Processes

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Hidden Curriculum

The hidden curriculum is the informal teaching done in schools that socialises children to societal norms.

Introduction

There are certain factors within schools (internal factors) that influence the student and teacher experience of education.
The factors include subcultures, pupil identities, and organisation.

Hidden curriculum

The hidden curriculum prepares children for the adult world.
Children learn how to deal with bureaucracy, rules, expectations, waiting for their turn, and sitting still for hours during the day.
Schools in different cultures socialise children differently to prepare them to function well in those cultures.

School ethos

The ethos of a school refers to specific things that make up the particular character of the school.
For example, schools might emphasise high academic success or pupil wellbeing; they might hold specific religious values or encourage parental involvement.

Ethos/hidden curriculum

School ethos is also often referred to as the ‘hidden curriculum’, which includes things such as school uniform, school rules, ability grouping and school assemblies.

Stereotyping, Pupil Identities and the Halo Effect

Labelling and stereotyping, as well as wider teacher-pupil interactions, can influence the construction of positive and negative pupil self-concepts (pupil identities).

Stereotypes

Stereotypes held by teachers might include labels such as bright or slow learner, conformist or disruptive, hard working or lazy.
These stereotypical impressions can result in teachers making assumptions about pupils that are often wrong.
- For example, assuming that a 'well-behaved' pupil is also 'hardworking'.

The ‘halo effect’

This phenomenon is known as the ‘halo effect’.
Waterhouse (2004), carried out a case study of four primary and secondary schools, finding that teacher labelling of pupils as either normal/average or deviant types (as a result of impressions formed over time) has implications for the way teachers interact with pupils.

Waterhouse

Once these labels are applied and become the dominant categories for pupils, they can become what Waterhouse terms a ‘pivotal identity’ for students.
That is, a core identity providing a pivot that teachers then use to interpret and reinterpret classroom situations and student behaviour.

'Pivotal identities’

These ‘pivotal identities’ can then lead to various pupil responses, including conflict, confrontations and the formation of a range of pro-social and anti-social subcultures.

Stereotyping of the ‘Ideal Pupil’

Labelling and stereotyping, as well as wider teacher-pupil interactions, can influence the construction of positive and negative pupil self-concepts (pupil identities).

Research

Howard Becker (1971) concluded that teachers initially evaluate pupils in relation to a stereotype of the ‘ideal pupil’ (e.g. conformist, hard-working, etc.)
Amelia Hempel-Jorgensen found that many pupils share a similar stereotype of the ‘ideal learner’.

Consequences

Such stereotypes can influence academic assessments of pupil abilities and influence teacher expectations of pupils, such as to which ability stream or set the pupil belongs.