PaulStevens15Sep13

DevelopingtheCurriculuminSocietyAssignment1Essay

Critically examine the below quotation on social class in the light of your knowledge of schooling and
related curriculum issues in New Zealand. Develop a position, which may be supported by personal
experience, and must be supported by relevant literature.
Studies of educational success in the UK consistently show correlations with social
background, suggesting that while individual schools may be able to make a difference, the
preponderant effect of the educational system is to replicate the status quo. (Ross, 2000,
pg. 83)
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The aim of totalitarian education has never been to
instill conviction but to destroy the capacity to form any.
- Hannah Arendt
1
As a political document, even at a school level, any curriculum testifies to what a
given society or institution holds value in. A curriculum is based on and designed to
uphold what a given group of people believe matters. It is certainly true to say then,
that the most common effect of any educational system is to reflect and replicate the
status quo. Which in our society, I would argue, is one which values economic
success above all else.
In his article Curriculum and Reproduction (2000) the academic Alistair Ross
details the arguments presented by several theorists who explore the relationship
between society and the educational curriculum, with the argument that a given
curriculum reflects, replicates, and reproduces the society in which it is located. It
is established that in capitalist societies this operates as a function of the ruling
order to maintain the status quo; in other words, keeping the rich, rich, and the
poor, poor. Ross acknowledges that this theory is backed up by a range of studies in
educational research (Ross, 2000). He specifies these being in the UK, but it can be
1
1968, pg. 168
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pointed out that very similar studies in New Zealand (Dale, 2000) confirm his view
that educational success... consistently show[s] correlations with social
background. (Ross, 2000, pg. 83).
Indeed there is significant evidence that the capitalist imperative is strongly
reflected in our schools. It can certainly be seen in the form (including the
delivery) of the curriculum, but also through the structure of the school
environment, the hierarchy within schools, and through, what I would argue, is the
unnecessary competition encouraged between students. Further to this it is worth
pointing out the implied hierarchy of valuing certain subjects over others, as well
as certain skills over others, and the division of knowledge itself into defined
subjects; all of these factors work to ensure education remains merely a replication
of, and a tool to maintain, our current, unequal, society (even as we pretend that
New Zealand is a classless society).
I suggest, going further perhaps than Ross does, that even the typical content of the
curriculum in our educational system (in many subjects at least) works to justify a
2
capitalist system, and that, going further still, it could be argued that it also, more
often than not, continues to maintain and justify a patriarchal, heteronormative,
Western perspective in its pupils.
All this despite us seeing ourselves as a society, in New Zealand, as a classless
people who value the progressive and secular, and who attempt to ensure the
representation of minorities. Perhaps it is the fact that we see ourselves as already
2
I claim this in spite of the New Zealand curriculum being focused on competencies
because there is still a typical syllabus operating carried over from past documents
(Ministry of Education, NZ, 2007).
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working to undermine certain structures that we dont see how the very system we
work within continues to reproduce social inequality despite our best efforts.
The key though is suggested by Ross as he qualifies that, individual schools may be
able to make a difference. (Ross, 2000, pg. 83). For this to happen it will be
individual teachers themselves (us) who must first wake up to these realities, work
against a system which discourages innovation, equality and real humanness, so that
schools start to change from within (Freire, 1970).
Innovation can be a cancer; and as more teachers begin to see the power they hold
to potentially alter perspectives, and then take hold of this ability, more schools
will start to change. In this way, over time, I argue, the system itself can be
overthrown, and in turn the educational system can become a changing force helping
precipitate the ideal future of an equal society. Our education system does currently
operate to maintain the status quo, but it doesnt have to.
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It can be argued with merit, separate from the arguments introduced above (which
will be discussed shortly), that the accepted theory of the replication of social
inequality by our schools is due at least partly to lower decile schools having less
resources and limited access to well qualified teachers. Supporting this is the
evidence (acknowledged by Ross) that students backgrounds, parents, and family
lives can have a detrimental effect on their education and their chances for academic
success (Ross, 2000). These are all valid issues to be taken into account, but what
Ross and the theorists he presents (who will also be discussed shortly) suggest is
that the reason for this situation comes down to systemic problems with the
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educational system, which work to maintain these unequalising factors.
Furthermore, I will go on to argue, the impact of students social background is
exacerbated by a favour toward middle-class knowledge and modes of thinking. In
other words, if the education system wasnt reinforcing the class structure already
in place, the factors of student background would be less relevant, and would
become even less relevant if education could function to make society more equal.
My argument then going on from this is that, while these outside-school issues are
significant factors, there is the potential for a curriculum, dependent on effective
teachers, which could overcome these issues and in turn ensure they are less of a
factor for future generations.
Adding to this, it should also be recognised that racial minorities are hugely
over-represented in lower socio-economic groups. In New Zealand these statistics
generally represent Maori and Pacific Islands learners. Likewise, it is argued
elsewhere that giving recognition to these groups, and designing curricula to
specifically address their needs and reflect the uniqueness of their cultures, will
have an effect on their achievement and subsequently have the impact of positively
affecting the achievement disparity we are addressing (Ashman & Elkins, 2012).
This can be accepted as a relevant issue, and the need for a curriculum which
acknowledges non-Western (as well as non-heteronormative and non-patriarchal)
perspectives and bodies of knowledge is argued here, but for the sake of this
discussion we will focus primarily on the inequity of social-class and the position
that addressing this disparity will in turn have a positive effect on the specific
communities disproportionately affected negatively by this system.
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Education creates citizens (Dewey, 1916). The question asked then, in forming a
curriculum is, What kind of citizens do we want?. In New Zealand, as a Western
capitalist society, it can be said that we value economic success, and conformity to
this understanding, above all else. Perhaps this is why our schools look so much like
workplaces (but perhaps even more like prisons), as Bowles and Gintis, key
educationalists presenting the Marxist perspective, give account of.
The education system operates in this manner [to maintain inequality] not so
much through the conscious intentions of teachers and administrators in their
day-to-day activities, but through a close correspondence between the social
relationships which govern personal interaction in the workplace and the
social relationships of the educational system. Specifically, the relationships
of authority and control between administrators and teachers, teachers and
students, and students and their work replicate the hierarchical division of
labour which dominate the workplace. (Bowles and Gintis, 1976, in Blackledge
and Hunt, 1985, pg. 31).

Schools are generally run like businesses, with a top-down approach. The teachers
report to Department Heads who report to the Principal who reports to the Board of
Trustees, who are often appointed based on corporate experience. In relation to the
students, the teachers and deans are established as authority figures akin to a boss,
with the Principal a kind of CEO or General Manager.
The school environment is typified by a rigid routine and strict code of conduct. It
can appear more like an institution of control than one aimed at facilitating learning.
The students have little to no power. They are under almost constant surveillance
and given little privacy (Gatto, 1991). Constant assessment ensures that students
maintain a provisional self-esteem, and incessant bells to arbitrarily limit time
ensures that students remain indifference to their learning: nothing is really worth
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finishing anyway, off to the next class (Gatto, 1991). Students control over the
curriculum, and even often its delivery, is taken as much into account as that of
workers over the content of their jobs. This is the hidden curriculum (Kelly, 2009).
As often with work education is presented as a means to an end rather than an end
in itself (Blackledge and Hunt, 1985). The opposite may be claimed: That the system
promotes the concept of lifelong learning. But be assured, the very nature of our
curriculum strongly implies that the goal of education should be conformity and
treading the well-worn path of getting the same kind of job as everyone else, not
innovative, independent thinking, and valuing learning for its own joy.
The form of the curriculum and the major focus on assessment reinforces this. It is
what Paulo Freire refers to as the banking concept of education; where the student
is a passive receiver of the knowledge deposited by the teacher, and in the process
the students are effectively filed away (Freire, 1970). He argues that this approach
works to maintain oppression.
Education, as with work, is presented in the current system not as having value for
its own sake, but instead only for what can be gained: external reward or
punishment. Qualifications and wages, or failure and unemployment respectively.
Paradoxically, as learning for its own intrinsic value is discourage, students are
blamed for having an external locus of control, where their learning is based only
on external effects and independent thinking is assumed to not be of value, and
which has been attributed disproportionately to students from low socio-economic
backgrounds (Jones, 1991; Wong, 1990; & Wood, 1992).
Why are we surprised when students dont think independently when we
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encourage only conformity? This, when what our marketplace needs most, it could
be argued, is innovation. For it should be pointed out that we are educating students
for jobs that we dont know will exist yet (Robinson, 2009).
Foundational to modern industrialised capitalism is the concept of the division of
labour, with each worker being given a narrow range of tasks engendering a
disunity among the workforce (Marx, 1848, & Bowles and Gintis, 1976). This
concept is reproduced in our schools through the compartmentalisation and
specialisation of knowledge into clearly defined and separate subjects, even for
students at lower year levels. Young people, even before high school, are expected
to know exactly what they plan to do on leaving school so that they can decide
which subjects to choose.
Further to that, similar to workers angling for promotions or positions,
unnecessarily, competition is encouraged between students, as if to prepare them
for the increasing competition between candidates in the contemporary job market.
Even worse perhaps, and against stated aims, there is often competition between
subject departments to attract students. I have seen in many schools how fierce
competition and disunity can form between even related subject areas. An example
of this can too often be seen between Technology (particularly with the new subject
Design and Visual Communication (or DVC), previously Graphics, in this
department) and the Visual Arts Faculty. Staff will be almost at war, refusing to
share resources and knowledge, to the detriment of students, as if they are
competing businesses in the marketplace.
An extension of the division of subjects has been the implementation of an unstated
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hierarchy of subjects within the curriculum. This hierarchy can be seen to
correspond to the earning power of related professions in the workforce. Maths and
science are often given more value than the humanities, and particularly the liberal
arts. The Visual Arts are generally bottom of the heap, depending on the school.
Testing and teaching methods reflect this, as Howard Gardner and Ken Robinson
have pointed out in their promotion of the concept of multiple intelligences devised
by Gardner, with logical-mathematical and linguistic knowledge often given
precedence over kinaesthetic or visual learning (Gardner, 1985).
We are telling our young people, even from a very early age, that the best they
should aspire to is to fit in, somewhere, depending on their academic success, into a
traditional workplace, where they should be comfortable having no say, and
consequently a minimal stake in the results of their labour. The success of this
conformity is reflected in the nature of jobs that students carry on to after school:
Workers on the shop-floor are closely supervised; upper-level white collar
workers, on the other hand, will have internalised the aims and values of the
organisation and will work independently. (Blackledge and Hunt, 1985).
Intelligence and skills are differentiated and given worth based on often arbitrary
criteria with the aim of students being educated for different layers of the
marketplace. This was in fact an explicit justification for the creation of the modern
public schooling system at its inception (Gatto, 1991). Corporations are quite
happy for the state school system to educate their workers into compliance, just so
long as the taxpayer fits the bill.
Schools encourage - nay, demand - compliance. Those who most internalise this are
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expected to succeed and then go on to succeed in professions where their
self-control is exercised. Those who dont conform to the system will likely not do
as well; they may just pass or gain an Achieved. The expectation is that they will go
on to jobs which will not allow the same independence as those who more toed the
line.
This is how the status quo is maintained, and for capitalism to succeed it demands
that it must. The French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu describes the key factor
involved as cultural capital. (Ross, 2000, pg. 88). This is the term he uses to
explain how upper and middle-class students arrive in school already with an
inherent advantage over their less privileged peers in the form of good taste,
knowledge, ability and language, received from their upbringing, communities and
families. This cultural capital and the ethos, as they take shape, combine to
determine behaviour and attitude to school which make up the differential
principle of elimination operating for children of different social classes.
(Bourdieu, 1974, pg. 36 in Ross, 2000). The result is that, while claiming to treat all
students equally, schools more often than not implicitly favour those who already
possess the cultural capital to succeed in the educational system, taking it as
natural, and in the process disadvantage those not privileged with what is really a
social gift (Ross, 2000, pg. 88). Monetary capital determines cultural capital, which,
under the current system, goes on to determine academic success and ultimately
students vocational destination and economic success. And so the cycle continues.
While the focus of discussions on curriculum and reproduction is ostensibly around
the form of curriculum, and particularly those factors described as the hidden
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curriculum as described above, I think it is worth pointing out briefly how the
content of the curriculum, even in New Zealand, is far from innocent in reinforcing
the class structure, often without a given teacher realising it - unless of course they
do realise and teach instead to counteract this bias. This is the case also for
non-Western, queer, and female experience which has traditional been left out of
the Western canon, and while work has been done to balance this there is still a
long way to go I believe in ensuring that a diversity of perspectives are explored in
the classroom.
For the sake of this argument let me focus on an example of class structure being
reinforced; I will use Art History as the subject as this is area I teach. Oil painting is
a key medium explored in Art History. It is present in almost every topic studied at
all year levels, and yet as far as I know it is never presented in secondary
classrooms in light of what the art writer John Berger describes as, the special
relation between oil painting and property. (Berger, 1972, pg. 106). By this he
means that oil painting throughout Western history has been used to, not only
furnish the homes of the wealthy, but also to justify their excess and advertise the
objects of their success. Many subjects, on closer inspection, reveal similar
oversights in taking both cultural capital and economic advantage for granted in
how we present knowledge to students. This does all students a disservice in
denying them differing perspectives on what is too often accepted fact.
As detailed there are almost countless ways, I would argue, under the current
educational system, in which students from less privileged socio-economic
backgrounds are almost encouraged in many schools to accept their lot,
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academically and financially, and to strive for no more than their parents were able
to achieve. The result is depressing figures of underachievement in these students.
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When we diagnose the problem as being due to the system itself it is very easy to
become discouraged to the extent of giving up and to feel that our hands are tied
irreparably behind our backs. But, as it can be accepted that the problem is
systematic and institutionalised, the solution, as Freire proposes, must by contrast
come from the oppressed; it cannot come from among the oppressors (Freire, 1970).
The answer is found very close to home (Babbage, 2012). It is with our ability to
work within the system but also against it. In other words: Great teachers break the
rules.
As teachers we must work to undermine the status quo even as our institutions aim
to uphold them. We must see ourselves in solidarity with our students (particularly
those less privileged) and, in forming fruitful relationships with them (hooks,
1994), come to see that, Knowledge emerges only through invention and
re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful enquiry human
beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other. (Freire, 1970, pg.
53). This reconception of the idea of student-centred learning, understood in a
very real sense, not just as a collection of techniques, is key I believe to the
success, not just of minority students (although this goes toward improving them
particularly) but of all our students.


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References
Arendt, H. (1968). Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Ashman, A. and Elkins, J. (2012). Education for Inclusion and Diversity (Fourth Edition). NSW:
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Babbage, K. (2012). Reform Doesnt Work. Plymouth: Rowman and Littlefield.
Berger, J. (1973). Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books.
Blackledge, D. and Hunt, B. (1985). Sociological Interpretations of Education. London: Croom
Helm.
Bowles, S. and Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the
Contradictions of Modern Life. New York: Basic Books.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education. New York: Macmillan
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience & Education. New York: Touchstone.
Dale, R. (2000). Social Class and Education in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In Marshall, J., Coxon,
E., Jenkins, K., and Jones, A. Politic, Policy, Pedagogy in Aotearoa- New Zealand. Palmerston
North: Dunmore Press, pg. 107-137.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London, UK: Penguin Books.
Gardner, H. (1985). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic
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hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York:
Routledge.
Jones, A. (1991). At School Ive Got a Chance. Palmerston North: Dunmore.
Kelly, A. V. (2007). The Curriculum: Theory and Practice. London: Sage.
Marx, K. (1848). The Communist Manifesto. New York: Merlin Press.
Ministry of Education. (2007). The New Zealand Curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media Ltd.
Robinson, K. (2009). The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. New York:
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Ross, A. (2000). Curriculum Construction and Critique. London: Falmer.
Wong, S. H. (1990). Locus of Control and Ethnic Membership: A Study of Secondary School
Students. Hamilton: University of Waikato.
Wood, P. (1992). Teaching Our Students: Adapting Teaching Styles to Cultural and Class
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Differences. In Set: Research Information for Teachers. Number 2, 1992.
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