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Science Education, Indoctrination, and the Hidden Curriculum

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History, Philosophy and Science Teaching

Part of the book series: Science: Philosophy, History and Education ((SPHE))

Abstract

This chapter takes as its starting point discussions about the concept of indoctrination in the philosophy of education and provides an overview of the use of the concept in relation to science education. The chapter then focuses on indoctrination through the hidden curriculum. Messages about the nature of science communicated in the classroom, which are not in line with the formal curriculum, are part of this hidden curriculum. It is suggested that widespread views about science (e.g. associating science with positivistic, scientistic, atheistic and modernistic views) could be viewed as a result of an indoctrination of students. Since these views are not necessary for science, science becomes distorted for students. Thus, indoctrination could have unfortunate consequences for students’ possibilities of identifying with science and therefore, for the possibility to achieve a desirable pluralism in science.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See for example Bailey (2010); Callan and Arena (2009); Snook (1972b/2010); Wilson (1964, 1972).

  2. 2.

    However, opposite to this there are also people for whom an “objective” teaching is part of the problem, e.g. not all parents want their children to rationally scrutinize everything (Stolzenberg 1993).

  3. 3.

    The foreseeable has been discussed also by Snook (1972/2010, pp. 156–157), who argued against it as a criterion.

  4. 4.

    See, for example, Cobern (2000b), Cobern (2004), El-Hani and Mortimer (2007a, b), Hoffman (2007), Smith and Siegel (2004), and Southerland et al. (2001).

  5. 5.

    See, for example, Cobern (1991), Cobern (1996), Cobern (2004), Smith and Siegel (2004), and El-Hani and Mortimer (2007a, b).

  6. 6.

    See, for example, Allen and Crowley (1998), Hansson (2014), Hansson and Redfors (2006, 2007a, b), Hansson and Lindahl (2010), Brandt (2007), Cobern (1993), Cobern (2000a), Cobern et al. (1999), and Lee et al. (2012).

  7. 7.

    See, for example, Jickling (2003), Qablan et al. (2011), Qablan et al. (2009), Tabone (2011), and Östman (2010).

  8. 8.

    Some, for example, Öhman (2007) , argue against pluralistic ESD being necessarily relativistic.

  9. 9.

    Scientism can be defined in different ways (Stenmark 2001). Here a definition is followed suggested by Poole (1998). Poole argues that scientism , but not science, “Denies that anything other than the natural world exists”, states that “Scientific accounts are all there are”, “Denies that there are first causes or final causes”, and “Denies that there could ever be behavior other than law like (anti-miraculous)” (Poole 1998). When such views are claimed “in the name of science” (Stenmark 2001), this is what is meant by scientism in this chapter.

  10. 10.

    See, for example, Fourez (1988), Kilbourn (1980), Kilbourn (1980–1981), Roberts (1998) and Östman (1998).

  11. 11.

    An individual’s view about science and religion depends on her/his view about different nature of science issues), but also on the individual’s view about religion, see Stenmark (2004) for an in-depth discussion on the relationship between science and religion.

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    Lena Hansson

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    Michael R. Matthews

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Hansson, L. (2018). Science Education, Indoctrination, and the Hidden Curriculum. In: Matthews, M. (eds) History, Philosophy and Science Teaching. Science: Philosophy, History and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62616-1_11

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