RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The Hidden Curriculum of College Athletic Recruitment
JF Harvard Educational Review
JO herp
FD Harvard Educational Press
SP 355
OP 377
DO 10.17763/1943-5045-88.3.355
VO 88
IS 3
A1 HEXTRUM, KIRSTEN
YR 2018
UL http://harvardeducationalreview.org/content/88/3/355.abstract
AB In this article, Kirsten Hextrum considers institutional avenues that limit upward mobility opportunities by revealing a hidden curriculum of athletic recruiting that favors students from privileged backgrounds. The study's data center on forty-seven life history interviews with National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I athletes from an athletically and academically prestigious university. Hextrum's findings reveal three phases of a hidden curriculum—socialization, covert selection, and overt selection—that secure greater access to elite colleges for White middle-class communities via athletic participation. In this case, social reproduction required active effort by both representatives of higher education and representatives of White middle-class communities to protect existing class and race relations.