This examination of the reproduction of cultural norms focuses on ways in which the hidden curriculum facilitates cultural reproduction. The conceptual framework outlined in this paper emerged from a five-month observation study of a tenth-grade social studies class located in a predominantly working-class school. During the on-going data analysis, it became apparent that the evidence could not be forced into existing theories of cultural reproduction and a conceptual framework was developed to explain how cultural reproduction operated in the studied context. An analogy of a spider's web is used to depict the reflexive nature of cultural reproduction, with an inner web of normalcy symbolizing things perpetuated by the hidden curriculum such as acceptance of power, authority, social stratification, and the work ethic, and an outer web symbolizing the constructs and myths (i.e., The American Dream), derived from surrounding society. In an examination of the inner web, school sources creating the fibers of the web are identified as the overt curriculum, social milieu, and interaction patterns. Next, student perceptions of the "American Dream" are explored. In the last section, the concept of fair exchange is advanced as the mediating component between the implicit contradiction of the acceptance theme of the inner web and the more egalitarian notions of the outer web. (LH)