A Hidden Curriculum of Control: The Inequities of Urban Schooling / Nicole Mittenfelner Carl.

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Carl, Nicole Mittenfelner, author.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania. Educational Leadership, degree granting institution.

Ravitch, Sharon M., degree supervisor.

Bourgois, Philippe, degree committee member.

Quinn, Rand, degree committee member.

Stevenson, Howard, degree committee member.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Curriculum development.

Educational leadership.

Educational sociology.

Educational Leadership--Penn dissertations.

Penn dissertations--Educational Leadership.

Local Subjects:

Curriculum development.

Educational leadership.

Educational sociology.

Educational Leadership--Penn dissertations.

Penn dissertations--Educational Leadership.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (217 pages)

Contained In:

Dissertation Abstracts International 78-10A(E).

Place of Publication:

[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] : University of Pennsylvania ; Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2017.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

Summary:

This multi-year ethnographic study of a K-8 school, referred to as Baker School, in a low-income neighborhood in Philadelphia investigates the ways that hidden curricula of social reproduction and inequity shape students' schooling experiences. The study employs ethnographic methods to explore, engage with, and better understand students' experiences and perspectives of schooling at an under-resourced, urban, public school in a high-poverty neighborhood. The dissertation also examines how direct and indirect messages of possibility at the school influence students and teachers. I approach this study from an epistemological standpoint that situates students as important knowledge generators from which practitioners and scholars have much to learn.

This study is guided by a theoretical framework that considers how the naturalization of dominant values, beliefs, and actions has important consequences for students attending schools in under-resourced communities because these dominant beliefs are manifest in schools through overt and hidden curricula. Students' perspectives and experiences of schooling processes in under-resourced schools are not often included in empirical research, and this ethnographic study has the potential to generate a new line of inquiry that centralizes students' perspectives.

The study's findings include that there is a hidden curriculum of control at Baker School in which schooling becomes primarily about controlling behavior. Relationships between students and teachers are strained as a result of the culture of control at the school, and to survive and thrive in this environment, students demonstrate micro resistance strategies as well as cultivate what I call a habitus of fierceness. The hidden curriculum of control, the systemic lack of resources, and the resulting power struggles and resistance culminate in, what I term, a deficit default based on deficit orientations of students, teachers, and parents. Finally, the study details the way that invisible macro structural processes impact students, teachers, and parents connected to Baker. However, instead of recognizing these invisible forces, students, teachers, and parents are blamed and blame themselves for the "failure" of urban, public schools like Baker. The study concludes by presenting implications for theory, practice, and future research based on the findings of this study.

Notes:

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 78-10(E), Section: A.

Advisors: Sharon M. Ravitch; Committee members: Philippe Bourgois; Rand Quinn; Howard Stevenson.

Department: Educational Leadership.

Ed.D. University of Pennsylvania 2017.

Local Notes:

School code: 0175

ISBN:

9781369830293

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.