Explain How the Hidden Curriculum and Processes Within Schools Help to Produce Inequalities Between Children of Different Social Classes

Explain How the Hidden Curriculum and Processes Within Schools Help to Produce Inequalities Between Children of Different Social Classes

Explain how the hidden curriculum and processes within schools help to produce inequalities between children of different social classes

The hidden curriculum is the norms, values and social expectations indirectly conveyed to students by the styles of teaching, unarticulated assumptions in teaching materials and the organizational characteristics of educational institutions. Social scientists find that the influence of the hidden curriculum on educational outcomes is equal to or greater than the overt or intended curriculum.
Rosenthal and Jacobson found that children were put into unfair groups due to class and labels. This means that a lower class student who had the same ability and knowledge as a higher class student would be less likely to succeed in education.
Nell Keddie found that students were often labeled; labeling a student can be positive or negative. Some students when labeled will try harder if the label is bad to put the label right. But on the other hand some students when labeled will automatically assume this label is right and this may lead to a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’.
Nell Keddie’s theory creates a gap between classes because generally lower class children are labeled badly before they are given a chance to prove themselves either way. The minute it is decided a child is upper or lower class, they have been labeled already and being upper class is seen as better.
The ethnocentric view is centered on a specific ethnic group or culture, usually one's own. In the hidden curriculum this is very important as most teachers are of middle class upbringing and this means they can relate more to and pay more attention to the upper middle class students.
All these things contribute to the lower class staying lower and finding it harder to break this label and lifestyle, these inequalities are unfair but it is almost like the children know their place as lower class, in Paul Willis’ learning to labor study the children did not try at school...

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