Since Philip W. Jackson coined the term "hidden curriculum," there have been numerous empirical studies that meticulously describe how taken-for-granted school practices, rules, and rituals reproduce structured inequality among students of varying social and economic classes. These hidden curricula communicate to students who they are, what opportunities are available to them, and where they belong in the school and societal hierarchies. While much is known about how hidden curricula shape the lived experiences of students, very little is known about how teachers contend with the hidden curricula of schools. As a result, teachers, particularly those who teach poor and working-class Black and Latino students, have been depicted as passively reinforcing rules and distributing opportunities and resources in ways that reproduce social inequity among the student population. This dissertation is an exploration of one urban public high school's hidden curricula from the perspective of two urban public high school teachers. In a political era where teachers are given less and less autonomy over the schools' official curriculum, the classroom is one of the few places remaining where teachers are still granted a modicum of independence and the discretion to exercise their agency. Thus, this study focuses on how these two teachers use classroom space to engage the hidden curricula of their school.
The nine-month ethnographic study employs multiple data-collection strategies, including participant observation, visual elicitation, and open-ended interviews, as well as filming and photography, in order to provide multiple forums for teachers to articulate their motivations, perspectives, and knowledge about how they organize their classroom space. Findings from this study suggest that there is a dynamic interplay between the teachers' use of classroom space and the hidden curricula of schools. The messages of multiple hidden curricula are tacitly communicated through the taken-for-granted rules that guide the use of classroom space. In deciding which of these rules to enforce or modify, the teachers mediate the messages of the school's hidden curricula. Given that teachers play an instrumental role as arbiters of the hidden curricula, it is essential that we gain a fuller understanding of how they understand their role and interpret the hidden curricula of their particular school's context. This study aims to address this gap in knowledge. Methodologically, this study also offers strategies for how educational research can engage teachers more fully in articulating their intimate, localized knowledge about life in the classroom.
