Hidden Curriculum Essay

1550 Words7 Pages
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
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