2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The presence of the hidden curriculum (HC) in our educational institutions is unquestioned. The hidden curriculum can be perceived as both helpful or hurtful depending on the messages being transmitted, the identities of the individual and/or institutions that give the HC, as well as the identities of the individuals that receive the HC. After implementing a large survey (n984) from a validated instrument (UPHEME), one preliminary finding was the identification of the HC as either active (a product of an individual espousing their personal belief and/or biases) or passive (simply the culture and byproduct of institutional schooling). From this data, a previous study found that, while the giver of the HC can be identified as either active or passive, the receiver can also interpret the HC as either positive or negative. The previous study found that a majority of white participants identified the HC as passive (74%) while 40% people of color identified the HC as active. What was not investigated at that time was the emotional state of the participants when identifying HC as active, negative, passive, or active.

This proposed paper focuses on the emotional state of the individuals that identified the HC as active to find patterns and themes. With these patterns and themes, the authors seek to better understand how the HC might be utilized to elicit more positive emotions and mitigate the negative emotions.