The Power of Positive Thinking: A Hidden Curriculum for Precarious Times

Introduction

In recent decades, precariousness has become an increasingly prominent feature of many people’s lives. In labor markets, growing numbers of people work part-time or on term-limited contracts, without unions, pensions, or job security, and with limited workplace benefits (Standing, 2011). In domestic relationships, growing numbers of people live alone or with a common-law partner, experience divorce, and spend more years in households composed in ways other than that of a traditional married couple with children (Statistics Canada, 2012, 2017). At work and at home, flexible and shifting arrangements are displacing the stable social structures associated with the postwar era of industrial capitalism and nuclear families. In this article, we analyze the politics of a particular form of adult education—learning accomplished through reading self-help books—that has gained prominence in these precarious times. Our focus is not on the well-known claim that adult education overtly helps adults address specific professional and personal transitions; rather, we argue that some forms of adult education covertly reflect and reproduce the cultural logic of precariousness that has come to structure the experience of life for many people.

We develop this argument through extending the concept of hidden curriculum. For 50 years, scholars have employed the concept of hidden curriculum in order to explore impacts of educational experiences that transcend those explicitly included in formal curricula. In this article, we review hidden curriculum scholarship, focusing on themes of interest to the field of adult education, and we provide an empirical study of a contemporary hidden curriculum. Our analysis moves beyond existing work on hidden curricula (work that focuses on the reproduction of dispositions deemed functional to industrial capitalism and patriarchal institutions), to explore the reproduction of ways of thinking consistent with the cultural logic of precarious times.

We provide empirical evidence for our argument through analyzing transcripts of 134 qualitative interviews undertaken to explore learning experiences associated with reading self-help books in the domains of career and financial success, health and well-being, and interpersonal relationships. As we have argued (McLean, 2013), self-help reading constitutes a form of public pedagogy (Sandlin, O’Malley, & Burdick, 2011; Sandlin, Schultz, & Burdick, 2010; Wright & Sandlin, 2009) through which adults access resources from popular culture and pursue learning goals without the involvement of educational institutions. The domain of self-help reading provides a fascinating site for the analysis of hidden curricula, since the explicit curricula of self-help texts are highly diverse and not controlled by any single institution or set of government regulations. We do not claim that self-help reading is representative of other domains of adult education. However, our empirical work with self-help readers uncovers an important hidden curriculum—one that encourages positive thinking as a response to living in precarious times—and we encourage scholars to explore whether socially conservative hidden curricula may also be present in other domains of adult education.

Literature Review

The term hidden curriculum emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s in studies dedicated to describing what children and youth learn through their participation in educational institutions. Jackson (1968) and Dreeben (1968) both claimed that the experience of schooling led children and youth to internalize certain norms and values not explicitly identified in formal curricula—norms and values such as deference to authority and conformity to peer expectations. Snyder (1971) argued that the competitive nature of university life led young adults to learn strategies that resulted in better examination performance, irrespective of whether or not those strategies furthered the stated goals of programs of study. While explicit curricula focus on substantive knowledge and skills, hidden curricula represent the diverse messages received and lessons learned through students’ actual engagement with processes of schooling.

Through the 1970s, critical scholars argued that the impact of hidden curricula went beyond having students internalize norms and values that allowed them to succeed in school and workplaces. Such scholars linked hidden curricula of schooling with the reproduction of social class inequality. Apple (1971) identified “political quiescence” and the maintenance of “the existing distribution of power and rationality in a society” as distinctive outcomes of social studies and science curricula in American schools (p. 27). Giroux and Penna (1979) highlighted the socially conservative nature of the hidden curriculum:

Instead of preparing students to enter the society with skills that will allow them to reflect critically upon and intervene in the world in order to change it, schools act as conservative forces which, for the most part, socialize students to conform to the status quo. The structure, organization and content of contemporary schooling serve to equip students with the personality requisites desired in the bureaucratically structured, hierarchically organized work force. (pp. 32-33)

While explicit curricula are framed in universalizing language that purports to advance the interests of all students, hidden curricula reflect and reproduce socioeconomic inequalities.

In recent years, scholars of primary and secondary schooling have employed the concept of hidden curriculum to explore the reproduction of inequalities rooted in racism, classism, and sexism. De Lissovoy (2012) argued that, for students of color and other marginalized students, “the hidden curriculum of schooling” represents a “continuous process of assault” (p. 463). He claimed, “ostensible curricula of personal and intellectual development in fact prepare students, in general, for a fundamental demoralization, marginalization, and punishment” (p. 465). De Lissovoy positioned “institutional labeling” at the core of the hidden curriculum, which he understood to “include not merely the enforcement of dominant ideologies, but also the construction and disciplining of subjectivities” (pp. 469-470). De Lissovoy provided a sophisticated account of how hidden curricula of schooling subjugate students of color.

Donnelly (2015a, 2015b) employed the hidden curriculum concept to account for the impact of secondary school experiences on students’ decisions regarding participation in post-secondary education. He (2015b) noted the ongoing tendency, in the United Kingdom, for secondary students of lower social class backgrounds to pursue higher education at relatively low rates, and to be much less likely than their middle-class peers to attend prestigious, research-intensive universities. Such gaps in participation contribute to the reproduction of social class inequality, since there are strong correlations between university completion and subsequent earnings. Donnelly (2015a) hypothesized that one explanation of the social class gap in higher education participation is the systematically different ways that schools classify and frame higher education options for students. In ethnographic work at two secondary schools in Wales, Donnelly (2015b) showed that students’ perceptions of their options for higher education are influenced by variables such as the nature of interactions between career advisors and students, the number and type of higher-education preparation events hosted by schools, and the ordering and arrangement of promotional materials preparing students for post-graduation pathways. Like Anyon’s (1980, 1981) earlier ethnographic work on hidden curricula in New Jersey primary schools, Donnelly’s analysis of the subtle ways through which students’ higher education choices are shaped by school-level factors provides an explanation of how socio-economic inequalities are reproduced despite students from various social class backgrounds attending schools with the same formal curricula.

Elliot (2008) employed ethnographic methods to study drug and alcohol education at a middle school in Wisconsin, and found a pervasive hidden curriculum conveying “strong messages about gender relations, sex, and sexuality” (p. 12). She stated that the formal curriculum of drug and alcohol education contains lessons “explicitly about choices and giving students the tools they needed to make personally and socially responsible, healthy decisions” (p. 20). However, Elliot argued,

Instead of reinforcing girls’ agency and their ability to make healthy and responsible decisions, the dominant gender discourse operating within these classrooms narrowly emphasized the need for female control – of their bodies, actions, desires, and behaviors. These lessons can be seen as referencing larger discourses of gender and power that create and re-create dominance through the regulation and control of female bodies and behaviors. (p. 20)

As Clarricoates (1978) observed through qualitative interviews with primary school teachers in England, even “ostensibly non-sexist curricula” (p. 353) may disadvantage female students because classroom structures and discourses reflect broadly shared gender stereotypes.

Numerous studies have shown that hidden curricula in schools reproduce racist, classist, and sexist inequities in society. Recently, scholars have also linked hidden curricula to the reproduction of heteronormativity (Walton, 2005), ableism (Wilkinson & Penney, 2016), and patriotic nationalism (Lachmann & Mitchell, 2014). While diverse in their concerns, such studies share an institutional focus on the dynamics of primary and secondary schooling. The relatively few studies of higher education that employ the hidden curriculum concept have largely focused on the adaptation of students to institutional structures and policies, and have not generated much insight into the broader impact of such curricula (Anderson, 2001; Bergenhenegouwen, 1987; Cotton, Winter, & Bailey, 2013). An exception is the work of Margolis and Romero (1998), who interviewed 26 women of color pursuing doctoral degrees in sociology, and described a hidden curriculum that reproduced racist, sexist, and classist inequities.

The largest field of study of hidden curricula in adult education is that relating to the professional socialization of physicians. Scholars have demonstrated various dysfunctional impacts of the socialization of medical students by practicing physicians. Mahood (2011) asserted that hidden curricula embedded in postgraduate medical training encourage students to move “from being open-minded to being closed-minded; from being intellectually curious to narrowly focusing on facts; from empathy to emotional detachment; from idealism to cynicism; and often from civility and caring to arrogance and irritability” (p. 983). D’Eon, Lear, Turner, and Jones (2007) described “ways in which certain aspects of the hidden curriculum—specifically, emotional stress created by exposure to unethical behavior, unreasonable academic requirements, and harassment by supervising physicians—subvert the professional behaviors educators want to teach” (p. 295). Michalec and Hafferty (2013) illustrated how medical schools transmit the values of authority and autonomy through hidden curricula. Lempp and Seale (2004) argued that learning “the importance of hierarchy” and the predominance of “competition rather than cooperation” were cornerstones of hidden curricula for medical students. The focus of scholarship on hidden curricula in medical education has been to examine the role of such curricula in eroding students’ internalization of learning objectives such as collegiality, professionalism, and ethics.

Research focused on adult basic education has argued that hidden curricula support the reproduction of inequality. Coles (1977) and Quigley and Holsinger (1993) analyzed widely used basic education texts whose ostensible curriculum was to teach adults how to read. Both studies found hidden curricula of racism, sexism, and ideologies supportive of social class exploitation. Coles argued that such texts, in addition to teaching students how to read, teach them to accept sexist and racist forms of social relations. Coles (1977) found that the characters populating adult basic education readers are “overwhelmingly isolated, conformist, uncritical, and frequently filled with self-blame,” and that they have internalized the hegemonic ideologies of corporate capitalism: “beliefs that agencies of authority and hierarchical control are working in harmony with them, and that when problems arise they have their own individual fortitude to rely on” (p. 51). He concluded that adult basic education texts reinforce the status quo and promote conformity and passivity amongst a learning population that is disproportionately composed of poor and marginalized individuals. Quigley and Holsinger (1993) replicated Coles’s methodology, and concluded that racism, sexism, and classism still characterized adult basic education texts in the early 1990s. They argued that while “content has moved from what we today would consider “blatant” sexism, racism, and socio-economic depictions” (p. 28), a hidden curriculum of white, male dominance still existed. As Coles concluded 16 years earlier, Quigley and Holsinger affirmed that adult basic education texts reinforce the status quo through promoting ideological values of individualism, passivity, and the uncritical acceptance of authoritative messages.

Auerbach and Burgess (1985) and Sandlin (2000) used content analysis to explore the hidden curricula of more specialized adult basic education texts. Auerbach and Burgess analyzed 16 “survival ESL” textbooks published in the 1970s and 1980s that endeavored to teach English, to adults having recently immigrated to the United States, through the presentation of “real-life tasks and their linguistic demands” (p. 478). They concluded: “While attempting to help newcomers to fit into American society, some texts may have the impact of socializing students into roles of subservience” (p. 490). Sandlin (2000) analyzed 16 “consumer education” lessons presented in 5 adult literacy workbooks published in the 1980s and 1990s. She concluded,

These consumer education textbooks operate to reproduce class inequality in this country through promoting ideologies that ignore larger social, political, and economic contexts; that unquestioningly accept the present system or naturalize the status quo; and that place blame for economic troubles on the inadequacies of individuals. (pp. 304-305)

Collectively, these four studies of adult basic education textbooks present compelling evidence that hidden curricula work through such textbooks to reproduce racist, sexist, and classist inequalities. Such conclusions reflect those of studies that combine textual analysis of basic education materials with interviews (Sandlin, 2001) and historical research (Cristoph, 2009).

The empirical work reported below advances existing scholarship regarding hidden curricula in two ways. First, while most work regarding hidden curricula has focused on the reproduction of industrial capitalism and patriarchal nuclear families, we focus on the reproduction of post-industrial capitalism and highly varied forms of family structure. Second, while most work regarding hidden curricula has focused on children and youth in formal educational settings, we focus on mature adults engaged in informal learning projects. We now turn to a description of the research methods that enabled us to make such contributions.

Research Methods

We conducted interviews with 134 adults who had read a self-help book over the course of the year prior to the interview, in the areas of career and financial success, interpersonal relationships, or health and well-being. We defined a “self-help book” as any book that purports to help readers change or improve some aspect of their lives. We recruited interviewees primarily through online advertisements placed in the “books” sections of online classified advertisement websites for Calgary, Vancouver, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. Most participants were Canadian, although 14 were American and 3 were British. To participate in the study, candidates needed to be at least 18 years of age, and to have read at least one self-help book in the year preceding the interview. Since our interest was to explore the experience of, and outcomes associated with, reading self-help books, rather than to test particular hypotheses, we did not engage in systematic or random sampling procedures.

We conducted interviews via the exchange of e-mail messages (117), instant messaging software (10), and telephone calls (7). Interviews generated transcripts with an average length of 2,544 words, with 49 transcripts being between 1,400 and 2,000 words, 58 transcripts being between 2,000 and 3,000 words, and 27 transcripts being over 3,000 words in length. Interviews conducted over the telephone or via instant messaging had an average length of just over 70 minutes. Interviews conducted via the exchange of e-mail messages involved the completion of a structured set of open-ended questions, followed by at least one round of supplementary exchange (e.g., additional prompts and requests for clarification) between researchers and interviewees. We organized interviews in five main sections: motivation, learning goals, learning strategies, learning outcomes, and impact. Questions encouraged participants to share their experience of self-help reading in their own words and with minimal direction. Interviews were transcribed verbatim or cut and pasted from chat software or e-mail messages. Participants completing interviews received a $25 honorarium and are identified in this article by pseudonyms assigned by our research team.

Of the 134 participants, two thirds were women. Each interview focused on the experience of reading one specific self-help book. Of our 134 participants, 49% read books relating primarily to health and well-being, while 26% read books dealing with interpersonal relationships, and 25% read books on topics relating to career and financial success. Men were significantly more likely than women to read books relating to careers, and less likely to read books pertaining to relationships. The average age of participants was 34 years for women, and 30 years for men. Females had slightly higher rates of postsecondary education: 67% of the women and 53% of the men had completed at least an undergraduate degree or post-secondary diploma. We did not gather data regarding the racialized status or income of our interviewees, but we do know that they earned a living through a diverse range of activities. No men identified “homemaker” as their primary occupation, while 20% of them cited being currently unemployed. For women, 17% were homemakers, and just 7% were unemployed. The most common field of paid employment for women was in the domain of education, health, and social or government services. Twenty-six women (29%) worked as schoolteachers, post-secondary instructors, health care workers, social workers, and government service workers. Just six men (13%) worked in this sector, in jobs ranging from schoolteacher and police officer to chiropractor. The most common fields of employment for men were in the domains of technical, sales, and service. Sixteen men (36%) worked in jobs such as information technology analysts or developers, sales representatives, and welders. Fourteen women (16%) worked in this sector, in jobs ranging from flight attendant and customer service representative, to writer and landscaper. Similar proportions of men (13%) and women (15%) worked in positions responsible for the management and administration of businesses, and similar proportions of men (18%) and women (16%) were postsecondary students.

We organized data analysis by cutting and pasting passages from all 134 transcripts into a database structured so that each row represented a single case and each column represented a single variable of analytical interest. Initial analysis involved the coding of each variable to enable the summary and comparison of predominantly qualitative data. The focus of early analysis was on the description of the experience of self-help reading. The “positive thinking” theme emerged from an inductive reading of the transcripts. Once this theme emerged, analysis shifted from coding variables to interpreting cases. Thematic analysis focused on reconstructing, on a case-by-case basis, the ways in which interviewees spoke about positive thinking as an outcome of their reading experience. While we did not engage in any formal assessment of intercoder reliability, both authors engaged in thematic analysis, and we discussed any discrepancies in our interpretations until reaching consensus.

Findings

Why do people turn to self-help books, and what do they learn from reading them? People have many reasons for self-help reading, and they take away diverse lessons from doing so (McLean, 2014). In a series of recent publications, we documented several trends in the process of reading self-help books. We elaborated a typology of three distinct pathways of engagement with self-help texts: linear and successful learning; incomplete engagement; and incidental learning (McLean & Vermeylen, 2014). We found important gender differences in the process of reading, with women being more likely to be linear and successful learners, and to take action as a result of reading (McLean & Kapell, 2015). We found only minor differences in reading processes and outcomes between relatively younger and older readers (Vermeylen & McLean, 2014), and we documented different patterns of engagement between those whose reading of books relating to mental health was undertaken under the supervision of a therapist and those who read independently (McLean, 2015b). Finally, we found that women reading relationship books rarely internalized explicitly antifeminist messages from those texts (Kapell & McLean, 2015), that men were more likely than women to express images of themselves consistent with neo-liberal values such as individual autonomy (McLean, 2015a), and that men presented narratives about themselves as readers that were overwhelmingly consistent with the tenets of hegemonic masculinity (McLean & Vermeylen, 2017).

These publications describe a rich portrait of interviewees’ engagement with self-help reading. However, while speaking to us about undertaking reading for a broad range of substantive concerns, a majority of our interviewees also reported learning to think more positively about themselves, their lives, and the issues they were attempting to address. Out of 134 participants in our study, 80 (60%) reported learning outcomes relating to positive thinking. There were modest gender differences in the propensity of readers to report thinking more positively as an outcome of self-help reading: 61% of women and 58% of men did so. Participants did not simply state that they learned about positive thinking from self-help reading. Rather, they reported learning to think positively in a variety of ways, which we summarize in three basic categories. The remarkable consistency of this finding (whereby adult learners engage in self-help reading for instrumental purposes yet come away from that reading thinking more positively about themselves) leads us to conclude that a hidden curriculum is at work.

Discussion

The pattern we found in the transcripts of our interviews with self-help readers is striking: despite setting out with a wide variety of learning goals, sixty percent of our interviewees spoke to us about thinking positively as a key learning outcome. To explain the significance of this finding, we draw parallels between our work and earlier research on hidden curricula, and then present statistical data that underline the cultural context of precariousness that is essential to interpreting our findings.

In classical studies of the hidden curriculum, researchers demonstrated a correspondence between covert lessons learned in schools, and dispositions that enabled individuals to comply with dominant forms of social relationships within capitalist, racist, and patriarchal societies. Working class and visible minority children learned, through hidden curricula in schools, to follow rules and internalize their subservient positions in workplaces and society. Girls and women learned, through parallel hidden curricula, to conform to gender stereotypes and internalize their subservient positions with respect to men. Our findings reveal a comparable pattern of correspondence. Just as docility and subservience were central to the cultural logic of industrial capitalist workplaces and patriarchal marriages, so is positive thinking central to the cultural logic of precarious times. Just as hidden curricula in industrial-era schools reproduced racism, sexism, and social class exploitation, so does positive thinking support the gendered, classed, and racialized nature of contemporary precariousness.

Why is thinking positively central to the cultural logic of precariousness? Because it provides individuals with the psychological resources to accept precarious circumstances. Thinking positively encourages resilience, adaptability, perseverance, and a range of other dispositions that are instrumentally useful to individuals whose professional or personal circumstances are subject to unpredictable changes. Thinking positively promotes conformity to the cultural logic of precariousness, just as thinking subserviently promoted conformity to the cultural logic of classical forms of capitalism and patriarchy. Thinking positively gives prominence to individual efforts to adapt to precariousness, while marginalizing the potential for collective action to address unfairly precarious forms of social and economic relations.

A few statistics help connect our findings with the broader context of precariousness in which our interviewees engaged in self-help reading. For several decades, significant levels of precariousness have characterized the Canadian labor market. Between 1989 and 2002, the percentage of Canadian workers working in full-time, permanent positions decreased from 67% to 63% (Cranford, Vosko, & Zukewich, 2003, p. 12). In 2015, only one third of Canadian workers were unionized (Moyser, 2017, p. 20). Precarious work arrangements in Canada are both gendered and racialized; women and members of visible minorities are more likely than white men to work on a part-time basis and to have temporary employment contracts (Cranford et al., 2003, p. 15). Precariousness also increasingly characterizes Canadians’ domestic relationships. Over 28% of Canadians now live in one-person households; only 7% did so in 1951 (Statistics Canada, 2017, p. 3). Statistics Canada predicts that more than 43% of Canadian marriages entered in 2008 or later will end in divorce (Milan, 2013, p. 13). Between 1961 and 2011, lone-parent families increased in proportion from 8% to 16% of all families in Canada, while the proportion of married couples decreased in proportion from 92% to 67% (Statistics Canada, 2012, pp. 1-2).

It is in the context of rising precariousness that readers should interpret our findings regarding the propensity of self-help readers to think more positively because of their reading. Self-help reading, far from being a trivial or apolitical endeavor, forms part of a broader cultural logic that reflects and reproduces precarious forms of social relations. While typically seeking advice regarding some concrete issue pertaining to their careers, health, or relationships, many self-help readers come away from the reading process thinking more positively about themselves and their lives. Learning from this hidden curriculum may enable some readers to adjust themselves more happily to their circumstances, but it does not encourage them to find collective or structural ways to change those circumstances. Precarious circumstances are thus more likely to be accepted as a natural part of life that needs to be faced with resilience and optimism, rather than to be recognized as the result of arbitrary (and contestable) strategies of employers and governments.

Conclusion

In this article, we have made three contributions to the scholarship of adult education. First, we have presented results from an empirical study of the learning attributed by adults to their reading of self-help books. The hidden curriculum story we have narrated, whereby adults embark on learning projects with wide-ranging objectives, and come away from those projects thinking more positively, is inherently interesting. Our empirical work demonstrates how the structure of education produces outcomes beyond those explicitly sought by learners. There is something about the process of self-help reading that inculcates a more positive outlook amongst those who read, despite tremendous diversity in the content of the books themselves. While hidden, the positive thinking curriculum of self-help reading may be intentional. Authors and publishers clearly have an interest in ensuring that customers “feel good” about themselves through reading, since such feelings presumably relate to the likelihood that customers will purchase more books and recommend books to other people.

Second, we have provided a concise review of hidden curriculum scholarship, extended the hidden curriculum concept for our precarious times, and demonstrated the pertinence of that concept for the field of adult education. We found the concept of hidden curriculum to be useful to understanding what adults learn through self-help reading, and we challenge scholars of adult education to apply this concept to the critical study of other domains. How might the structure of participating in various adult educational settings influence the thoughts and actions of participants in unintended ways? What unacknowledged lessons do adults learn through engaging with educational institutions, instructors, and other participants? Might resistance to participation in adult education be related, in some cases, to subtle messages communicated outside of formal curricula? Scholars could address such questions through further empirical work on hidden curricula in adult education.

Third, we have identified thought-provoking connections between adult education and the cultural logic of precariousness that characterizes contemporary labor markets and domestic relationships. Given limitations in our research methods and data, we cannot claim that adult education and precariousness are linked in some sort of causal chain. However, we have identified an affinity between the cultural context of precariousness and the messages constructed by readers of self-help texts. Further research, with larger numbers of adult learners and paying closer attention to the social locations of those learners, could more closely examine connections between experiences of precariousness and engagement in various forms of adult education. How do positive thinking and the individualization of responsibility for precarious circumstances relate to domains beyond self-help reading? Given the importance of precariousness to contemporary societies, and given the role often attributed to adult education as a means for people to adjust to changes in their lives, it is important for scholars of adult education to explore connections, whether hidden or overt, between precarious social structures and various forms of educational practice.