Journal of Philosophy of Education Volume 17 Issue 2 1983 [Doi 10.1111%2Fj.1467-9752.1983.Tb00031.x] David Gordon -- Rules and the Effectiveness of the Hidden Curriculum

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Journal

of

Philosophy of Education, Vol.

17

No. 2, I983

207

David Gordon

Rules and the Effectiveness of the

Hidden Curriculum

Introduction

Every pupil encounters each day at least three different aspects of hisher school environment:

(1) the physical environment; (2) the social environment, made up of the people within the

school, the relationships between them and the social structures they create; (3) the symbolic or

cognitive environment, made up of the ideas, problems and information the pupil grapples

with both on his own, in reading, and in discussion with other pupils and with teachers in class

and other official activities. Each of these three aspects of the school environment has

associated with it a hidden curriculum (Gordon, 1982). My concern in this paper is with the

hidden curriculum associated with the social environment. From this point onwards this will

be referred to as the SHC (social hidden curriculum). The literature on the hidden curriculum

has been dominated by concern for this SHC. Some writers have even defined the hidden

curriculum in such a way that the SHC can be the only hidden curriculum (e.g. Dreeben,

1976). I have argued elsewhere (1982) that this is unacceptable. However, there is no doubt

that the SHC is a very central part of the hidden curriculum and well worth detailed scrutiny.

I will be addressing two different but related topics in this paper. First I will examine one

aspect of the SHC which, although it has been related to implicitly (Dreeben, 1967; Durkheim,

1961; Jackson, 1968; Kohlberg, 1970), has never been addressed directly,

as

far as

I

know. This

consists of the lessons the social environment teaches about the nature of rules by means of

the SHC. Schools are clearly organisations in which rules are very pervasive. The variety of

these rules, the insistence of the school staff that rules be obeyed, the range of school activities

for which rules are relevant, all suggest that pupils may learn in school not on y specific rules

but also a great deal

about

rules

in

general. Of course the family is also a social unit in which

rules (explicit and implicit) are operative. However, these are, in most cases, not impersonal

rules and thus the school can be regarded as the first important institution in which people

learn about rules which are, objectively speaking, impersonal ones. This doesnt mean that the

way these rules are taught need highlight this impersonal aspect. Straughan (1982) has in fact

argued that very often school rules are taught as if they were personal commands of particular

teachers. This leads him to the conclusion that the pupils have been, in a sense, mistaught. I

think Straughan is correct, but this doesnt require us to say that pupils have not been taught



208

D .

Gordon

about the nature of rules. All it means is that they have been taught something wrong about

rules.

The theoretical perspective which I will use to analyse the hidden curriculum concerning

rules derives from the philosophy of law. It is a sad comment on the lack of interdisciplinary

cross-fertilisation that the philosophical literature on legal rules has been so little used in the

social sciences (and particularly in sociology) in discussions of rules, norms and related

concepts [l ] . It seems to me that legal philosophy, and particularly the work of Hart (1961)

and Dworkin (1977) suggests a most fruitful way of looking at rules, even in contexts which,

strictly speaking, are not legal ones.

Hart and Dworkin will supply the backdrop for my analysis of the nature of rules, but they

do not help us with regard to the question of mechanism. How does the SHC teach about

rules? I will examine a fascinating and problematic mode of functioning of the SHC which can

be characterised as the ignoring of conceptual distinctions. This mode of functioning is

particularly relevant to teaching about the nature of rules.

The second topic of this paper is the effectiveness of the SHC. There is an implicit

assumption in the literature that hidden curricula are very effective-at any rate more effective

than the schools manifest curricula.

As

a general assumption this is understandable. It

certainly would be very odd to undertake research on something both hidden from view (and

therefore difficult to discover) and also ineffective (and thus probably unimportant). Therefore

it is interesting that there are two very powerful arguments relating particularly to the SHC

which purport to show that this aspect of the hidden curriculum is ineffective. These

arguments cannot be used to show that the hidden curriculum in its entirety can have an

impact on pupils. Thus they do not constitute a radical critique of the notion of a hidden

curriculum. However, because of the centrality of the SHC in the literature on the hidden

curriculum, they do seriously limit the claims we can make.

In the second part of the paper then I will present and discuss the arguments mentioned

above for the ineffectiveness of the SHC. How is this related to the first part? I will show that

the SHC concerning rules manages, by and large, to avoid the difficulties raised by these two

arguments. Since the latter are very powerful arguments, this means that the hidden lessons

about rules are among the few parts of the SHC that probably are effective.

The Nature of Rules and the Hidden Curriculum

Rules and the Philosophy of Law: Hart

In his classic The Concept of Law, Hart (1961) develops a number of central distinctions

concerning rules. Of these, three are important for us. First, he distinguishes between habits (or

convergent behaviour) and rules. A general habit of the members of a society is something

most people do

as a rule.

One example he gives is the habit (at the time of writing of the book,

at any rate ) of going to the cinema once a week. This is different from obeying a social rule.

Hart suggests three differences: (1) deviation from a rule always engenders criticism and

pressure to conform, whereas with habits this need not occur;

(2)

deviation from a rule is seen

as a good reason for criticising behaviour. Criticism is legitimate: this is notso for a habit; 3) a

rule has what Hart calls an internal aspect which habits need not have. The members of the

society (or at least some of them) must have a critical, reflective attitude to the patterns of

behaviour relevant to a rule. Certain such patterns must be seen by them as a common

standard which guides their conduct.

A second distinction Hart makes is betweenprimary and secondary rules. Primary or basic

rules are those that require people to do or abstain from certain actions. They impose duties.

Secondary rules are rules about rules. They are rules concerning the recognition, changing or

modifying of primary rules. They confer powers. In Harts view only when a society has



Rules and the Effectiveness of the Hidden Curriculum

209

developed this distinction between primary and secondary rules can it be considered to have a

proper legal system.

This leads us to a third distinction-that between a primitive or pre-legal society and a

modem society with a developed legal system. In a pre-legal society there only exist primary

rules. In other words there are no officials who enforce and interpret the laws in the modern

sense (the creation of officials being one of the by-products of the existence of secondary

rules). Also these primary rules, which constitute the legal system of the society, are

conceived internally by most members of the society.

In the simpler (decentralized pre-legal form of social) structure, since there are no

officials, the rules must be widely accepted as setting critical standards for the

behaviour of the group. If, there, the internal point of view is not widely disseminated

there could not logically be any rules (p. 114)

In contrast, in a modern society there are secondary rules, and thus there are officials. In

addition, and this is a fascinating logical consequence of Harts analysis, no members of the

society except the officials

need

regard the rules of the society from the internal point of view.

Those rules of behaviour which are valid according to the systems ultimate

criteria of validity must be generally obeyed,. (also the systems) rules of recogni-

tion specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication

must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behaviour by its

officials. (The obeying of valid rules of behaviour) is the only (condition) which

private citizens need satisfy: they may obey each for his part only and from any

motive whatever; though in a healthy society they will in fact often accept these rules

as common standards of behaviour @ 113).

As we will see, this distinction between a pre-legal society and one with a proper legal

system becomes central when we consider the hidden curriculum concerning the nature of

rules. So it is important at the outset to point out certain difficulties with Harts argument.

First,

it

is never quite clear whether he is making an empirical, sociological claim-that

societies can, as a matter of fact, be differentiated as he suggests-or whether he is only

suggesting that the differences are logical ones which follow from the concept of a rule itself.

If his claim is sociological, I think he is clearly wrong. Both in primitive and modern

societies divergence from general habits of the community is often reacted to as if a proper

rule had been broken. Also in modern societies most people have never even given a thought

to the difference between primary and secondary rules, and

so

it isnt really clear in what sense

this distinction could be said to exist within the legal system. To put this in another way: the

distinction Hart draws between pre-legal and legal societies doesnt seem to express itself in

the ways Pre-Legal Societys Man in the Street (Village?) and the Legal Societys Man in the

Street conceive rules.

If Hart is making a logical claim he is on much safer ground. However even here there is

one problem. The concept of a primary rule obtains its significance by being compared to a

secondary rule, in a similar way that the meaning of the word hot derives from the contrast

between hot and cold. Thus when the same term primary rule is used to describe the rules

of a pre-legal society in which these are the

on

rules, then the concept primary rule has

changed its meaning. (In a language in which only hot existed, hot could not mean the same

as it does for us.) It seems to me to be much better to talk of the rules of a pre-legal society as

conflating primary and secondary rules. The rules of such a society have the content of what

we call primary rules, but are accorded the importance and absoluteness of secondary rules.

Continuing this line of thought leads me to suggest the following adaptation of Harts

thesis. One can distinguish between two prototypical societies. In the first, which in order not

to complicate matters

I

will continue to call a legal society (although I suspect this may be



210 D. Gordon

question begging), members distinguish clearly between habits, primary and secondary rules.

In the second, which

I

will continue calling a pre-legal society, these distinctions are collapsed.

The members are not aware of the different logical status of habits, primary and secondary

rules. All rules are one. Of course these two societies are simply abstract ideal cases never in

fact realised. However what we can say is that modern societies seem to be closer to the legal

type than to the pre-legal type, whereas for primitive societies the opposite seems to be the case

(Hayek, 1973; Jenkins, 1980). What we have in fact is a distinction in legal terms that more or

less parallels classic sociological distinctions like Gemeinschaff/Gesellschaffor mechanical

solidarity/organic solidarity [2].

Apart from definitional matters, what further differences between legal and pre-legal

societies can be stipulated? Perhaps the most important difference is that in legal societies the

obligatory nature of rules is less insistent than in pre-legal societies. By this I do not mean that

rules need not be obeyed in legal societies. Rather

I

am claiming the following. (1) Only the

secondary rules of the society are uncontroversially and absolutely obligatory. Habits of course

are not obligatory at all. The primary rules do require obedience, but they are subject to

revision and can also be examined and criticised in the light of the secondary rules. It is

possible to claim that a particular primary rule is invalid. Thus even if today I am obliged to

obey such a primary rule, I am aware that objections to this rule could lead to its revocation.

2) Social cohesiveness can be maintained even if a relatively large percentage of societys

members do not adopt the internal stance towards most rules. In fact we have seen that from

the logical point of view only the legal officials need necessarily adopt this internal stance. In

contrast, in pre-legal societies stability would seem to require that most members adopt the

internal stance towards the rules.

Rules and the Philosophy

of Law:

Dworkin

Dworkin (1977) suggests a number of further distinctions to those appropriated from Hart. I

will concentrate on two of these. The first

is

the distinction between rules and principles. In

Dworkins view, rules and principles are two logically distinct kinds of standards which direct

decisions in different ways. Rules are applicable in an all-or-nothing fashion. As Dworkin puts

it:

If the facts a rule stipulates are given, then either the rule is valid, in which case the

answer it supplies must be accepted, or it is not, in which case it contributes nothing

to the decision (p. 24).

Principles guide us differently. They do not set out automatic consequences. They suggest

reasons that argue in one direction but need not necessitate a particular decision. So when we

say that a particular principle is a principle of, say, law:

All that is meant.. . s that the principle is one which officials must take into account,

if it is relevant, as a consideration inclining in one direction or another (p. 26).

In Dworkins view it makes perfectly good sense to claim, for example, that our law respects

the principle that no man profit from his own wrong even if there are cases where the law does

permit a man to profit from wrongs he commits. All this shows is that in these sorts of cases

the principle has not been the only one taken into account and other principles have been

given greater weight.

Let me add Dworkins distinction between rules and principles to those derived from Hart

and modify the way I have characterised legal and pre-legal societies. A legal society is one

whose members distinguish between habits, primary rules, secondary rules and principles. A

pre-legal society is one whose members collapse these distinctions. The only problem with this

suggestion is that the notion of collapsing the rules/principles distinction is ambiguous. Does



Rules and the Effectiveness of the Hidden Curriculum 21 1

the resulting hybrid principle-rule retain the all-or-nothing nature of rules or does

it

lead to

the flexibility (with regards to weight) of principles? I will interpret the notion of principle-

rule in pre-legal societies as retaining the all-or-nothing nature of rules.

A

pre-legal society is

thus one whch, among other things, relates to its basic moral principles as absolute, inflexible

rules.

The modifications of the notions pre-legal and legal societies strengthens the claim that

in

legal societies obligation is less insistent than in pre-legal societies. This follows from the

fact that principles do not guide us in an all-or-nothing fashion. Thus applying them requires

the use of discretion, at least in the weak sense (Dworkin, 1977, p. 31) that application

demands the use of judgment.

Let us now turn to a second distinction that Dworkin invokes-that between conventional

and concurrent m orality.

A

community displays a concurrent morality when its members are agreed in

asserting the same, or much the same, normative rule, but they do not count the fact

of that agreement as an essential part of their grounds for asserting that rule. It

displays a conventional morality when they do. If the churchgoers believe that each

man has a duty to take off his hat in church, but would not have such a duty but for

some social practice to that general effect, then this is a case of conventional

morality. If they also believe that each man has a duty not to lie, and would have this

duty even if most other men did, then this would be a case of concurrent morality

(P. 53)-

Three things need to be pointed out about this distinction.

(1) Dworkins conception of conventional morality is similar to but not identical with

Kohlbergs (1971) use of the same term. For Kohlberg conventional morality covers his third

and fourth stages in moral development-the good boy and law and order orientations,

which stress conformity to rules for its own sake. These two orientations would be included

under Dworkins notion of conventional morality. However Kohlbergs fifth stage, which in his

terminology, is post conventional, is a contractual or legalistic view of obligations and this

would also be regarded as a conventional morality by Dworkin

[3].

2) Consider Dworkins churchgoing example. Imagine a churchgoer who, although con-

tinuing to display a conventional morality (in Dworkins sense), feels that for some reason or

other he cannot continue taking his hat off in church. It seems to me that this would probably

result in his discontinuing going to church. In other words, when we have a conventional

morality then the rules of a community in a sense define the community. Inability to conform to

the rules will lead to estrangement fr o m the community.

(3) In pre- leg al societies, social morality will be conventional whereas in legal societies it will

be concurrent. This follows logically from two considerations: (a) in pre-legal societies habits

and rules are conflated; (b)

in

legal societies, members are aware of the distinction between

rules and principles, and are guided in part by principles (which must be applied with

judgment and not simply by conforming to accepted practices).

Rules and the Hidden Curriculum

Let us now return to schools and the SHC.

As I

have already stressed in the introduction, in

most cases schools are rule-inundated institutions. There are rules telling kids how to behave,

where to be at different times of the day, how to answer questions, how to write in their

exercise books, how to sit, how to dress, how to talk-very little that goes on at school is not

subsumed under some rule or other. It is surely reasonable to assume that this rule-

impregnated atmosphere teaches a hidden curriculum about what rules are.

The question is: what lesson about the rules does the SHC teach? What conception of the



212

D.

Gordon

nature of rules is embodied in the way rules are presented? In order to answer this question we

must first answer the preliminary one:

how

are rules presented? The answer I suggest is

deceptively simple: rules are presented as rules. By this

I

mean that, apart from (1) simply

telling or reminding the pupils at appropriate times what a particular rule is and (2) implying

the existence of certain rules by virtue of their behaviour, the school staff in most schoolsdo

not present rules in any special way at all.

I

feel a little uncomfortable writing this. After all I

am making an empirical claim of sorts, and yet I am not producing any direct evidence for it.

Indirect evidence is available. For instance in the chapters on rules in Hargreaves, Hester

Mellors Deviance in Classrooms (1975), the authors point out the apparent absence of

conceptual distinction in members accounts of rules (p. 34) and the fact that in giving

accounts of (classroom) rules, the members did not possess a coherent framework in which

they were able to talk about rules (p.

45).

This is evidence of a sort, but it is very indirect. The

point is I dont quite see how

I

could produce direct evidence because

I

am in effect arguing

for the existence of a non-event [4]. Over the years I have spent thousands of hours in schools

and, except for a few rare cases,

I

have never come across any real attempt to differentiate

between rule-types or go beyond the simple stipulation of relevant rules. At best, teachers

sometimes try to show that a particular rule makes some sort of sense and thus perhaps teach

the distinction between arbitrary and sensible rules [5] .Over and beyond this-a rule is a rule.

However,

as

the discussion of Hart and Dworkins analyses of rules show, we must not

conclude from this that the schools do not teach a hidden curriculum about rules. On the

contrary, what follows is that they teach a very clearly defined hidden lesson. In brief they

teach the c o n q t i o n of rules appropriate to a pre-legal society. This is my major thesis in this

article.

Three conclusions follow immediately if we take into account the previous discussion of

the distinctions proposed by Hart and Dworkin.

(1) The schools hidden curriculum presents a conventional morality (in Dworkins sense).

(2) Recent research findings (which

I

will discuss in the next section) may show that the

hidden curriculum is not very successful in teaching kids to conform to rules. But if the hidden

curriculum presents a conventional morality, it teaches a very specific lesson about what

conformity means. What is taught is that disagreement with the rules of a community is

equivalent to estrangement from that community. In other words, the hidden curriculum

radicalises non-conformity by equating it with alienation.

3)

The pre-legal conception of rules and the associated conventional morality are being

taught within societies which are far closer to being legal than pre-legal ones. Such societies

would seem to require a concurrent rather than a conventional morality. What one makes of

this tension probably depends on ones attitude to functionalist explanations in sociology. All I

wish to do here is point out that tension.

So

if my major thesis is correct and if, in addition, this hidden curriculum about rules is

not only taught but also learned (i.e. this is an effective part

of

the hidden curriculum) then it

seems we are talking about something with extremely important ramifications. Therefore

I

turn now to the question of the effectiveness of the hidden curriculum in general and the

SHC

in particular.

The Hidden Curriculum, Effectiveness and Rules

Resistance Theories

When Jackson (1968) coined the term a decade and a half ago, it seemed self-evident to many

that this hidden curriculum was an effective curriculum. As Bloom (1972) wrote:

The (hidden) curriculum is in many respects likely to be more effective than the

manifest curriculum. The lessons it teaches are long remembered because it is so




213

pervasive and consistent over the many years in which our students attend school

(p. 343).

However, this effectiveness can be questioned and I wish to discuss two arguments for the

ineffectiveness of the hidden curriculum: (a) theories of resistance; (b) the school as enclave

argument. In this sub-section I will relate to the first of these. The structure of my presentation

will be as follows: first I will briefly characterise resistance theories; secondly, I will point out

some of the possible criticisms of such theories; thirdly, I will argue that these criticisms are

inapplicable to the SHC and thus that resistance theories can be interpreted as showing that the

SHC is ineffective. The following sub-section deals with the school as enclave argument and

the structure of my presentation is formally identical to that in the present sub-section. In

other words

I

reach the conclusion that this school as enclave argument does apply to the

SHC and thus supplies a further reason for claiming that the SHC is ineffective. The final sub-

section brings us back to the teaching of rules. There

I

will show how the hidden curriculum

concerning the nature of rules manages to avoid the charge of being ineffective, despite its

being part of the SHC.

Let us now turn to resistance theories. As Apple (1981) puts it:

For schools are not merely institutions of reproduction, institutions where the overt

and covert knowledge that is taught inexorably moulds students into passive beings

who are able to

fit

into an unequal society. This account fails in two critical ways.

First, it views students as passive internalizers of pre-given social messages. Whatever

the institution teaches in either the formal curriculum or the hidden curriculum

is

taken in and is unmodified by class cultures and class (or race or gender) rejection of

dominant social messages. Anyone who has taught in working-class schools, in

schools located in our inner city ghettos, knows that this is simply not true. Student

reinterpretation, at best only partial acceptance, and often outright rejection of the

planned and unplanned meanings of schools are more likely (p.

30 .

A considerable body of literature has appeared over the last few years which purports to

document the resistance. phenomenon that Apple claims exists (e.g. Anyon, 1981; Giroux,

1981; Willis, 1977). The evidence is impressive but that does not mean that resistance theories

are immune from criticism. Hargreaves (1982) points out a number of flaws in this predomi-

nantly Marxist literature. In his view, an ideological committment to social transformation has

led the advocates of resistance theories to an oversimplified view of resistance. They have used

the word as an undifferentiated general concept applying to many different kinds of disaffec-

tion with schooling, some of which cannot plausibly be regarded as resistance at all. They also

have not critically analysed their empirical data and other data from other research traditions

in order to determine the extent to which the phenomena they describe are really prevalent.

I would add a further criticism. Resistance theorists employ what seems to me to be an

extremely over simplified and at times loose conception of the hidden curriculum. Take Apple

for example, and consider the following sentences from a different article of his than that

quoted above:

The traditional literature on the hidden curriculum has .

.

pictured.

.

students.

.

as

passive recipients of the norms and values which are embodied in the curricular and

social environment of the school Is (this approach) accurate? Do students always

internalize these norms and dispositions unquestionably? There is evidence to suggest

that not all students simply take in this hidden curriculum; that students often

creatively act to control their school environments; and that, at least for certain

segments of the working class, they in fact expressly reject the norms

of

obediance,

respect f o r authority and so on. . (my emphasis) (Apple 1980/81, p. 7).

I

wish to stress that all these sentences appear

in

the same paragraph, they are part of one

sustained idea. However, we see that during this passage Apple moves from seeing the hidden



214 D. Gordon

curriculum as being concerned with norms and values to being concerned with norms and

dispositions, to being concerned with the specific norms of obedience and respect for authority.

We also see that a distinction between the curricular and social environments in the first part

of the passage is collapsed into the school environment later on.

I do not believe that these are simply examples of a slip of the pen. Rather it seems to me

that Apple is simply dismissing as irrelevant a number

of

distinctions one could make about

the hidden curricula of the physical, social and cognitive environments, between things the

teachers did not intend teaching and those they did intend but did not openly acknowledge to

the students (Martin 1976), between hidden curricula messages directly related to the imposi-

tion of dominant class hegemony and hidden curricular messages whose relationship to such

hegemony is at best indirect. Yet surely it is reasonable to suppose that resistances to these

different facets of the hidden curriculum will vary and, with regards to some of these facets,

that the resistance will be minimal? Yet if we allow this, we have essentially accepted the

proposition that some aspects of the hidden curriculum are effective.

As a general critique of resistance theories this will do nicely. However,

I

do not think we

can use this critique to argue for the effectiveness of the SHC. Let us consider the classic

ethnographic depiction

of

working class resistance-Williss (1977) Learning to Labour. Willis

shows how a group of working class lads reject the schools culture and how this rejection,

ironically and tragically, results in their condemning themselves to remaining part of the

exploited working class labour force. The rejection of the school culture is the rejection of the

teachers, what they represent, the relationships they try to create, the tasks they set-in short, it

is a rejection

of

the SHC. And so if we are prepared to admit that Willis has captured

something true and vital about working class reactions

to

school (and this we must do-his

book is simply too good to be ignored), we must accept the fact that with at least a part of the

school population the SHC is not particularly effective. Resistance and the hidden curricu-

lum may be terms used loosely by resistance theorists, but their analyses do seem to apply to

the SHC.

The School as Enclave Argument

Resistance theories can be bolstered by an argument which is perhaps even more powerful

because it encompasses all pupils, including those who do not reject the schools culture. This

argument is a consequence of Bernsteins (1977) theory of educational codes which, surprisin-

gly enough, neither Bernstein nor those who have used his conceptual system seem to have

spotted. Bernstein maintains that the most typical educational codes (collection codes) are

characterised by strong classijication i.e. contents are insulated from each other by clear-cut

and strong boundaries. Of these, one boundary pointed out explicitly is that between school

and everyday knowledge. Now, if this boundary is maintained, the school is transmitting a

hidden curricular message that school and life are, in some sense separate. The school is a

special, unique enclave. The point is: i f this message is transmitted effectively then essentially a

whole class of other hidden curricular messages are rendered ineffective.

Take as an example the claim that schools, through their hidden curricula, teach pupils

that they should be docile. In actual fact, the hidden curricular message can only be: in

schools one should be docile. Those who claim that a more general docility results from this

are making the (implicit) assumption that some sort of transfer effect occurs. But if we are

talking about a school system with collection code, the hidden curricular lesson: In schools

one must be docile, is linked to another hidden curricular lesson: Schools are special

enclaves, and thus there is no reason to believe that the pupils actually learn: In general one

must be docile or: In the work place one must be docile. They may learn the skill of acting

with docility, a skill they can invoke at appropriate times, but they will not have developed a

predilection to be docile.



Rules and the Effectiveness

of

the Hidden Curriculum

215

At least two types of hidden curricular learning avoid the enclave difficulty. First, the

hidden curriculum teaches certain thingsabout schools and also matters (mostly cognitive) that

are conceived in our society as part of the schools legitimate area of authority. In relation to

this aspect of the hidden curriculum, learning that schools are special places does not act as a

barrier. For instance, schools project a certain image of science (Cawthron Rowell, 1978).

Seeing as science is part of school knowledge, in the sense that the school is regarded as the

institution whose job it is to see to it that societys members are scientifically literate, clearly

the fact that schools are seen as special enclaves will not result in pupils relating to the image

of science they have learned in the schools hidden curriculum as only being true in schools.

This doesnt mean that we can assume that pupils will regard science as something beneficial,

interesting or important. All I am saying is that they are likely to accept the school image of

what science is,

Secondly, the learnings of the hidden curriculum that remain unverbalised are also

untouched by Bernsteins analysis (and also, by the way, by the analyses of resistance

theorists). In order to see this, the notion of unverbalised learning must be elaborated. The

hidden curriculum teaches in such a way that the pupils are usually unaware of having been

taught anything. This is why we call it a hidden curriculum. However, the results of hidden

curricular teaching need not remain unconscious. I remember once teaching mathematics to a

class in a special mathematics track. Many of the pupils were convinced that the humanities

were nonsense because in the humanities anything you say is acceptable. This extraordinary

opinion was one they held perfectly consciously and was one they verbalised with great force,

even though they could not indicate where and how they had picked it up. On the other hand,

when Schwab (1962, p. 46) claims that one of the meta lessons of science teaching is that all

entities have the same ontological status, he is not suggesting that this is something pupils

could or do verbalise explicitly. It is clear that he is referring to a bit of tacit knowledge,

something that colours the way pupils look at the world, yet is something they are not only

unaware of having been taught but also

are unaware they have learnt.

This second type of hidden curricular learning evades the school as enclave barrier

because its remaining unverbalised prevents

it

from being manipulated in thought in conjunc-

tion with other beliefs. Specifically, it is never juxtaposed with the belief school is a special

place in such a way as to result in the limiting of its range (as in the case of the one should be

docile example).

The above considerations lead me to the conclusion that, by and large, the hidden

curriculum of the schools cognitive and physical environments remain unaffected by the

argument I have derived from Bernstein. The hidden curriculum of the cognitive environment

is mainly linked to matters considered part of the schools legitimate area of authority, and

thus the learning associated with it is an important part of the first type of hidden curricular

learning which avoids the school as enclave difficulty. The hidden curricular learnings

associated with the physical environment seem likely to remain mainly unverbalised, and thus

are part of the second type of learning which avoids this difficulty.

However, when we turn to the SHC, which is our concern here, things are very different.

Social messages, to use Apples (1981) term, are not those generally considered part of the

schools legitimate area of authority and the social learnings of the hidden curriculum would

appear to be precisely those which do become verbalised. Thus the schoolas enclave argument

would appear to augment resistance theories very convincingly vis-a-vis the ineffectiveness of

the SHC.

Resistance Theories, the School as Enclave Argument and Ru les

Since the hidden curriculum about rules is part of the SHC, must the theoretical structure laid

out in the first part of this article now simply be dismissed as irrelevant? Must we accept the



216 D Gordon

conclusion that the hidden curriculums lessons about rules are not learnt very well if at all,

despite the pervasiveness of school rules?

I

answer in the negative. It seems to me that there

are good reasons for believing that the hidden curriculum about rules manages to avoid the

difficulties raised by resistance theories and the school as enclave argument.

Let us imagine a group of working class lads who reject certain rules or perhaps the very

notion that school rules need be obeyed. If they are doing this deliberately, they must espouse

beliefs like This rule is stupid or Nobody here is going to tell

us

what to do7.The point is

that, in order to entertain such beliefs, these lads must have some notion of what a rule is

Their notion need not be one philosophers of law would be happy with, but it cannot be

completely amorphous. Without some relatively clear notion of the nature of rules, one cannot

reject particular rules or question the right of other people to demand ones obediance to them.

If rejection of rules requires that our imaginary lads have some idea of what rules are,

then the question arises: how and where did they learn their idea of the nature of rules? Can

one entertain the idea that they arrived at school as

six

year olds with a certain conception

which remained fixed throughout their school careers? Far more reasonable to assume that

their conception of rules resulted at least in part from hidden curricular lessons in school

about rules. Resistance can never be a process of total annihilation of all hegemonic

impositions.

A formally equivalent argument can be offered when relating to the relevance of the

school as enclave argument

in

learning abcut rules. Here again, entertaining beliefs like In

school there are rules like X, but

I

will not need to deal with X-like rules outside school

requires: (1) that

I

have some picture of what a rule in general is; (2)

I

must have learnt this

rule at least in part in school.

As a general conclusion we can say that the pupils rejection or qualification of certain

SHC lessons relating to rules logically entails that at least one hidden curricular lesson was

taught effectively-the lesson about the general nature of rules. Seeing as this is such an

important lesson, with

so

many significant consequences, we can conclude that at least one

central part of the SHC is probably an effective part of the hidden curriculum.

Unanswered Questions

Let me conclude by pointing out some of the questions raised by my analysis, questions which

I hope to address in some future article.

First, there are certain value issues which follow from Dworkins distinction between

conventional and concurrent morality. During this article I have maintained, or tried to

maintain, a neutral stance vis-a-vis the question whether schools should teach the hidden

curriculum about rules that I claim they actually do teach. Clearly ones reaction to the

analysis depends on the way one answers this question.

Let

us

assume ones answer is that this hidden curriculum should not be taught because the

concept of rules it teaches is misleading, unsuited to modern societies, or whatever. This raises

a second question: how can this hidden curriculum be countered? How can one teach pupils to

distinguish between habits, primary rules, secondary rules and principles? An obvious sugges-

tion would be to teach about rules explicitly in the manifest curriculum. But this raises further

problems. Would the teaching of such a manifest curriculum in a particular school have any

impact on that schools hidden curriculum? If not, would it be effective enough to counter the

hidden curriculum (remember, the hidden curriculum is usually considered to be a more

effective curriculum than the manifest curriculum)?

A further set of questions arises when we notice that schools do not only teach the sort of

social rules

I

have considered here. They also teach rules related to cognitive matters. For

instance Ormell (1978) and Gordon, Achiman Melman (1981) have discussed the hidden




211

curriculum associated with the learning of rules in mathematics. Do these two different hidden

curricula about rules interact? If so in what way?

Attempting to relate to these questions must be postponed for another time but we now

can say at least that they show the whole issue

of

the hidden curriculum and rules to be an

important one. I also hope that my discussions of Hart and Dworkins work has pointed up a

source for educational theorising that has been used too little in the past [ 6 ] .

Correspondence: David Gordon Ben Gurion University of the Neger Beersheba Israel.

NOTES

[ ]

Of course the special sub discipline concerned with sociology of law has used this philosophical literature at

times. For example: Barkun (1968), Bechtler (1978), Weber (1954).

[2] In the case of mechanical solidarity/organic solidarity, this is not surprising seeing that legal matters feature so

strongly in Durkheims (1964) development of this distinction.

[3] Actually it isnt completely clear that even stage 6 is one of concurrent morality.

A

central educational

development of Kolhbergs approach is the idea of a just community. According to Power (one of Kohlbergs co-

workers) in such a community there are collective

norms,

which he defines as norms which bind members of a

group qua members of that group to act in certain ways (Power, 1981, p. 11). This seems to me to be a

conventional morality in Dworkins sense. The point is, however, that Power seems to believe that a truly

exemplary community will be one whose collective norms will be stage 6

norms.

If so, even stage 6 is not a

concurrent morality.

[4] I have shown that the notion of a non-event teaching something is problematic (Gordon, 1982). However, the

example I am developing here avoids the problems I pointed out in the previous paper.

[ ] However, Straughan (1982) has argued that they do this in such a way as to make the notion of a rule logically

superfluous.

[6] I am

not

referring here to the use of the philosophical analysis

of

distributive justice in discussions

on

educational policy. That has been quite prevalent for some time (Strike, 1979).

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Journal of Philosophy of Education Volume 17 Issue 2 1983 [Doi 10.1111%2Fj.1467-9752.1983.Tb00031.x] David Gordon -- Rules and the Effectiveness of the Hidden Curriculum

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