Transcript 2016 The Hidden Curriculum Bourdieu and cultural capital

PRESENTATIONS- FRIDAY 19TH FEBRUARY






Social class/ gender and ethnicity
Consider the below in relation to either social class; gender
or race and ethnicity AND your school context:
Present to your peers (20 minutes/ feedback and discussion)
Background/ rationale: How does my area of interest relate
to my context?
Methodology: What methods will I use to collect the data I
need?
Artefact: What professional artefact might I produce to
address the issue?
Think about the classes that you
have worked with, what is meant by
the achievement gap and how might
you recognise it?
Where might the ‘gap’ come from
and why?
DIMENSIONS OF THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP
Preparation Gap
Opportunity Gap
Relationship Gap
Parent-School Gap
Performance Gap
What might this look like in practice?
Unseen Children: Access
and Achievement, 20 years
on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74_zNi9bkP
w
The ones who can receive
what the school has to give
are the ones who are
already endowed with the
requisite cultural attributeswith the appropriate cultural
capital.
(Bourdieu, paraphrased by Halsey, Heath
Ridge 1980 p.7)
THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM, THE HIDDEN CURRICULUM
AND EQUALITY
Hill, D. and Cole, M eds (2001) Schooling
and Equality: fact, concept and policy

Choose a small group (4) of children that you teach. You
will be relating the concepts in the reading to their
aspirations and achievements.
POLITICAL NATURE OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE
NATIONAL CURRICULUM- IMPACT ON EQUALITY

Can the current curriculum contribute to an increase in
equal opportunities and lead to more equal outcomes
between different social groups?
What
is the hidden curriculum
that the reading refers to?
• Values, attitudes
• Culturally loaded
expectations expressed
through school
• Institutionalised
arrangements, through
pedagogic relationships,
rewards and
punishments
• Can you think of any
examples?

How do these serve to reproduce educational, social
and economic inequalities between the children in
your group/ class?
QUESTIONS- THINK ABOUT THE ASPIRATIONS AND
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE GROUP OF CHILDREN THAT YOU
TEACH

Whose curriculum is it?

Who selected the content?
Think about the following in relation to your group of
children…..

Does it represent and affirm the ideology, the values and
attitudes, of a particular social group of people?

Does it thereby invalidate and disempower the values and
attitudes it does not represent?

Does it give some students an easier time and others a
harder time?
THE CONTENT
Is it a curriculum that is culturally elitist?
 History, literature, music of ruling classes?/ or an
eclectic curriculum?
 Does it draw from a range of cultures and perspectivesfor all? What about those of your group of children?
 Is it tokenistic?

 National
Curriculum operationalises the belief that
the same curriculum content available to all YET
 The
political principles informing its development
and application are crucial to the effect it will have
on equalities of opportunities and outcomes for
diverse groups
 Political
principals behind a curriculum for
‘national’ education support the wider objectives of
government policy which are not only social, but
economic
BOURDIEU, THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM AND ITS
CULTURAL REPRODUCTION

Schools as ‘middle class institutions’ to advance the
middle classes

In what 3 ways does cultural reproduction work in
education?
CULTURAL REPRODUCTION WORKS IN THREE WAYS
1.
Formal curriculum and its assessment- exams serve to
confirm the advantages of the middle class- have
appearance of being fair

Exams/ curriculum validate particular types of cultural
capital - elite knowledge that appears the natural
possession of middle class children, not natural or
familiar to others
2. Hidden curriculum- categorises some cultures, lifestyles,
ways of being (habitus) attitudes and lifestyles as
praiseworthy, ‘nice’ characteristic of a child of whom one
can more likely expect and encourage academic
aspiration and success.
(Other ways of being, behaving, language and clothing,
body language, attitudes- not viewed as tolerantly or
supportively- excluded from academic expectation and
success.)
3. Separate systems for schooling- private/ state.
Define:
Cultural
Capital (knowledge about/ knowing how)
Cultural
arbitrary
Symbolic
violence
CULTURAL CAPITAL
Culture transmitted by the school confirms values and
validates culture of ruling classes- rejects, disconfirms
others.
 Individuals bring different cultural competencies- class
located boundaries of their families, ways of thinking,
speaking, skills, ways of relating to the world (Giroux
1983)
 Are these the ‘right sort’ of cultural capital?

DOMINANT CULTURAL FORM EXPRESSED IN TWO WAYS




Knowledge about- knowledge of facts, concepts,
acquaintance and familiarity with particular forms of
culture. Knowledge of premiership football clubs, clothing
styles, viewed as less important - hierarchy of knowledge
in formal curriculum- Milton v pop group splitting up
Elite knowledge and experiences rewarded through
hidden curriculum
Knowing how- to speak to teachers (body language,
register), knowing about books but also how to talk about
them
Knowing that/ knowing how….(manners, style, speech,
eating)

Privileges of the dominant- follow their dispositions

Pupils/ students-knowledge of the system- do their
practices adjust in conformity to teacher aspirations,
how to get on with the teacher.

‘Nice child’ meets stereotypes of gender, ethnicity,
sexuality.
Youdell, Deborah 2006, Impossible Bodies,
Impossible Selves: Exclusions and Student
Subjectivities. Springer
ARBITRARINESS OF THE NC

Cultural arbitrary- school education is arbitrary in that cultural
values offered are not intrinsically better than any other but are
the values of the dominant class.

Selection of knowledge in NC is arbitrary- one selection of
knowledge amongst many other possible options e.g. standard
English

Working class knowledge and culture v what school legitimises
as dominant culture and knowledge- not seen as different and
equal but different and inferior- high status knowledge acts as a
stepping stone to professional careers via HE

Arbitrariness of NC far from random- stratifying and
subordinating intention and function
SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE- SOFT POWER

NC content keenly fought over- imposition of one range of
knowledge- led to ‘culture wars’- conferences, letters, victors
enforced victory through law.

Bourdieu- ‘symbolic violence’- symbolic forms of
communications- language and culture- used as weapons to
maintain power relations

Success of it- commonly unrecognised- exercises power through
complicity- most accept the rules of the game

Most buy in to elitist model by which they have a deficitworking class children become submissive/ opt out
 NC-
is symbolic violence in that it shows ‘What’s
what’- shows elite culture, high status culture.
Message displayed every day in schools is that to
get on in society you have to adopt, ape the cultural,
linguistic and dress codes of the ruling elite.
 The
creators of the NC have constructed a
particular depiction of their own social world- have
imposed a distorted means for comprehending the
social world and committed symbolic violence.
USE THE THREE TERMS TO ANALYSE THE
EXPERIENCES OF YOUR GROUP OF CHILDREN

Cultural Capital (knowledge about/ knowing how)

Cultural arbitrary

Symbolic violence

How do these serve to reproduce educational, social and
economic inequalities between the children in your
group?
AN AREA BASED CURRICULUM: DISCUSS THE
READING WITH A FOCUS ON ONE QUESTION
A.
B.
C.
D.
What is meant by area, place and community? Any
issues, tensions?
What problems does a National Curriculum pose?
What have been problems associated with area based
initiatives to date?
Why are areas important in education?
Jigsaw discussion
THREE ARCHETYPES OF YOUNG LONDONERSWITHIN THIS ISSUES OF GENDER, RACE AND
CLASS INTERSECT

Disengaged

Constrained

Engaged
(Riley. K IOE)

If some young people don’t think London belongs to them it
raises issues of equality, social justice, opportunity.
GROUP TASK: CONSIDER A GROUP THAT IS
TRADITIONALLY ‘MARGINALISED’ IN YOUR SCHOOL?
Why are
school?
they ‘marginalised’? What does this mean for them?/ the
How
can local contexts be engaged to make learning exciting
and meaningful even for the traditionally marginalised, without
losing equal access to a national entitlement for children?
Answer
this in groups with a plan for a professional artefactrefer to the theory that we have discussed today.
Present
back to the group