Abstract
This article is a discussion of the hidden curriculum and the settler-colonial erasure that it propagates. There are two guiding questions that focus this work: (1) what are the assumptions that underlie the concept of the hidden curriculum and what do those assumptions obscure or erase; and (2) having raised the first question, is there a way forward for hidden curriculum analysis that can address the still valid concerns about tacit ideological messages in public schools without repeating the original constituting displacement of the hidden curriculum? I will employ a comparative analysis of select literature most commonly associated with the concept of the hidden curriculum and writings on education by Feminist, Black and Indigenous leaders and thinkers that speak to its ideas in a way that broadens and complicates its construction. I conclude this article with a discussion of the potential implications of these altered understandings for teacher and researcher practice.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks his colleagues for their reading and revisions to this work and his family for their love and support through all of his work.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 The idea that groups forced to the liminal spaces of society have a more accurate and nuanced understanding of the settler colonial elements of society is not a new one. Its roots can be traced to Marxism and is present in contemporary Standpoint Theory (Harding, Citation2003).
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Notes on contributors
Alexander B. Pratt
Alexander Pratt is a graduate student at the University of Oregon, Department of Education Studies. He taught elementary and middle school in Chicago public schools. His work focuses on the relationship between institutional racism and curriculum theory.