Analysis of secondary religion culture and moral information course in terms of hidden curriculum

There are many lessons in the Turkish education system in order to gain national, spiritual and cultural values. Equipping self-esteem in the primary education begins with lessons like Life Science and Social Studies, then it continues with lessons such as History in secondary education. However, the Religious Culture and Moral Education (DKAB) Lesson, which is two hours per week from the fourth to the eighth class, and one hour a week from ninth to twelfth class, has undertaken the most important responsibility in conveying the self-values in the Turkish education system with the religious, cultural and moral values it contains. On the other hand, serious studies have been done on the curriculum in the year 2000's and the constructivism approach put forward by developed countries has become the basis of renewed programs. This program revision works also contain the DKAB lesson and the curriculum of DKAB in the Secondary Education has been reshaped according to constructivism, student centeredness and multiple intelligence theory. However, to what extent are these new approaches, methods, techniques and principles taken into account during the implementation of the DKAB lesoon? Can the DKAB lesson reach its goals? What is the level of interest and participation of students in the DKAB lesson? Our work which is looking for answers to this and similar questions is named "implicit program" concept. Because the "implicit program" concept expresses the differences that arise during the implementation of the formal program in schools although there are different definitions of it in the literature. This research was carried out using qualitative methods in a district of Sakarya where the national and spiritual values are relatively high. Observations were made in two thirds of the educational year 2015-2016 at five secondary education institutions ranked according to achievement level, theninterviews were made with both DKAB teachers and ten students selected from the observation classes. Eventually, the following results have emerged: The secondary school DKAB lessons exclude excitement; The idea that "we already know" owned by the students reduces the interest and participation in the lesson; unlike the program the lesson is teacher-centered in practice; The lesson is described as "a lesson that can be easily passed and listened to" by the students; the use of materials and extracurricular activities are very limited in DKAB lesson. On the other hand, almost every teacher and student indicates that the course is not effective enough and a significant number of students also shared the view that the DKAB lesson was always working on recurring topics.