Outside Curriculum

Outside curriculum refers to the purport and patterns of teaching and learning that occur in [Page 625]nonschool contexts of life. As with school curricula, outside curricula could be analyzed in terms of diverse venues: intents or explicit policy dimensions; hidden or implicit dimensions (sometimes referred to as hidden curriculum); aspects that are part of the act of instruction, or taught curricula; tested curricula, relatively narrow bands that are subjected to evaluation; learned curricula, or that which is acquired and applied from the educational experience; embodied curricula, or that which becomes part of a person's existence and guides his or her life. Thus, outside curricula are those dimensions of life experience that help shape a person's outlook and ways of negotiating the world. Outside curricula should not be confused with the extracurriculum, often referred to as extracurricular activities; the latter pertain to clubs and organizations sponsored by schools and often conducted in after-school hours or specially designated times during the school day. Examples of extracurricular activities include band, choir, sports teams, yearbook committees, school newspapers, service organizations, interscholastic sports teams, intramural sports, subject matter clubs, theater and drama, honor societies, and many more. Sometimes extracurricular activities lead students to outside curricular experiences that are totally apart from the purview of the school. This is part of the realm of outside curriculum as treated here.

The literature has more recently referred to outside curricula and public pedagogy, in writings of Henry Giroux, Peter McLaren, and others. William Schubert used the term outside curriculum in the 1980s, calling first for its study to augment understanding of school curriculum by providing a more complete understanding of each student. What students learn from their home and family, culture, language, community, religion or unbelief, nonschool organizations (from scouts, sports, dance, and music to gangs, peer groups, and other informal relationships), mass media (television, radio, video, videogames, CDs, comic books, magazines, books, and the Internet), jobs or vocations, hobbies or avocations, and more. Illustrative questions follow vis-à-vis the forgoing topics, which are in turn followed by curriculum topics or categories that could be used as a basis for analyzing and interpreting the curriculum implicit or explicit in each.