Identifying your skin is too dark as a put-down: Enacting whiteness as hidden curriculum through a bullying prevention programme. Issue 5 (20th October 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Thomas, Rhianna
• Is Part Of: Curriculum inquiry. Volume 49:Issue 5(2019)
• Page Start: 573
• Page End: 592
• Publication Date: 2019-10-20
• Subjects: Hidden curriculum -- critical theory -- student and teacher experiences -- bullying prevention; Education -- Curricula -- Periodicals; 375.0005
• DOI: 10.1080/03626784.2019.1687258
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0362-6784

Abstract

Abstract: In my second year teaching at the elementary level, two biracial first graders told a Black child that she could not play because her skin was too dark. I found myself, a white female teacher, using the language of the bullying prevention programme to ignore the racialized nature of the incident and ultimately enact a hidden curriculum of white supremacy. In this article, I analyze the incident using the concept of hidden curriculum and a critical whiteness studies lens in order to better understand how formal social curricula, such as bullying prevention programmes, might be used to promote harmful social norms in a covert manner. I posit that explicit social curricula grounded in behaviourist theory are especially problematic because they are designed to elicit standardized rather than contextualized responses to problematic student behaviours. I explore the ways I utilized colour evasiveness and taught it to my students through the hidden curriculum and the bullying prevention programme. I conclude with implications for the implementation of formal social curricula in schools and considerations for teacher education to break white discourse norms that contribute to the hegemonic hidden curriculum.