Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The Privileged Curriculum
Mills(1956)wrotethattheprivateschool“isthemostimportantagencyfortransmitting
thetraditionsoftheuppersocialclassesandregulatingtheadmissionsofthenewwealth
andtalent” (64-65).Similarly,Baltzell (1958)suggested,“Theseprivateeducational in-
stitutions serve the latent function of acculturating the members of the younger gen-
eration, especially those not quite to the manor born, into an upper-class style of life”
(293). Elite private schools serve as gatekeepers to the upper class as well as a type of
inheritance transferred to children by their wealthy families; what Shapiro (2004) called
“head-start assets” because they give individuals a nonmeritorious lead in the race to
get ahead. McNamee and Miller (2004) explained that families from the upper class,
“Convert economic advantages into social and cultural advantages that help their chil-
dren go further in school than others usually do, and then reconvert school credentials
into economic (occupational, income, and wealth) advantages” (110). Sending children
toprivateschoolsisanactofclassconsciousnessbyupperclassparents.Itisanexpens-
ive investment and there is a lot at stake.
The evidence collected by students and faculty indicated that the traditional purposes
for private schooling persist at Rockport. All of the faculty researchers agreed with Jill
(FR) when she said that the “socioeconomic piece is huge, HUGE.” Sara (FR) added,
“Yes, social-economic is much bigger here.” The importance of socioeconomic status
emerged as a dominant theme in our research data. As an administrator, Mike (AD) per-
ceived Rockport's mission, at least in part, as preparing students for privilege, “I think
there is an implicit message.… I mean it is like, you are training these people socially
in a way that they don't even realize they are getting trained. But they are developing
outlooks on life.” He continued, “The implicit curriculum here is an elite.” And at least
some of the students we spoke to, such as this white senior, indicated they were absorb-
ingthesemessages:“Ithink,nottouselike,astereotypeofablue-collarjob,butIwould
say that most of the kids here are not going to graduate Rockport, go to an Ivy League
school, and then work at McDonalds.”
This “implicit curriculum” that Mike (AD) referenced is Rockport's “hidden cur-
riculum.” Giroux (Giroux and Pena 1979) described a school's hidden curriculum as
“the unstated norms, values and beliefs that are transmitted to students through the un-
derlying structure of meaning in both the formal content as well as the social relations
of school and classroom life” (Giroux and Penna 1979, 22). As Mike (AD) indicated,
the norms, values and beliefs conveyed through the hidden curriculum at Rockport are
not neutral but designed to prepare students for their role in the reproduction of class
structure (Anyon 1980) where they are being educated to sit atop of a system with vast
amounts of social and material inequality (Bowles and Gintis 1976). Mike (AD) con-
tinued with an example of how the school helps to teach privilege: “We don't drag kids
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