Session Information
05 SES 09 A, Marginalised Young People in Marginal Settings
Paper Session
Contribution
Social structure in the classroom could be formed by the interactions among people and the social norms shaped by those interactions (Martin, 1976; Giroux, 1983). Thus, peers and peer relations can function as the hidden curriculum in school or classroom contexts, given that many studies are also carried out to support this assumption. Regarding social links of peers in school or the classroom, peer relations have been proven to be the primary impact factor of positive or negative classroom climates (Çengel and Türkoğlu, 2016). Peers of students who act as peer leaders also share the roles of teachers in the classroom, which has been proven to encourage teachers and students to work interdependently (Giroux and Penna, 1979). The context of learning and the social relations used by teachers and students are also addressed in another research focusing on the norms and values shared as the hidden curriculum in a Cambodian context (Bray et al., 2018). Hence, it is evident that peer relations in school could be understood as the hidden curriculum.
The left-behind children (hereinafter "LBC”) are viewed as children under 18 whose parents are migrant workers (primarily internal migrants) in China who usually spend less than three months a year with their parents (Ye et al., 2013) . Families with migrants have skip-generation childrearing arrangements to support the left-behind children, which requires grandparents to take care of the LBC (Ge et al., 2019). Most of the LBC in rural areas board at school, given that relevant policies have been launched to protect them from risks caused by insufficient childcare caused by the childrearing arrangements during after-school hours (Zhao, 2011) . According to my data analysis experience and the lifted one-child policy (Feng et al., 2016), many LBC have peer siblings who are also under the supervision of the surrogate parents. In those living conditions, peer interaction and its impact are believed to be active.
Meanwhile, research has linked the LBC’s living experience in school with the concept of the hidden curriculum by viewing Chinese socio-political ideological forces on daily pedagogical practices and what LBC experienced as the hidden curriculum (Ren et al., 2020). In the Chinese cultural context, it has been proven that the value of collectivism, called moral education (in pinyin: de yu), has been embedded in the dominant curriculum through educational policy-making (Zhu, 2021). In this study, the concept of moral education defers from what Durkheim argued (Prus, 2019). On the contrary, in this study, I view the value of moral education in the Chinese context as the dominant curriculum (McCarthy, 1994) rather than the hidden curriculum considering the cultural diversities in different research contexts. Overall, it remains a knowledge gap regarding whether LBC's peer relations and social norms among peers are considered the hidden curriculum in school.
Based on prior research regarding the relational forms of the hidden curriculum, the social-economic impact on schooling that is identified as the hidden curriculum for the LBC in China, and the shared collectivist cultural norms of peer relations in the Chinese school context, I argue that the social norms and practices among LBC and peers in school can also be viewed as the hidden curriculum. Based on the above assumption, I collected data regarding peer relations and interactions of LBC in the Chinese context while using the theory of the hidden curriculum to answer the research questions: 1) how LBC interact with peers in school, and 2) what peer interactions can be viewed as the hidden curriculum in school?
Method
In this research, I am using the debates of the hidden curriculum as the theoretical framework for initiating prompts for interviews and analysing data. The emphasis of the hidden curriculum is on viewing life in school as a whole in both the learning and teaching experience (Jackson, 1990). Also, debates regarding hidden curricula vary (Kentli, 2009). Kentli compared several different understandings of the concept of hidden curriculum (Kentli, 2009) as follows: 1) Dreeben emphasised that the hidden curriculum helps to form a social relationship in the classroom (Dreeben, 1968); 2) Bowles and Gintis also argued that the hidden curriculum could be understood as a reproduction of the existing social structure in a classroom that indicates pupils’ intellectual ability and personal traits (Bowles and Gintis, 2002); 3) Vallance also believed that the hidden curriculum is the non-academic outcome which also is regarded as the impact of schooling on people (Vallance, 1973);4) Martin emphasised that the social structure or the relationship between teachers and students can be understood as the hidden curriculum (Martin, 1976);5) Giroux regarded the hidden curriculum as the unstated social norms embedded in the social relationships in school and classrooms (Giroux, 1983). Online interviews and instant messages on WeChat have been used to collect data. I also observed their WeChat moment as the content for starting a conversation. Data analysis is also structured based on the literature reviewed above.
Expected Outcomes
Discrimination against ecdemic float children (or migrant children) unconsciously led by one school teacher in one migrant hosting city has been identified in the case of Weiai’s (pseudonym) schooling experience in the era of diffusive internal migration in China. Weiai’s experience in peer relations can reflect the discrimination that Weiai received from the school teacher and her peers. The discrimination viewed as the hidden curriculum regarding Martin’s argument (Martin, 1976) then impacts Weiai’s left-behind experience when she returns to her hometown and is left behind by her parents. Claiming non-family bond peers as brothers or sisters to pull in intimacy has been proven as one of the social norms among LBC and their peers in school, which is also considered as the hidden curriculum regarding Dreeben’s argument (Dreeben, 1968). The popular game “truth or dare” played by Pangolin (pseudonym) and his peers involving their romantic fantasy regarding the girls they like in school is another social norm, which could be understood as a hidden curriculum regarding Giroux’s and Vallance’s arguments (Vallance, 1973; Giroux, 1983), as they tend to hide this game and the outcomes of the game from teachers in school. These social norms practised by LBC and their peers are viewed as the different forms of interactions among them, which are regarded as the hidden curriculum that impacts the socialisation of LBC in school. The impact of that can be negative, neutral or positive, considering different contexts of LBC’s social interactions with peers.
References
Bowles, S. and Gintis, H. 2002. Schooling in capitalist America revisited. Sociology of Education. 75(1), pp.1–18. Bray, M., Kobakhidze, M.N., Zhang, W. and Liu, J. 2018. The hidden curriculum in a hidden marketplace: relationships and values in Cambodia’s shadow education system. Journal of Curriculum Studies. 50(4), pp.435–455. Çengel, M. and Türkoğlu, A. 2016. Analysis through hidden curriculum of peer relations in two different classes with positive and negative classroom climates. Kuram ve Uygulamada Egitim Bilimleri. 16(6), pp.1893–1919. Dreeben, R. 1968. On What Is Learned In School. London: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc. Feng, W., Gu, B. and Cai, Y. 2016. The End of China’s One-Child Policy. Studies in Family Planning. 47(1), pp.83–86. Ge, Y., Song, L., Clancy, R.F. and Qin, Y. 2019. Studies on Left-Behind Children in China: Reviewing Paradigm Shifts. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development. 2019(163), pp.115–135. Giroux, H. 1983. Theories of Reproduction and Resistance in the New Sociology of Education: A Critical Analysis. Harvard Educational Review. 53(3), pp.259–293. Giroux, H.A. and Penna, A.N. 1979. Social education in the classroom: The dynamics of the hidden curriculum. Theory and Research in Social Education. 7(1), pp.21–42. Jackson, P. 1990. Life in classrooms. New York: Teachers College Press. Kentli, F.D. 2009. Comparison of hidden curriculum theories. European Journal of Educational Studies. 1(1968), pp.83–88. Martin, J.R. 1976. What Should We Do with a Hidden Curriculum When We Find One? Curriculum Inquiry. 6(2), pp.135–151. McCarthy, C. 1994. Multicultural discourses and curriculum reform: a critical perspective. Educational Theory. 44(1), pp.81–98. Prus, R. 2019. Redefining the sociological paradigm: Emile durkheim and the scientific study of morality. Qualitative Sociology Review. 15(1), pp.6–34. Ren, Y., Kushner, S. and Hope, J. 2020. The China’s Hidden Curriculum: Hukou, Floating Labour, and Children Left Behind. Critical Education. 11(9), pp.1–21. Vallance, E. 1973. Hiding the Hidden Curriculum: An Interpretation of the Language of Justification in Nineteenth-Century Educational Reform. Curriculum Theory Network. 4(1), pp.5–21. Ye, J., Wang, C., Wu, H., He, C. and Liu, J. 2013. Internal migration and left-behind populations in China. Journal of Peasant Studies. 40(6), pp.1119–1146. Zhao, Z. 2011. A matter of money? Policy analysis of rural boarding schools in China. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice. 6(3), pp.237–249. Zhu, Y. 2021. ‘Self’ (ziji), ‘others’ (taren) and ‘collective’ (jiti): Friendships at school embedded with China’s Confucian–collectivist sociocultural values. Children and Society. 35(6), pp.916–929.
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