The Case of the Missing Brackets: Teachers and Social Reproduction

Abstract

Researchers have established the existence of class-based hidden curricula and their role in social reproduction. However, critics of reproduction theories argue that models of reproduction are often mechanistic and that they overlook the resistance and contradiction in schools. Previous research on social reproduction in the schools, by and large, described teacher practices, classroom relationships, and curricula-in-use, leaving the reader to infer the influence of these forces on student behavior. This essay joins the debate by offering a small but dramatic example of how the hidden curriculum penetrates a student's consciousness.

In the course of conducting research on another topic, the author observed several unexpected but vivid examples of classroom behavior which reflect the ways that students from various tracks and class backgrounds are socialized for their likely destination in the workforce. Students' reactions to missing brackets on a questionnaire followed definitive patterns predicted by reproduction theory. Observations were made in over 60 classrooms in nine comprehensive public high schools in the Los Angeles area. This article reports these observations and draws upon relevant literature, as well as the author's teaching experiences, to discuss the implications of these findings.

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