Space and physical environment as a hidden curriculum: Comparing schools in Thailand

Abstract

The study examines the physical environment of three different types of schools in Thailand: an inner-city school, a highly competitive school, and an alternative school. It investigates how these schools impart hidden curriculum to students and how this hidden curriculum perpetuates or challenges the prevailing ideology. Data was drawn from interviews with teachers, administrators, parents, and students, as well as observations of physical arrangements and school activities. The results demonstrate that the spatial configuration of the three schools, in conjunction with their pedagogical approaches and institutional cultures, had varying effects on students from different socioeconomic backgrounds and might have played a role in creating different and unequal future academic and career opportunities and pathways. However, the hidden curriculum of stringent regulation and hierarchical dominance has unintended consequences, resulting in transformations that question the inequitable power dynamics inside school.