Abstract:

In Sweden as in many other Western countries, curricula, both open and hidden, are saturated with ideological content disguised as “science”. Two of the most common ideologies underlying hidden curricula are social constructivism and gender ideology. At the same time, school results in maths, sciences and reading comprehension skills have deteriorated considerably in Sweden since the school reforms of 1992. The consequences of the imposition of social constructivism and gender ideologies in education have been dire: fact finding and critical thinking are not encouraged; academic freedom is limited to teachers who conform to gender ideology, students who do not accept gender studies as a “science” are bullied and academic achievement is sacrificed for the sake of ideology.

Indoctrination Vs Critical Thinking:
The role that school plays goes far beyond a provider of labour skills. Just like Emile Durkheim points out, school plays a fundamental role in the socialization of children and prepares them to be citizens. Nevertheless, if the role of the school is to make informed, responsible and ethical citizens out of students, one of its aims should be to foster fact finding and critical analysis. Indoctrination is the worst obstacle to critical thinking. Ideology discards fact finding and analysis in favour of conformity with doctrine with the consequence that students are easily manipulated.

Gender ideology in open and hidden curricula:
In Sweden as in many other Western countries, gender ideology has permeated school curricula, not only open, as is visible in the university major of “Gender Science”, but hidden curricula as well. Gender is usually presented as a “social construction”, having as its theoretical basis the ubiquitous discrimination and exploitation of women by men. The consequences of indoctrination, whatever the ideology, have proven to be dire: Students are incapable of critically analyzing phenomena and instead become prejudiced individuals who repeat whatever they have heard. Young women are especially permeable and vulnerable to gender ideology, since by internalizing the role of victims, they lose faith in their capacities as autonomous, deliberative individuals.

Aims of this paper:
The aims of this paper are: to present the fundamental differences between science and ideology, to prove the presence of gender ideology in school policies, both in open and hidden curricula, and to analyse how gender indoctrination has negatively affected academic performance. Another dire consequence of gender ideology is that it can create a great insecurity in young people who are constructing their identity as individuals and searching for their place in society.
Furthermore, allocating resources in gender “sciences”, a major that does not provide real employment opportunities, means that other programs which lead to employment opportunities to a much greater degree are disadvantaged.

Keywords:

Gender ideology, critical thinking, indoctrination, hidden curriculum.