Hidden Curriculum in schools: Its role in social control and identity

formation

Introduction:

Schools have increasingly become the places representing the formal learning in our society.
The over simplistic definition of the role of schools is the fulfilment of scholastic
achievements and occupational ambitions for their students. But a school being one of the
ideological state apparatus1 is rift with socio-economic and political influences on it from the
society. All aspects of a school culture such as the dispositions of the management and
faculty, structures and p

rocedures, modes of knowledge transacted, pedagogical means and assessment, informal

interactions among students and teachers etc., carry deep sociological implications with them.
They affect the ways in which students come to view the larger society and thereby create
their personalities for playing their adult roles in future. This implies that a school cannot be
looked at as a black box which works to produce linear sociological outputs in relation to the
inputs provided. Schools are sites where not only the knowledge gets transacted passively but
also sites, in which the participants involved, make meaning out of the knowledge and
constantly mediate it (Giroux, 2001).

A functionalist view also enables us to view schools as working towards transmitting and
maintaining the social order and stratification of the society in general. One such
functionalistic analysis of schools by Philip Jackson (1968)2 gives the concept of ‘Hidden
Curriculum’. Hidden curriculum is all the “unstated norms, values, and beliefs embedded in
and transmitted to students through the underlying rules that structure the routines and social
relationships in school and classroom life” (Giroux,2001). Although Jackson (1968) agrees
that power might be abused in schools, its existence cannot be negated. Hidden curriculum
exerts power over students by maintaining control over them through different structures in
place. Students have to continuously negotiate their lived experiences with the dominant
structure of the school life that forms the unwritten aspects of hidden curriculum.

The understanding of hidden curriculum should stem from the analysis of various school
structures that affect the aspects of socialisation and identity formation in students. This paper
attempts to provide such an understanding by taking examples of socialisation and identity
formation from personal schooling experiences, role of textbooks in perpetuating dominant
societal ideologies and affecting history and citizenship, minority and religious institutions
and their efforts in instilling the particular and universal identities in their students.

Theoretical perspectives on ‘Hidden Curriculum’:

1
Althusser, 1970: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm
2
http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/change/603/Hidden%20curriculum.pdf
Philip Jackson (1968) has highlighted the concept of hidden curriculum in his book Life in
Classrooms by engaging in discussion of ‘crowd, praise and power’. When a child enters the
stage of schooling in her life, she increasingly begins to associate the female teacher presence
in a classroom to that of her mother at home (Parsons, 1961). But soon enough the child starts
to approximate its position among her classmates to become a part of the crowd. The
particularistic understanding of the world gives way to the universalistic understanding. In a
classroom, the teacher comes to acquire a great amount of power over the child’s life and
thus the child comes to accept the unequal power distribution in the larger society too. A
teacher shapes the behaviour of a child constantly through the use of praise and rewards. A
child’s axis of achievement then comes to revolve greatly around the positive and negative
rewards of the teacher. The child then constantly validates its position and worth through the
evaluation of her behaviour from the teacher. Thus, through these ‘hidden’ structures of
schooling, a child comes to accept that the society has power positions ascribed to each
member and assimilates the concepts of hegemony, inequality, status (presence or absence of
teacher approval).

Parul Bhandari’s (2014) ethnographic study of a Christian minority school in Delhi gives us a
taste of how crowd, praise and power work in a school environment. The students of
secondary school have divided themselves into various groups based on academics,
behavioural tendencies and social status. It is interesting to observe how the teacher
perceptions about academics and power positions in the school help shape the identities of
these groups. Those students who buy into the teachers’ praise for certain desirable academic
qualities organise themselves into a group called ‘geeks’ who are solely into pursuing ‘good
grades’. The teachers’ evaluation of subjects also leads students into restricting themselves
for science or commerce stream careers. Depending upon teacher motivation/praise certain
career options come to be looked down upon. This is a strong example of how praise aspect
of hidden curriculum affects the major life choices of students.

My schooling took place in the culturally strong region of Mysur in Karnataka. There is a
predominant cultural hegemony of Hindu upper caste in the city. Classical art forms of
Carnatic music, Bharatanatyam, Dasa Sahitya enjoy high status in the cultural milieu of the
city. My school being run by upper caste Hindu members was prone to inculcate these art
forms in its students. Most of the student accomplishments that were lauded belonged to the
aforementioned art forms. The annual school day also had 90% of the showcases limited to
these forms. As a result, students with talent in other extra-curricular activities got lesser
visibility in the school. My prodigious friend who showed immense talent in landscape
painting and participated in national level competitions was always left craving for more
attention and encouragement. Eventually in the school he grew to be a non-participative
member in cultural activities in spite of being an extremely gifted artist. The ‘crowd’ aspect
of hidden curriculum where only certain universalistic qualities are celebrated often excludes
the lived experiences of a few students.

From the above two examples it is appalling to see the great amount of power that the school
systems and teachers exercise in shaping the lives of students.
Giroux (2001) expounds upon three views on the political effects of hidden curriculum viz.,
traditional perspective, liberal perspective and the radical perspective. Traditional perspective
on hidden curriculum is mainly concerned with “what makes the existing society possible?”
(Giroux, 2001). In this approach the schools are believed to be engaged in ‘cultural
transmission’ (Kohlberg and Mayer, 1973) mode of knowledge transaction. This structural
functionalist approach to studying the hidden curriculum accepts uncritically the existing
relationship between schools and the larger society. The main focus is on the socialisation
process in schools that allow for the tacit transmission of dominant values and beliefs of the
society. Liberal approach to curriculum analysis engages with the question of “how meaning
gets produced in the classroom” (ibid). This approach explores the “importance of
intentionality, consciousness, and interpersonal relations in the construction of meaning”. The
major focus is on the teacher-student interactions that promote active meaning construction
by the students. The radical approach enlists the factors of political economy of a school and
how “the processes of schooling function to reproduce and sustain the relations of
dominance, exploitation and inequality between classes?”(ibid). So in essence the radical
approach considers the influences of external socio-political structures in determining the
identity formation in schools.

Drawing from the above perspectives on hidden curriculum it is imperative to understand that
the society at large celebrates dominant culture and strives to maintain and perpetuate it in a
capitalist society. What gains currency is the capital3 of the dominant class in a society.
Bourdieu (1997) posits that the economic capital (money power in layman terms) of a class
makes way to gain cultural capital4 (either in embodied (long lasting dispositions of the body
or mind) or institutionalised form (academic qualifications)) and social capital (the social
network of a person that can be mobilised at any point of time). It is majorly through schools
that children gain a deeper understanding of what cultural capitals in the society get
appreciated. It is surprising to note that all this understanding develops through hidden
curriculum in the form of knowledge appreciated and transacted in classrooms, pedagogical
means that uphold certain dominant cultural norms of the society, structures in schools
designed to inculcate the dominant cultural capital in students etc.,

The school I attended had a high cut off percentage for admission and in the first list of
general merit admission it was 94% in 7th grade for securing a seat in 8th grade. Under such
highly competitive environment, teachers came to look at scoring well in unit tests and
annual examinations as a mark of success in life. Only those students who got percentages
above 90%received ‘praise’ from teachers and since each class had about 85-95 students,
there was little scope that the students who scored below 90% received any attention from
teachers at all. The unstated popular perception among teachers and students was that those
scoring below 90% wouldn’t be successful in life. Eventually many students who did score
below 90% passed out of the school with self-confidence lower than that of the students
scoring above 90%. In addition to scoring less than 90% those students who displayed high-

3
Capital, according to Bourdieu (1997) is “accumulated labor…which, when appropriated…by agents…enables
them to appropriate social energy in the form of reified or living labor.”
4
http://lib.spranceana.com/pierre-bourdieu-the-forms-of-capital-129.html
energy, boredom, disinvestment in learning (which was typically lecture mode only), attempts
at asking questions etc., were vehemently chided (sometimes subjected to corporal
punishments too) and excluded from the mainstream curricular and extra-curricular
activities in the school. Instead of providing them extra coaching and counselling, the school
faculty treated these students as misfits in the educational system within the school.

This example illustrates the caustic effect of labelling theory as postulated by R.C. Rist
(1977). A teacher holds supreme power in deciding what is deviant behaviour in a classroom
(in the above case not scoring above 90% was considered one strong case of deviant
behaviour) thus exerting intellectual hegemony over all interactions in the classroom.
According to Rist, the opinions of teachers about students often work as ‘self-fulling
prophecies’ that push students to internalise and actualise those perceptions into reality.
Whatever is the major ethos of a school culture gets imbibed in the minds of impressionable
students thereby framing their identity in either positive or the negative way.

Thus hidden curriculum which is not intentionally hid contributes greatly to the identity
formation of young minds and creates a structure in the school to exert great control over the
activities and minds of students. The further two sections in this paper explore how the above
two mechanisations take place within schools.

Social control:

Analysing my school experience through the above lens, one aspect of dominant values and
beliefs of the society transmitted was that of the submission of females in an upper caste
society. There was a continuum of culture between my home and school, both of which
upheld the Brahmin ways of living. The gender socialisation at school occurred through
many processes that instilled stereotyped gender adult roles in the minds of students. Every
day after school assembly the teachers positioned themselves along the two narrow corridors
that connected the assembly area to the classrooms. Here they ‘checked’ girls for the proper
uniform which mandated bindi and bangles for every Hindu girl. The skirt length for girls
could in no circumstance be till knee portion or above it. It was always long for our school in
the neighbourhood. On days when casual clothing was allowed girls had to wear Indian wear
and avoid wearing ‘western’ clothes, which included jeans, skirt and blouse. The female
teachers too adhered to the ‘good cultured’ way of dressing up which was inevitably sarees.
Teachers strongly discouraged mixing up of boys and girls and those students who broke this
unstated norm were always lectured about ‘good ways’ of living and teachers lamented on
the loss of ‘good values’ in such students. There was an evident segregation in physical space
too. The seating arrangement in the classroom, assembly area, outdoor spaces were all
segregated in order to separate the sexes. It was considered ‘good culture’ for girls to be
adept at Carnatic music, Bhagavadgeeta recitation, devotional (Dasa Sahitya) singing and
Bharatanatya. Teachers maintained a stern relationship with the students thereby eliminating
the discussion of all intimate problems of the students with responsible adults.

Through all the above structures in school, the dominant Brahminical version of a ‘good girl’
was inculcated in students’ minds. It is appalling how little control students have over the
physical space of their learning let alone the modes and means of it. Few structures in school
which tend to gain control over the socialisation aspect of students are physical arrangement
of classrooms (seating arrangements as well as the positioning of classrooms with respect to
the authoritarian blocks within the school such as principal’s office, staff room), the displays
used in the common spaces of the school, dress code for the students and the staff, attitude
towards intermingling of sexes in co-educational institutions, the rules for student-teacher
interaction, school assemblies (selection and organisation of content for public discussion),
rewards and punishment etc.,

Arshad Alam’s (2013) paper ‘Controlling Minds, Disciplining Bodies: Life Inside a Madrasa’
is a brilliant demonstration of how identities are formed through strong control structures in
an educational institution. At the core working of Madrasa Ashrafiya Misbahul Ulum is the
need for establishing and maintaining Islamic identities in its students. It achieves this
objective by certain structures and procedures. The students’ time is controlled from morning
till night. Students need to follow certain set patterns and timing for reciting namaz and the
school authorities always know where each student is and what they are up to. Students are
allotted big dormitories with a good mixture of senior and junior students thus eliminating the
possibility of privacy and keeping a strict surveillance all the time. The students are taught to
employ submissive body language in order to show respect to the elders (teachers and
resident seniors). The elders use corporal punishment as a means to achieve this. There is a
clear display of power to maintain discipline and avoid students to use their agency lest they
start to question Islamic ways and develop western mind set of “rationalising” their world.

In an ethnographic study done by Matthan, Anusha and Thapan (2014) on a Muslim minority
school in communal riots affected region of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, we get similar insights on
how school structures pertaining to dress, corporal punishment and body language of the
students (tone, volume, modest behaviour) enables the girls to internalise the perfect ‘adab’
(mannerism) required by a Muslim girl. This school, which has strong structures to reinforce
Islamic gender role socialisation, prepares girls who cannot escape the controlling nature of
the school structures to question the basic tenets of a female’s role in the Islamic society.

Schools inevitably play a role in the students’ value acquisition and moral education. No
matter the degree of hiddenness, a school impacts the identity formation of its students to a
great degree. The subsequent discussion in this essay explores how hidden curriculum
impacts the religious, civic and moral identities of students.

Identity formation:

Michael Apple (2004) and Krishna Kumar (1996) both raise the question of ‘what knowledge
is worth teaching’ or in other words ‘whose culture gains currency in our education system’.
Schools don’t just churn out literates in a society. Literacy can never be apolitical since it is
always infused with the sociological and political aspirations of different groups. Christopher
Winch (1996) rightly says that deciding on curriculum is a democratic process, a process of
deliberation where each group gets some of its interests catered to. Secondary consequences
of schooling thus involve students absorbing more of a dominant culture while constantly
approximating the validity of their lived experiences. In all this deliberation and debate of
what needs to be taught, the Indian “textbook culture” (Krishna Kumar, 1988) gives undue
power to our textbooks in dictating what children will come to consider as worthy
knowledge. Hence in the curriculum and textbook history of India there is great vested
political interest in textbook writing.

Mukherjee and Mukherjee (2001) have wonderfully illustrated how with the change of power
in national politics, the history taught in schools also change. When the NDA government
came into central power, much of history textbook content came under the ambit of
controversies. Bipin Chandra, Romila Thapar and other prominent historians’ books were
withdrawn from schools, the central educational body NCERT in the nation came to be
headed by an RSS sympathiser, religious heads were sought after for their opinions regarding
teaching about religion in schools, the NCF 2000 came to be drafted without active
involvement and approval from CABE (Central Advisory Board of Education). The ruling
government tried to affect the secular perception of nation at school level. Thus textbooks are
very powerful tools of how a country comes to perceive its history and thereby its identity.
Advani (1996) also argues that textbooks are capable enough to eulogise the diversity aspect
of our nation without enabling children to critically question the pluralistic nature of our
identities in India. Gender stereotypes, development as a prerogative of urban milieu,
insensitivity towards varied linguistic cultures etc., can be brewed within schools walls by
designing textbooks that stand out to be the single most reliable resources for transacting
syllabus. Students taught in such a textbook culture often assume the knowledge given in
textbooks as legitimate. In such situations the identity that the students often developed is a
skewed majority culture without the power of introspecting and critically questioning the
basis of such knowledge.

Identity formation of a child in schools involves an understanding of her position with respect
to the various aspects such as politics, literature, culture, social structures, caste, religion
etc., Post-independence, Indian educational policies have stressed on the inculcation of a
national identity and solidarity among students. Only with the introduction of NCF 2005 has
the axis shifted towards child centric education where the meaning of schooling extends
beyond formation of citizenship and moral values in children to include the overall
development of psychological, moral and intellectual faculties of a child.

My schooling was done in the 90s when national identity formation and moral policing were
two main focus points for my school. More than anything, a strong ‘Kannada’ identity was
built in me due to my schooling. The pedagogical discourses (often bereft of any student
discussion) mainly sang paeans of Karnataka’s great culture. I vividly remember learning
about how the kingdoms of Rashtrakutas, Chalukyas and Kadambas contributed greatly to
revive Kannada literature, architecture and art. The eminent poets Ranna, Ponna and Pampa
called the ‘gems of Kannada literature’, the great king Vishnuvardhana, patron of Hoysala
temple architecture all were exalted in my language classes. But only in retrospect do I
realise the ‘hidden curriculum’ behind it all. The teachers due to their heavy Hindu bias had
failed to discuss the ‘Jain’ religion of all the above mentioned people thereby belittling the
huge political and religious implications of their work. All these were developments in
Kannada culture were mentioned with a singular linguistic lens by conveniently ignoring
other socio-cultural and religious aspects of their times.

Identity formation as a powerful consequence of hidden curriculum cannot be more

pronounced anywhere else than in RSS schools. Tanika Sarkar (1996) and Nandini Sundar
(2004) in their papers describe how systematically the Shishu Mandirs, Vidya Bharti schools
established by RSS spread the ‘Hindu identity’ among their students. The ‘Hindu Rashtra’
ideal of RSS is propagated among students in these ways: patriotism is projected as the
willingness to ‘fight’ for the nation and naturally physical fitness through yoga and ‘shakhas’
is encouraged, assemblies show an over relying on Sanskrit and Hindi shloks and songs, the
teachers are called as ‘acharyas’ depicting Hindu perception of a guru, schools are called
‘mandirs’ and thus knowledge becomes a matter of faith and little scope is left for developing
critical thinking among students, mythology and history have a flimsy separation and
students end up with a pedagogy that makes them believe that certain myths are true, RSS
political propaganda is openly discussed and valorised in schools, teachers include parent
community in aspects of learning and building Hindu values in children, students who show
inclination towards RSS ideology and leadership skills are further trained on the RSS Sangh’s
ideologies through camps etc.,

Conclusion:

Althusser’s classification of education as ‘ideological state apparatus’ is a completely

justified one. Indian textbooks and schools still operate with a “communal and colonial
stereotype” (Romila Thapar, 1961)5 with political parties often trying to add their own
ideologies. In such a situation, understanding the concept of hidden curriculum and thereby
being cognizant of its effects on students is the first step in eliminating the ill effects of
unstated norms and biases of the people and structures in a school. One might argue that if
hidden curriculum has such far reaching consequences of affecting and shaping an
individual’s identity and social life then care should be taken to abolish it in its entirety.
However benevolent this idea might be, it is impractical to attempt it; since every individual
involved in imparting formal education to a child comes with his/her own socio-political and
cultural beliefs and actions of such beings cannot ever be independent of those beliefs.
Therefore a less milder yet reflective and deliberate attempts need to be made at eliminating
the negative consequences of hidden curriculum.

Our society needs individuals to develop the capability of deliberate reasoning of their
situation in their immediate social context, empathise with those living in conditions different
from theirs and identify the concept of good lives for themselves. To impart education to
children with such deep sociological understanding of educational aims, critical pedagogy
(Freire, 1974) comes to the rescue. Such pedagogy problematizes education and makes
teacher and students learn to question assumptions, paradigms and hegemonic characteristics
of the society there by enabling school structures to be fluid in nature. During pre-service and
in-service trainings, teachers should be made aware of the implications of their beliefs and

5
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hwj/summary/v067/67.bhattacharya.html
actions in a classroom by exposing them to the sociological theories of pedagogy, curriculum
and assessment. Such an empowerment I hope would then create a positive hidden
curriculum that builds critical, autonomous individuals who could actively engage with
negotiating the structures of larger society. This approach in no way recommends complete
removal of structures, discipline and authority from schools rather it postulates a conscious
and reflective approach to maintain these.

References:

 Althusser, L. (1970) ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses’,

chivhttp://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/Althusser/1970/ideology.htm
 Giroux, H.A. (2001) ‘Schooling and the Politics of the Hidden Curriculum’ in Theory
and Resistance, Westport, Bergin and Garvey
 Bourdieu P. (1997) ‘The Forms of Capital’, in Halsey, A.H. (eds.) Education:
Culture, Economy, and Society. Oxford, OUP.
 Alam, Arshad (2013) ‘Controlling Minds, Disciplining Bodies: Life inside a Madrasa’
in Nambisaan, G.B. & Rao, S.S. (eds) Sociology of Education in India, Oxford
University Press, New Delhi.
 Bhandari, P. (2014) ‘In quest of Identity: Student Culture in a religious Minority
Institution’ in Thapan, M. (ed.) Ethnographies of Schooling in Contemporary India,
Sage Publication, New Delhi.
 Matthan, T., Anusha, C., & Thapan, M. (201) ‘Being Muslims, Becoming Citizens: A
Muslim Girls’ School in Post-riot Ahmedabad’ in Thapan, M. (ed). Ethnographies of
Schooling in Contemporary India, SagePublication, New Delhi.
 Parsons T. (1961) “The School Class as a Social System: Some of its Functions in
American Society” in Halsey A.H., Floud J. & Anderson C.A., Education, Economy
and Society, USA, The Free Press of Glencoe Inc.
 Sarkar T. (1996) “Educating the children of the Hindu Rashtra: Note on RSS Schools”
in Bidwai O., Mukhia H. & Vanaik A. (eds) Religion, Religiosity and Communalism,
Manohar, Delhi.
 Rist, R.C. (1977) ‘On Understadning the Processes of Schooling: the Contributions of
Labeling Theory’, Karabel, J. & Halsey, A.H. (eds) Power and Ideology in Education,
New York: Oxford University Press.
 Apple, Michael (20014) ‘Cultural Politics and the Text’ in Stephen J.Ball (ed.) The
Routlege Falmer Reader in Sociology of Education. London, Routledge Falmer.
 Nandini Sundar (2004) “Teaching to Hate: RSS’ Pedagogical Programme”, Economic
and Political Weekly, vol.39 (16)
 Mukherjee M & Mukherjee A. (2001) “Communalisation of Education The History
Textbook Controversy: An Overview” in Communalisation of Education: The History
Textbook Controversy, New Delhi: Delhi Historians’ Group
 Advani Shalini (1996) “Educating the National Imagination” in Economic and
Political Weekly, vol. 31(31), August.
 K Krishna (1996) “What is worth teaching” in What is worth teaching (Hyderabad:
Orient Longman) - p1.
 Kumar Krishna (1988) “Origins of India’s textbook culture”, Comparative Education
Review 32(4): 452-453 & 457-464.
 Winch, C (1996) Chapter 5, Constructing worthwhile curricula in Quality and
Education (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. 45-56.
 Freire, Paulo (1974) Chapter 2, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Seabury
Press)