, competitiveness, individual worth and deference to authority'. The hidden curriculum teaches pupils 'the way life is' and that education is something that is done to them rather than something that they do. The prevailing values of society are 'picked-up' by pupils.' (Whitty and Young, 1976).

• These extras are norms, values, beliefs and ideology

• An expectation of social behaviour regarded as normalNorms

• A social ideal that we regard as being of a qualityValues

• Something held in mind regarded as being true for nowBelief

Ideology • The thinking direction of a whole group or society

Example of hidden curriculumFeatures Message

Privileges and responsibilities given toolder students

Respect for elders

School rules and rewards Individuals have to conform to laws, rules and regulations whether they agree or not.

Gender differentiation ( roles, rules, attention and expectation )

Males and females are expected to conform according to their gender stereotypes.

Respecting the authority of teachers,regardless of what they say or do.

Respect for those in authority

Punctuality Good time keeping at workConcentrating on school work Workers have to accept

repetitive task

Hidden Curriculum Marxist Point of

View

Marxist Point of View • Perpetuating inequalities• Preparing the individual to become a

docile, obedient and complying worker

• Teaches the pupil to become a passive and massive consumer

• Teaches that only conformity will bring rewards

• Shaping the future workforce

Critism on Bowles & Gintis work• Neo-Marxists said the authors have

exaggerated and failed to provide adequate evidence to support their case

• Brown (1997) argued that changes in the nature of work organisation itself has changed and with reduced bureaucratic control and increase importance of team working make a system of education that breeds competition in exams useless.

• Paul Willis (1977) also showed that the idea that school shapes personality is baseless since many pupils can disregard the rules and pay little regards to school authorities.

• hidden curriculum is concerned with the production, maintenance and legitimation of social inequality• The hidden curriculum

operates through a 'correspondence' between the structure of schooling and the economic system.

Hidden curriculumFrom functionalist points of

view

• contributions• Functionalist argues that the

survival of society is dependent upon the holding of collective values which label as consensus theory and their social transmission.

What are those collective values are ?

• Emile Durkheim argued that the strict enforcement of school rules and subsequent punishment for any violation would highlight the damage that could be done to society through the lack of collective co-operation.

• By respecting those rules in school, the child would learn to respect the rules of adult in social life

Conclusion from perspectives of functionalist

• In industrialised society, education provides the opportunity to learn skills that will place the individual in an advantageous position for future.

• the interdependence of specialised skills in modern industry further emphasises the necessity for co-operation and social solidarity.

• Durkheim argued that without this social life and cooperation would be impossible because everyone would only seek to fulfil their own desires.

• Schools help to create a sense of social solidarity by transmitting society’s culture from generation to generation.

The hidden curriculum teaches pupils 'the way life is' and that education is

something that is done to them rather than something that they do

Correspondence Theory

• Claim that the public school is social institution (ISA)

• Proposed a correspondence theory of the relationship between the nature of work and the education system in Capitalist societes (Schooling in Capitalist America, 1976)

By Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis

Examples• The school disciplines students to the

demands of work.• Social relationship within the school

replicate the relationship found at work.

• Division of school work into subjects accepting division of labour.

• Correspondence is maintained at various levels of the education system.o Lower, middle, higher levels of work.

• Meritocracy o do good, you get reward

Criticisms• Brown and Lauder (1991) – There are changes in the importance of

bureaucratic control in work organisations – An increased importance of team working

• Michael Apple (1982, 1986)– Teachers are being proletarianised

• Ramsey (1983)– Great deal of variation among working

class schools.

• Hannan and Boyle (1987)– Teachers attitude influence the beliefs of

a working class school– Not all working class school prepare

their students for failing• David Reynolds (1984)– British school curriculum does not

promote the development of an ideal employee under capitalism.

• Paul Willis (1977)– B & G made assumptions that the

hidden curriculum is influencing the pupils without proof.