The Power of Positive Thinking: A Hidden Curriculum for Precarious Times

Abstract

In this article, we explore the relationship between adult education and socioeconomic precariousness, through extending existing scholarship regarding the concept of the hidden curriculum. We analyze transcripts of 134 qualitative interviews undertaken to explore the learning experiences associated with reading self-help books in the domains of career and financial success, health and well-being, and interpersonal relationships. We find that, in addition to facilitating learning connected to the reasons for which people seek out books, self-help reading encourages people to be positive, optimistic, and confident; to stop thinking negatively; and to change their interpretation of themselves and their lives. We argue that the hidden curriculum of positive thinking both reflects and reproduces the cultural logic of precariousness that characterizes contemporary labor markets and domestic relationships, and we encourage adult educators to apply the concept of hidden curriculum to the critical study of other forms of educational practice.

Color-Blind Racism in Pandemic Times

“…A “feeling good” story works precisely because we are in the middle of a horrid pandemic that has taken the lives of more than 100,000 people. It works because Americans, perhaps more than most people in the world, have been conditioned to both “a rugged individualism” foundational myth and, lately, to a self-help cultural logic (McLean and Dixit 2018). And because the color-blind-shaped issues I highlighted do their work mostly obliquely, they fit almost perfectly the slippery nature of most post–civil rights racial affairs (Bonilla-Silva 2015b).…”

The cultural logic of precariousness and the marginalization of the sociological imagination: Signs from Mexican self‐help books

“…The performance of gender is fundamental to the ways that people talk about their experience of self‐help reading (Kapell & McLean, 2014; McLean & Dixit, 2018a; McLean & Vermeylen, 2019). Third, while neoliberal discourses structure the messages of self‐help texts, readers do not necessarily internalize such discourses in a straightforward manner (McLean, 2015a; McLean & Dixit, 2018b).…”

Time as a Hidden Curriculum: Qualitative Study of Challenges Faced by Students with Mobility, Speech, and Visual Disabilities in P-12 Settings

“…Curriculum is a guideline and a basis of what will be taught to students based on age, subject area, grade level, and state and national or international standards for the purpose of gaining substantive experiences (Berg et al, 2017;McLean & Dixit, 2018). Unlike informal curriculum that supports acquisition of repertories in unstructured environments, formal curriculum dictates learning in a more structured environments and learning activities and events (e.g., in specific buildings and time) (Nelms, 1991).…”

“…It is a plan for education that provides the structure and scope of an educational program for learners (Nelms, 1991). A curriculum is the subjects and lessons explicitly taught in the classroom (McLean & Dixit, 2018). Different information or lessons taught informally or formally by parents, families, friends, and teachers also constitute a curriculum.…”