School Culture

most other students. For example, Robert Crosnoe has found that feelings of not fitting in among students who were bullied because they were obese or gay sometimes led not only to depression, drug use, or other dysfunctions, but also to increased risk of not obtaining postsecondary educations. Related research indicates that lack of popularity in adolescence is associated with the subsequent emergence of career and adjustment problems in young adulthood.20

On the other hand, some analysts point out that many students who are excluded or are otherwise treated as outsiders in their high schools experience much success in college and later life. For example, Alexandra Robbins has studied the culture in a large high school and found that many “geeks,” “nerds,” and other outsiders are not popular, and they are frequently ridiculed and even bullied. But later in life, her “quirk theory” speculates, many are successful, in part because they are viewed as refreshingly different and interesting. Thus, there is considerable uncertainty about possible effects of high school culture on subsequent careers, and much variation in how it may affect particular students.

10-1d School culture

Education in school, compared with learning experiences in family or peer-group contexts, occurs in relatively formal ways. Group membership is not voluntary but determined by age, aptitudes, and, frequently, gender. Students are tested and evaluated; they are told when to sit, when to stand, how to walk through hallways, and so on. The rituals of school assemblies, athletic events, and graduation ceremonies—as well as the school insignia, songs, and cheers—all convey the school culture and socialize students. Less-ritualized activities and teacher behaviors also acculturate students to the school.

Student roles and the hidden Curriculum Gita Kedar-Voivodas has examined

teacher expectations for student roles—that is, desired student behaviors and characteristics—in the elementary classroom. She identified three main types of expected student roles: the pupil role, the receptive learner role, and the active learner role.

The pupil role is one in which teachers expect students to be “patient, docile, passive, orderly, conforming, obedient and acquiescent to rules and regulations, respectful to authority, easily controllable, and socially adept.” The receptive learner role requires students to be “motivated, task-oriented, . . . good achievers, and as such, receptive to the institutional demands of the academic curriculum.” In the active learner role, according to Kedar-Voivodas, students go “beyond the established academic curriculum both in terms of the content to be mastered and in the processes” of learning. Traits of the active learner include “curiosity, active probing and exploring, challenging authority, an independent and questioning mind, and insistence on explanations.” Kedar-Voivodas noted that many educational philosophers, among them John Dewey and Maria Montessori, have stressed the value of active learning.21

Kedar-Voivodas also found, however, that students exemplifying the active learner role sometimes are rejected by teachers. That is, many teachers respond negatively to active, independent, and assertive children. The difference can be large, Kedar-Voivodas said, between the school’s academic curriculum, which demands successful mastery of cognitive material, and its “hidden” curriculum, which demands “institutional conformity.”22

20Robert Crosnoe, “The Burden of the Bullied,” 2011 paper posted by The University of Texas, available at www.utexas.edu/features; Adele Melander-Dayton, “Why It’s Good to Be a High School Loser,” Salon (May 1, 2011), available at www.salon.com; and Lexine A. Stapinski et al., “Peer Victimization during Adolescence,” Anxiety, Stress and Coping (January 2015). 21Gita Kedar-Voivodas, “The Impact of Elementary Children’s School Roles and Sex Roles on Teacher Attitudes,” Review of Educational Research (Fall 1983), p. 417. See also Regina D. Langhout and Cecily A. Mitchell, “Engaging Contexts,” Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology (November/December 2008), pp. 593–614. 22Ibid., p. 418. See also Michael Apple, Education and Power, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 1995); and Ali Nouri and Seyed M. Sajjadi, “Emancipatory Pedagogy in Practice,” International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, v.5, no. 2, 2014, available at www.libjournal.uncg.edu.

hidden curriculum What students

learn, other than academic content, from the school milieu or environment.

The hidden curriculum—a term used by many critics of contemporary schools— is what students learn, other than academic content, from what they do or are expected to do in school. In addition to teaching children to passively conform in the classroom, the hidden curriculum may be preparing economically disadvantaged students to be docile workers later in life. It can communicate negative racial and sexual stereotypes through material included in (or omitted from) textbooks. It can lead children to believe that bullying is acceptable or that copying others’ work is expected and excusable. Excessive emphasis on competition for grades may create a hidden curriculum which teaches students that beating the system is more important than anything else.23

Classroom Culture In his study of classroom processes in elementary schools, Philip Jackson found relatively few different types of classroom activity. The terms seatwork, group discussion, teacher demonstration, and question-and-answer period described most of what happened in the classroom. Further, these activities were performed according to well-defined rules such as “no loud talking during seatwork” and “raise your hand if you have a question.” The teacher served as a “combination traffic cop, judge, supply sergeant, and timekeeper.” In this cultural system, the classroom often becomes a place where events happen “not because students want them to, but because it is time for them to occur.”24

The rules of order that characterize most elementary-school classrooms, Jackson concluded, focus on preventing disturbances. Thus, the prevailing socialization pattern in the culture of the school and classroom places its greatest emphasis on what Kedar-Voivodas called the obedient pupil role. Other studies have reached essentially the same conclusion. For example, “A Study of Schooling” conducted by John Goodlad and his colleagues described the following widespread patterns:25 1. The classroom is generally organized as a group that the teacher treats as a whole.

This pattern seems to arise from the need to maintain orderly relationships among twenty to thirty people in a small space. 2. “Enthusiasm and joy and anger are kept under control.” As a result, the general emotional tone is flat or neutral. 3. Most student work involves “listening to teachers, writing answers to questions, and taking tests and quizzes.” Textbooks and workbooks generally constitute the media of instruction. 4. These patterns become increasingly rigid and predominant as students proceed through the grades. 5. Instruction seldom goes beyond “mere possession of information.” Relatively little effort is made to arouse curiosity or to emphasize thinking.

In summary, Goodlad wrote, students “rarely planned or initiated anything, read or wrote anything of some length, or created their own products. And they scarcely ever speculated on meanings.”26

23Mary Breuing, “Problematizing Critical Pedagogy,” The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, v.3, no. 3 (2011); and “Hidden Curriculum,” December 2, 2014, posting by the Great Schools Partnership, available at www.edglossary.org. 24Philip W. Jackson, Life in Classrooms (New York: Holt, 1968), pp. 8–9, 13. See also Philip W. Jackson, The Practice of Teaching (New York: Teachers College Press, 1986); and Carolina Blatt-Gross, “Why Do We Make Students Sit Still in Class?” December 10, 2014, posting by CNN Living, available at www.cnn.com. 25Goodlad, A Place Called School, pp. 123–124, 236, 246. See also Donald J. Willower and William L. Boyd, Willard Waller on Education and Schools (Berkeley, CA: McCutchan, 1989); and Antonia Lewandowski, “Seen and Heard,” Teacher Magazine (March 2006). 26John I. Goodlad, “A Study of Schooling,” Phi Delta Kappan (March 1983), p. 468. See also Edgar H. Schuster, “The Persistence of the ‘Grammar of Schooling,’” Education Week (April 30, 2003); and Paul E. Barton and Richard J. Coley, “The Mission of the High School,” ETS Policy Information Perspective (July 2011), available at www.ets.org.

As we discuss elsewhere in this book, such systematic emphasis on passive learning by rote is in opposition to most contemporary ideas of what education should accomplish. Much has changed since Goodlad and his colleagues collected their data, but many classrooms still exemplify passive, rote learning. In particular, passive learning is more likely to be emphasized in schools with low-achieving, working-class students than in schools with high-achieving, middle-class students. To study this topic, Jean Anyon examined five elementary schools that differed markedly in social class. In the two predominantly working-class schools, Anyon found that instruction emphasized mostly mechanical skills such as punctuation and capitalization. In contrast, instruction in the schools she categorized as predominantly middle-class or “affluent professional” emphasized working independently and developing analytical and conceptual skills. Similar patterns have been reported by other researchers.27

Why do classrooms so often function in this way? This is an important question, and many analysts have addressed it. Reasons they have offered include the following: 1. Institutional requirements to maintain order. As Jackson points out, a multitude of routines seek to govern interactions between twenty or thirty students and a teacher.

Researchers use terms such as institutional realities and organizational dynamics to describe the forces that translate a need for order into an emphasis on passive learning.28 2. Student preferences for passive learning. We should not underestimate the degree to which many students resist active learning. As Walter Doyle writes, students may

“restrict the amount of output they give to a teacher to minimize the risk of exposing a mistake.” By holding back, students can also persuade other students or the teacher to help them. As one older student said, “Yeah, I hardly do nothing. All you gotta do is act dumb, and Mr. Y will tell you the right answer. You just gotta wait, you know, and he’ll tell you.”29 3. Accommodations, bargains, and compromises between students and teachers. In a context that combines institutional requirements for order with student preference for passive learning, the teacher and students may reach an accommodation or bargain by which they compromise on a set of minimal standards. For example,

Martin Haberman has observed what he calls “the Deal” in many urban classrooms: students are nondisruptive as long as the teacher ignores the fact that they are not diligent in their classwork. The widespread existence of such “ABCs” has been documented in major studies. Michael Sedlak and his colleagues called such an arrangement “a complex, tacit conspiracy to avoid rigorous, demanding academic inquiry.”30

27Jean Anyon, “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work,” Journal of Education (Winter 1980), pp. 67–92; Jean Anyon, Ghetto Schooling (New York: Teachers College Press, 1997); and Catherine Cornbleth, “School Curriculum-Hidden Curriculum,” 2014 posting by State University, available at http://education.stateuniversity.com. 28Goodlad, “A Study of Schooling,” pp. 469–470; Max Angus, The Rules of School Reform (London: Falmer, 1998); Daniel U. Levine and Rayna F. Levine, “Considerations in Introducing Instructional Interventions,” in Barbara Presseisen, ed., Teaching for Intelligence, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2007); and Nancy J. Ratcliff et al., “The Elephant in the Classroom,” Education (Winter 2010), pp. 306–314. 29Walter Doyle, “Academic Work,” Review of Educational Research (Summer 1983), pp. 184–185. See also David Ferrero, “Tales from the Inside,” Education Next (No. 2, 2006), available at www .educationnext.org; and Roxy Harris, “Urban Classroom Culture,” Education Review (Winter 2011–2012). 30Michael W. Sedlak et al., Selling Students Short (New York: Teachers College Press, 1986), p. 13; Martin Haberman, “The Ideology of Nonwork in Urban Schools,” Phi Delta Kappan (March 1997), pp. 499–503; Jeffrey Mirel, “The Traditional High School,” Education Next (No. 1, 2006), available at www.educationnext.org; and Harry Wong and Rosemary Wong, “Making Deals Is Ineffective,” Teachers Net Gazette (December 2014/January 2015), available at www .teachers.net.

4. Teachers’ allocation of attention. Many teachers feel compelled to give most of their time and attention to a few students. In some cases, these will be the slowest students—whomever the teacher believes most need help. In many other cases, however, attention goes primarily to the brightest students, who teachers frequently believe will benefit the most from extra attention. This attitude is particularly prevalent when teachers have so many “slow” students that helping them all seems impossible. Helen Gouldner and her colleagues found these dynamics in an inner-city, all-black elementary school with a large proportion of students from low-income home environments that failed to prepare them to function well in the classroom.

The few well-prepared students (generally from relatively high-status families) were the “pets”—those whom teachers helped throughout their school careers.

The largest group of students (the “nobodies”) received relatively little teacher attention and generally was neither disruptive nor particularly successful. The remaining students, a small group of “troublemakers,” were unable or unwilling to conform to the routine demands of the classroom. These patterns were well in line with the school’s “sorting and selecting” function because the teachers, most of whom were African American, could feel they were promoting success for at least some black students in a difficult learning environment.31 5. Society’s requirement that students learn to conform. Underlying schools’ emphasis on passive learning is the reality that young people must learn to function in social institutions outside the school. Because most people in contemporary society must cope with large economic, political, and social institutions, children must be socialized to follow appropriate routines and regulations. Philip Jackson summarizes this part of a school’s socialization mission as follows: “It is expected that children will adapt to the teacher’s authority by becoming ‘good workers’ and

‘model students.’ The transition from classroom to factory or office is made easily by those who have developed ‘good work habits’ in their early years.” This goal of schooling is part of the hidden curriculum mentioned earlier.32 6. Teacher overload. It is difficult for teachers to provide active, meaningful learning experiences when they must cope with the demands of large classes and class loads, a variety of duties and tasks outside their classrooms, pressures to cover a wide range of material and skills, and other such responsibilities.33 As we document elsewhere in this book, recognition is growing of the heavy burdens on teachers, and many reformers are working to reduce teacher overload.

We could offer many additional reasons why classroom instructional patterns have been relatively unaffected by contemporary learning theory, but most of them in some way involve institutional constraints that favor passive, rote learning.34 Overcoming such constraints requires significant innovations in school organization and pedagogy, as we will see in Chapter 16, School Effectiveness and Reform in the United States.

31Helen Gouldner, Teachers’ Pets, Troublemakers, and Nobodies (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1978), pp. 133–134. This self-fulfilling prophecy and the way it operated at the school studied by Gouldner and her colleagues are described at greater length in Ray C. Rist, The Urban School (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1973). See also Cris Tovani, “I Got Grouped,” Educational Leadership (March 2010), available at www.ascd.org; and Shao-l Chiu, Jiezhi Lee, and Tzanglang Liang, “Does the Teachers’ Pet Phenomenon Inevitably Cause Classroom Conflict?” School Psychology International (February 2013). 32Jackson, Life in Classrooms, p. 32. See also Allen Mendler and Brian Mendler, “What Tough Kids Need from Us,” Reclaiming Children and Youth (Spring 2010), pp. 27–31. 33Linda M. McNeil, Contradictions of School Reform (New York: Routledge, 2000); and Linda M. McNeil, “Teaching Boldly in Timid Schools,” in M. C. Fehr and D. E. Fehr, eds., Teach Boldly! (New York: Peter Lang, 2010). 34Other frequently cited reasons include the tendency for teachers to teach the way they were taught, the high costs involved in introducing new approaches, and the lack of adequate preservice and in-service training.