The Hidden Curriculum and School Ethos

Last Updated on October 22, 2026 by Karl Thompson

The hidden curriculum refers to the norms and values that are taught indirectly, as part and parcel of the organisation and routines of the school, rather than through formal lessons. Examples of things taught through the hidden curriculum include punctuality, respect for authority and having a pro-school attitude.

This post covers:

1. What the hidden curriculum is, where the term comes from, and examples.
2. How functionalists, Marxists, feminists and interactionists see the hidden curriculum.
3. School ethos, and why it matters most in elite schools.
4. How relevant the concept is today, and how it comes up in the exam.

The hidden curriculum is named in the AQA specification as part of ‘relationships and processes within schools’, examined on Paper 1 (7192/1). It also comes up in questions on the role of education, because each perspective reads it differently.

What is the hidden curriculum?

The norms taught through the hidden curriculum come from the school itself (and are similar in many schools). Those in charge see them as necessary for a school to run smoothly, and teachers enforce them in the day-to-day running of the school.

The hidden curriculum is normally contrasted with the formal curriculum – the official programme of subjects and lessons which governments, exam boards and schools design to promote pupils’ educational achievement.

The term was coined by the American educationalist Philip Jackson in his book Life in Classrooms (1968). Jackson argued that pupils learn a great deal simply from the experience of classroom life – of being one of a crowd, of having their work constantly judged and praised (or not), and of living under the authority of the teacher. To be seen as successful, pupils have to learn to accept authority and fit in with the institution. The point of his work was that some of the most lasting lessons of school might not be intended at all.

Examples of the hidden curriculum

There are several expected patterns of behaviour which are transmitted through the hidden curriculum, embedded in the day-to-day running of the school.

• Respecting hierarchy and authority: this is everywhere in school life. We see it in the management hierarchy (head teacher, leadership team, heads of department, teachers), in the prefect system, and in the layout of the classroom, with the teacher’s desk at the front.
• Punctuality: pupils are expected to be on time at the start of the day and to lessons, and this is reinforced constantly by teachers and by bells marking the end of lessons and break times.
• Wearing a uniform: this imposes the idea that commitment to the school matters more than individual identity.
• Respect for other pupils’ opinions: equality and diversity have become a much more significant part of school ethos in recent years.
• Aspiring to achieve: many school mottos have aspirational content, and teachers don’t generally accept a can’t-do attitude.
• Having a work ethic: pupils are expected to take ownership of their work and be self-motivated, especially once they reach GCSE level.
• Competition: pupils are ranked through tests, reports, sets and reward systems, which teaches them that individual achievement is what counts.
• Accepting surveillance: something more subtle, but pupils don’t get much privacy in their school life. From the moment they enter school they are under physical and academic surveillance for most of the day.

Whether we use the term ‘hidden curriculum’ or ‘school ethos’, the norms that make these up are typically NOT open to question or debate. They are simply expected patterns of behaviour that pupils must conform to, and if they don’t, punishments follow.

For example, pupils may not like punctuality or wearing a uniform, and they may complain about both, but if they don’t conform, they will be punished.

Perspectives on the hidden curriculum

The hidden curriculum is one of the best concepts for comparing perspectives in the exam, because they agree that it exists but disagree about what it does and who benefits.

The functionalist view

Functionalists see the hidden curriculum as a positive part of secondary socialisation. By learning to follow rules, be punctual, work hard and accept being judged against the same standards as everyone else, pupils learn the shared values they will need in wider society and the workplace. From this point of view, the hidden curriculum helps integrate individuals into society. See the functionalist perspective on education.

The Marxist view

The idea of the hidden curriculum was a key idea in the Marxist perspective on education from the 1970s. Bowles and Gintis argued, through their correspondence principle, that the norms taught through the hidden curriculum prepare working-class children for future exploitation at work. Accepting the authority of teachers, for example, gets children ready to accept the authority of managers. The learning of values is thus part of ideological control.

The key difference from functionalism is that Marxists see these values as serving the interests of the capitalist class, not society as a whole.

The feminist view

Feminists argue that the hidden curriculum also teaches gender roles. Expectations about how boys and girls should behave, differences in how teachers respond to them, gendered uniform rules and the subjects pupils are steered towards can all send messages about what is ‘normal’ for each gender – even when the formal curriculum treats boys and girls equally. This is covered in more depth in the post on gender and in-school processes.

The interactionist view

Interactionists stress that pupils don’t simply soak up the hidden curriculum. They interpret it, negotiate with it and sometimes reject it outright. Paul Willis’s ‘lads’ are the classic example: they saw through the school’s messages and formed a counter-school culture against them – see Learning to Labour and pupil subcultures.

School ethos

The school ethos refers to the character, atmosphere or ‘climate’ of a school. It’s a phrase you will hear head teachers use to describe their school to parents, and to set out the attitudes expected of pupils. It is very similar to the concept of the hidden curriculum, as many of the norms that make up a school’s ‘ethos’ are the same ones sociologists see as being taught through the hidden curriculum.

A school’s ethos might include things like:

• whether there is an emphasis on academic success, and/or on artistic or sporting achievement
• whether there is an emphasis on equal opportunities for all pupils – does the school focus on helping disadvantaged pupils, for example?
• whether there is an emphasis on respect for diversity – does the school promote multiculturalism and challenge racism and sexism?
• whether the school encourages pupils to take part in community life
• the extent to which there is an entrepreneurial culture and strong ties with local businesses
• whether parents are encouraged to get actively involved in the life of the school
• the type of learning the school encourages – formal, traditional ‘chalk and talk’ teaching, or independent learning, for example.

School ethos and elite schools

Ethos is probably most useful for understanding what is really different about the top public schools, such as Eton and Harrow.

The ethos of these schools teaches pupils that they belong among the elite. Pupils are surrounded by reminders of the famous former pupils who went on to lead the country, are expected to aim for the top universities, and gain a global outlook from studying alongside wealthy international pupils. They leave school expecting to go on to the top jobs.

And many of them do. Only about 6% of pupils in England attend independent schools, yet the Sutton Trust’s Elitist Britain report (2025) found that 62% of senior judges and around half of newspaper columnists were privately educated, and 36% of people across all the elite roles it studied.

In other words, it’s not just smaller class sizes that parents are paying for – it may well be the ethos, and the sense of entitlement it builds, that makes the difference.

How important is the hidden curriculum today?

One slightly tricky thing about the concept of the hidden curriculum is that, over the years, many of the norms associated with it have been formalised and written down as explicit rules in codes of conduct which pupils have to sign – meaning they are very VISIBLE.

Good examples of this are rules about punctuality, homework and uniform.

However, such norms are still not part of the formal subject curriculum, so you can probably still get away with calling anything that isn’t a subject part of the curriculum which is hidden.

Or maybe we should be referring to some of the norms above as part of the ‘curriculum formerly known as hidden’…?

This is one of the reasons why ‘school ethos’ might be a more relevant concept for today’s schools.

It’s also worth considering that even if there is a hidden curriculum today, it isn’t necessarily the case that pupils will passively soak it up as Bowles and Gintis suggested – they are just as likely to resist it!

Evaluating the concept of the hidden curriculum

Strengths:

• It draws attention to how much pupils learn outside formal lessons, which the formal curriculum alone can’t explain.
• It is useful in the exam because every major perspective can be applied to it, which makes it ideal for comparison and evaluation.
• The elite schools evidence suggests that what schools teach about status and belonging may matter as much as what they teach in lessons.

Limitations:

• Many hidden norms are now explicit rules, so the ‘hidden’ part is less hidden than it was.
• It is hard to measure. It is easy to point to features of school life, but much harder to show what pupils actually learn from them.
• It tends to assume pupils are passive. Interactionist research, such as Willis’s, shows that pupils can see through it and resist it.

How the hidden curriculum comes up in the exam

The hidden curriculum is useful on Paper 1 (7192/1), both in questions on the role of education and in questions on in-school processes. Recent AQA questions it is directly relevant to include:

• June 2019, 6 marks: Outline three ways in which the characteristics of schools may be similar to the characteristics of workplaces.
• June 2022, 4 marks: Outline two ways in which schools may promote competition between pupils.
• June 2017, 30 marks: …evaluate sociological explanations of the role of education in transmitting ideas and values.

Revision bundle

If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my sociology of education revision bundle, written by Karl Thompson, who taught A-level sociology for eighteen years and spent twelve as an AQA examiner, marking all three papers on the current specification.

Signposting

This post has been written primarily for students studying the education topic, as part of the AQA’s A-level sociology course.

Related posts:

• Bowles and Gintis: the correspondence principle – the Marxist theory most associated with the hidden curriculum.
• Labelling theory and the self-fulfilling prophecy – another key in-school process.
• Pupil subcultures – how some pupils reject the values of the school.

For more posts on in-school processes, see my page on the sociology of education, which follows the AQA’s A-level sociology specification.

Please click here to return to the homepage – ReviseSociology.com

Sources

• Jackson, P. W. (1968) Life in Classrooms. (Origin of the term as described in Kridel, C. (ed.) (2010) Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies, SAGE.)
• Bowles, S. and Gintis, H. (1976) Schooling in Capitalist America.
• Department for Education (2026) Schools, pupils and their characteristics, 2025/26.
• Sutton Trust (2025) Elitist Britain 2025.
• Willis, P. (1977) Learning to Labour.