The Implicit Pedagogy and the Hidden Curriculum in Postmodern Education

Abstract

This chapter addresses everyday educational practices known as the “hidden curriculum” and the related term “implicit pedagogy” in today's dominant postmodern theory. It presents results of a survey with preschool and school teachers (N=813) in Croatia and Slovenia in selected three determinants of the hidden curriculum: empathy, personality traits, and preschool and school teachers' attitudes towards space characteristics. In addition to interesting results describing current conditions in these vital populations of institutional life of children, the chapter is getting closer to answering questions like: “What else do children learn in kindergarten and school?” “What affects children's learning, and is nowhere to be ‘measured' in the context of learning?” “Are the phenomena of hidden curriculum that we want to look at the same in the two neighboring countries, in the same groups of professionals?” This is, in the context of postmodernism and postmodern education theories, one of the crucial points.

The Hidden Curriculum From the Perspective of School Counsellors in Slovenia

“…The more complex and differentiated descriptions represented the postmodern understanding of the hidden curriculum mainly as subjective theories, implicit beliefs, and tacit knowledge (Apple, 1990;Jančec & Lepičnik-Vodopivec, 2019;Jug Došler, 2021;Kroflič, 2005;Skelton, 1997). The counsellors focused on identifying the hidden cu rri culum as subjective theories, implicit beliefs, and tacit knowledge in teachers, but only exceptionally in their own work.…”

“…Based on this, we emphasize the importance of dealing with the hidden curriculum during the initial and continuing education/training of school counsellors and other educators. Jančec and Lepičnik-Vodopivec (2019) have shown that there is a tangible part of the hidden curriculum that can be quantified using standardized questionnaires. The interpretation of the findings can be applied during candidate selection and professional training programmes to help stimulate the acquisition of new knowledge and beliefs, and also to improve educators' daily work as well as their subjective and implicit theories.…”

“…Interpersonal communication is an integral part of the pedagogical process, which can be understood as a way of raising questions about everything that happens at the school and as an unavoidable part of the construction of knowledge and knowing (Apple, 1990). The various aspects of communication are also theoretically the most prominently highlighted among the principles of reducing the effects of the hidden curriculum, which has been the main focus of critical pedagogy (Giroux, 2001;Lynch, 1989;Jančec & Lepičnik-Vodopivec, 2019).…”

“…The weaknesses of each perspective on studying the hidden curriculum can, according to Skelton (1997), be overcome through the postmodern perspective. Some authors (Skelton, 1997;Jančec & Lepičnik-Vodopivec, 2019;Jug Došler, 2021;Kroflič, 2005) draw on Foucault, although Foucault himself was not explicitly concerned with the phenomenon of the hidden curriculum. The plurality and fragmentation of contemporary society, which he highlighted, call into question the many existing conceptions of the hidden curriculum.…”