School on the Screen. Didactic Contract and Hidden Curriculum during Distance and Hybrid Learning


Due to the increasing SARS-CoV-2 infections, teaching activities in Italian schools were suspended on 5 March 2020. Since then, ministerial decrees promoted a teaching-learning process, totally or partially computer-mediated, leading to significant changes in the relational and content dimension of the learning event. The mutual expectations between students and teachers (didactic contract) have changed, and the ideological and cultural messages that come with disciplinary teaching (hidden curriculum) have been enriched with new meanings, bringing different beliefs regarding technological innovations in education to the students. This paper presents the results of a survey conducted in a Northern Italy high school aimed at observing these phenomena to understand the context surrounding distance and hybrid learning events.