Hidden Curriculum

The Hidden Curriculum is a curriculum developed by System Agents and deployed through Ideological Institutions, like the school system, or the Catholic Church. The hidden curriculum is designed to shape children into docile, compliant, employable peons willing to sacrifice the majority of their life to the Capitalist's meat chute. As Jean Anyon concisely puts it, it consists of the "invisible" lessons that teach us how to behave in accordance with our assigned place in the Social Order.

Related LP Terms

Hidden Curriculum > Assembly Line Model, Hidden Framework, Regime of Accumulation, Submission Training

Non-LP Related Terms

Hidden Curriculum > Ivan Illich, Jean Anyon

Notes

For example, the hidden curriculum of gender teaches individuals how to speak, dress, and behave in accordance with socially acceptable gender expectations. Sanctions (e.g. ridicule, exclusion, violence) are applied against those who do not learn to speak, dress, and behave in accordance with social expectations.

In addition to the hidden curriculum of gender, there is also a Social Class hidden curriculum. A different curriculum applies to members of the Working Class as does to members of the Ruling Class. For example, those from the lower classes learn the "value" of hard work, the importance of punctuality, the importance of compliance, the "honor" of deference to authority (i.e. management/officers/clergy, etc), and so on. Members of the elite learn the importance of control, the mechanisms of power, justifications for their privilege, and so on.

Hidden curriculum is taught by parents, grandparents, teachers, and other Agents of Socialization.

Note, at first glance it might appear that the upper-class curriculum does not contain the same messages of compliance and obedience as the lower-class curriculum does, but it does. Indeed, more so. The higher up in The Hierarchies an individual rises, the more important compliance becomes. I mean seriously, could you imagine the damage somebody with the financial resources of Jeff Bezos could do to The System if he suddenly woke up and used his resources for transformation and not personal aggrandizement? He could easily end The System if he so chose. Of course, he'd be assassinated if he tried, but then that just underlines the point. The rich and powerful are the least free of all.

Quotes

"Everywhere the hidden curriculum of schooling initiates the citizen to the myth that bureaucracies guided by scientific knowledge are efficient and benevolent. Everywhere this same curriculum instills in the pupil the myth that increased production will"" provide a better life. And everywhere it develops the habit of self-defeating consumption of services and alienating production, the tolerance for institutional dependence, and the recognition of institutional rankings. The hidden curriculum of school does all this in spite of contrary efforts undertaken by teachers and no matter what ideology prevails."==Footnotes==

References