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Examines four objections stemming from the clash of theory (that liberalism requires the institution of compulsory, autonomy‐driven schools regardless of parental preferences) and intuition (that liberalism entails democratic control over schools and sensitivity to parents’ preferences). It argues that the ‘detached school’ should, with minor modifications, continue to provide the basis for the liberal educational ideal. Section 3.1 addresses concerns about state tyranny, arguing that the detached school both counters the threat of parental tyranny and ensures a substantive pluralism among schools and within society. Section 3.2 shows that detached schools can promote effective parental involvement. Section 3.3 addresses the hidden curriculum of schools, while Section 3.4 discusses the ability of the detached school to help children develop cultural coherence and a stable sense of identity as well as a capacity for choice.

If knowledgeable physicians agreed on one principle, it was that medical education was a lifelong process. The education of a physician began long before medical school, since a student's success at learning medicine depended heavily on the aptitude, characteristics, and educational background that person brought to medical school in the first place. The four years of medical school—“undergraduate medical education,” as it came to be called—were focused on principles and fundamentals. Traditionally, writers have examined undergraduate medical education mainly in terms of courses and curriculum. However, formal medical instruction represented only one of many important forces that shaped physicians. Another significant influence was the “hidden curriculum”—the implicit messages continually conveyed, the education that occurred by example rather than by word, and the imprinting of attitudes and values that regularly occurred. In addition, medical students themselves had much to say about how they learned medicine. Far from being passive flotsam in the educational ocean, they had an important impact on the environment of medical schools.

This chapter provides an overview of curriculum studies—the nature of curriculum, the scope of curriculum studies, and different ways of perceiving and researching curriculum issues. The authors then set out the approach that underpins this book.

What do parish leaders of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) teach during inquiry and the catechumenate about what Catholicism is? Like educational curricula generally, RCIA curricula can be “read” for the beliefs, values, and understandings they explicitly espouse or implicitly convey. This chapter distinguishes between explicit and hidden curricula. The explicit curriculum is the substantive content taught, seen most clearly in the syllabus of topics to be covered in the course of study. The hidden curriculum teaches not content but more general orientations, especially orientations to authority, as Paolo Freire argues. The hidden curriculum is examined through the pedagogy employed—how instruction is organized and content delivered. Although there are some interesting similarities across parishes in visions of Catholicism in the explicit curriculum, there are also important differences between parishes in the hidden curriculum. This chapter ties these pedagogical differences to social class differences between parishes.

This chapter considers the basics of curriculum. It is concerned to overcome the taken-for-granted idea that “curriculum” is the sum total of activities and of ensemble concert literature. Therefore, it particularly distinguishes a “curriculum,” as described in the following pages from a “program.” It provides accounts of four different kinds of curriculum: formal (written) curriculum, instructed (or “delivered”) curriculum, action (learned praxical) curriculum. Also covered is the unavoidable conditions in each school and class or the “hidden curriculum.” A substantial critique of “methodolatry” and ‘delivery methods’ follows to establish two basic themes visited often in the rest of the text. Finally, an overview of the following chapters is offered.

Chapter five includes a discussion of specific curricular interventions that can work toward getting students to think critically and to reflect deeply and broadly on what it means to be human. It highlights pedagogical approaches that allow students to see that the “real” scientific facts of biological disease cannot be separated from the existential reality of illness and that human beings always already dwell within their lived experiences, even before science and medicine inscribe their particular, abstract truths onto the body. Through exposure to patients’ stories—whether through narratives or face-to-face encounters—reflective writing, dialogue, and quality mentorship, students might come to appreciate the lived experience of illness, to expand their moral imaginations, and to develop a more capacious sense of care that is grounded within a recognition of our shared humanness and potential for suffering. This kind of pedagogy does not result in a “professionalism” that can be measured, quantified, and assessed, but rather a way of being in the world—a posture of openness toward others, an ability to face uncertainty, and the capacity to extend care to all patients even when “nothing else can be done.”

Chapter one begins with a synopsis of the scholarly literature that discusses the epistemology and pedagogy of medicine and the effects they have on physician formation before arguing that this perspective can be deepened and expanded by an understanding of Heidegger’s explication of “calculative thinking.” An understanding of this mode of thinking offers a more comprehensive grounding for the discussion about the inherent problems of medical education and practice. Privileging calculative thinking closes one off to other truths, those truths that are unverifiable, unquantifiable, or intangible. A Heideggerian critique helps to illustrate medicine’s tendency toward a calculative understanding of illness that is defined by a hurried curiosity, as opposed to a meditative thinking that is slower, open to wonder, embraces ambiguity, and considers the ineffable and unquantifiable to be just as “true” or valid as those things that might be scientifically “proven,” a point that will be more fully explored in later chapters. Recognizing the dominance and seductiveness of calculative thinking within medicine is important, as it speaks to the human tendency to turn away from the contingency, vulnerability, and death—a point that is clarified and expanded in chapter 2.

How does the middle class secure advantages in school? Research provides clear evidence that parents’ education and income are the best predictors of children’s educational outcomes. Explanations for that middle-class advantage typically focus on the match between middle-class culture and school culture. From that perspective, teachers reward students whose behaviors meet their expectations. This book argues that the middle-class advantage is also, at least in part, a negotiated advantage. Middle-class students secure advantages not only by complying with teachers’ expectations but also by requesting (and successfully securing) support in excess of what is fair or required. This chapter provides an overview of the book as a whole, describing the research questions, the data and methods used to answer those questions, and the answers to those questions. This chapter also situates those questions and answers in a review of prior research and concludes with a brief summary of the remaining chapters.

This prelude tells the story of two of the parishes that are fieldwork sites examined in this book, St. Mary's and St. Mark's. It foreshadows the themes that are developed in Chapter 3 such as catechesis, Catholicism, parish differences, religious education, pedagogy, and social class.