The Hidden Curriculum: Animals, the Context of Education, and Social Change

• In Event: 60.036 - Contesting STEM Cultures: Scientific Desires

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that animals constitute a “hidden curriculum” in education: a curriculum that is ever-present, but rarely directly discussed. Using Helena Pedersen’s framework of “animal presence” I examine how students transition from understanding animals through the perspective of sentimentality, to seeing them as scientific objects that are used solely for the purposes of human learning, and whose capacity for both cognition and emotion is deliberately contrasted against that of humans. In conclusion, I discuss two areas of research and practice in education that attempt to shift the dominant ideologies and practices around animals in education, and/or to unmask the limits and contradictions in the hidden curriculum: humane education and critical animal studies.

Author

• Nadine E. Dolby, Purdue University