Hidden Curriculum in Higher Education is a collection of essays that attempt to explain how post-secondary educational institutions contribute to the process of socialization in a modern industrial capitalist society. Liberal ideology is embedded in the curricula of colleges and universities, as teaching and learning are centred on the principles of merit and equality of opportunity.

However, the liberal vision of higher education is clouded when subordination, discrimination, and hegemonic forms of domination lie beneath curricular objectives. The authors offer examples of how power is exercised over disadvantaged individuals or groups and how their voices are less likely to be heard within the academic community.

In their interviews with faculty members at various universities, Marina Gair and Guy Mullins found that hidden curricula tend to place corporate values first as the business ethos of efficiency and productivity has become more prevalent within the university system in recent years. Some faculties have more space and resources than others and some academic disciplines enjoy higher status because they attract more funding.

Carrie Yang Costello offers an interesting contrast between schools of law and social work. Costello notes the interior décor of both schools reflects the cultures of different social classes, with plaques honoring wealthy benefactors adorning the walls of the law school and "vernacular craftwork" hanging in the halls of the school of social work.

There are also ideological biases built into the organization of both schools: the law school is more authoritarian and conservative with its amphitheatre style lecture halls that place students under the watchful eyes of their instructors, while the school of social work features a non-hierarchical and communal form of instruction with students sitting around conference tables.

Sandra Acker explains how the hidden curriculum operates at the level of dissertation advising for doctoral students. She notes some students find their search for a supervisor a humiliating experience, and some of them end up groveling to faculty members to serve on their thesis committees.

She also notes that not all students and faculty members are interchangeable, as students and professors come from different backgrounds and have different world views.

She says students find themselves under pressure to "shape their work and personality to match the dominant ethic of the institution." This ethic is characterized by hierarchical forms of organization and in some cases, elitism within academic departments.

Eric Margolis and Mary Romero look at how the hidden curriculum reveals itself in the process of mentoring. Margolis and Romero examine the role of conflict and dissent in the socialization of graduate students, particularly the importance of opposition and resistance in the process of intellectual development. Conflict lies in finding common ground between mentor and student, both in terms of differences in values and commitment to the structural aspects of institutional life.

Kenneth Ehrensal's study of the hidden curriculum in a commerce/management faculty offers interesting insights into the world of business education. He likens business education to military training, in which students learn to accept corporate forms of organization and authority as legitimate. The suit is the uniform of capitalism's "foot soldiers," and they are trained to believe the capitalist system is the only legitimate economic system, management is always based on rational decision-making processes, workers are always wrong in labour disputes, and managers are always motivated by the "intrinsic" factors of a job rather than earning a high salary.

Caroline Childress examines the problem of downward mobility by discussing how professionals are "cooled out" through a government-funded retraining program. She conducted a case study of a school that helps former managerial workers make the transition to lower status jobs for which they are overqualified.

Students are told that job opportunities are structured by employers, and they should be prepared to take what they can get. Clients are taught not to be angry, resentful or demanding when they search for jobs that are less prestigious or pay as much as what they held previously. They are taught to happily provide the contingent labour force that employers need.

Linda Muzzin's study of a pharmacy faculty uncovers a gendered division of labour within the university setting. The faculty's teaching component is involved in the training of pharmacists and is more likely to be staffed by women. The research component is more likely to be staffed by men, who are involved in sponsored research projects and the instruction of graduate students.

The largely male research faculty enjoy greater job security, better prospects for promotion and tenure, and more resources at their disposal. Muzzin argues that this is all part of the hegemony of molecular science research within pharmacy faculties, and it often works to the detriment of the primarily female instructional component.

Karen Tonso has found a gender bias in the organization of the engineering curriculum as well. Women make up a small proportion of engineering students, and they are more likely to be alienated or quit their programs than their male counterparts. In her case study she argues that the engineering school "conspired" against female students by incorporating "academic-science practices" that endorse "prototypically masculine ways of life." Furthermore, the majority male student population fosters a boys' club type of environment in which women find it difficult to compete.

Michael Soldatenko's study of Chicano students is the most revealing example of how the hidden curriculum operates within universities. He notes that students of colour believed they could transform the arts curriculum by introducing alternative world views, but liberal education is not as important to fulfill societal needs as applied research and professional education.

Academic departments within arts faculties have become "professionalized" by fragmenting themselves into specialized disciplines and using the number of publications and amount of research funding as measures of success. Issues of social justice or resistance to established policies and practices are discouraged because academics eschew value-laden scholarship in the name of objectivity and scientific reasoning.

As Soldatenko brilliantly points out, critical or radical scholars from diverse backgrounds are quickly absorbed into the hegemonic apparatus of academia because "dreams of a different world are exchanged for tenured positions."

While The Hidden Curriculum in Higher Education does not offer any prescriptions for change, it does raise issues that are symptomatic of the current state of post-secondary education in North America. The hidden objective of higher education appears to be the maintenance of unequal power relations, and while this is nothing new it has nonetheless intensified as institutions compete for scarce resources.

Leslie Ehrlich is a recently graduated PhD candidate from the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. His research interests include higher education and labour markets, political economy, technology, and social change. He is currently a part-time instructor at the University of Saskatchewan.