The Nature of the Hidden Curriculum

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The Nature of the Hidden Curriculum

(a) According to Marxist, the main aim of the education system is to

provide capitalist with a workforce equip with all the values,

attitudes and beliefs that will assist them in their aim to maximize

profits.

If the aims of capitalism are to be achieved it will need to be

consistently supplied with a docile, highly motivated and subservient

workforce. The education system achieves this through the

implementation of the hidden curriculum. The hidden curriculum

consists of the things that students learn through attending school.

It is not the content of lessons that is important but rather the

values and beliefs that are passed from the teacher to the student

during the teaching process. The hidden curriculum produces a suitable

future workforce by ensuring that students learn to accept the

hierarchy that exists (Bowles and Gintis). Schools are structured in a

hierarchical principle of authority and control. Teachers posses all

the power and control over students. They decide what is learnt and

how it is taught. Students have no control over the contents of their

educational life, they learn to accept the subordinate position they

hold within the school stratification system. This acceptance thus

prepares them for the position they will hold in the workforce, in

which they will have to defer to the authority of their superiors.

Within the experience of their school life students learn to be

motivated by external factors. Education in itself is not

intrinsically motivating to the student, as they have so little

control over what they learn. They are expected to intake what is

being taught without questioning it. It is therefore easy to see why

most students do not find education or rather schooling a very

satisfying process. As they are not obtaining any internal

satisfaction, they turn to the external rewards that can be obtained

as a result of acquiring an educational qualification. They therefore

stay in the system now motivated by the attractive wage packages etc,

which can be obtained as a result of being educated.

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