Concealed curriculum in rural education: silences, hegemonies and re-existences

Abstract

This article problematizes the silencing of peasant knowledge in the curriculum of Rural Education, proposing the analytical category of hidden curriculum as an interpretative key to understanding processes of invisibility and denial of knowledge produced by rural subjects. Grounded in critical and decolonial perspectives of the curricular field, the study aims to discuss how this category contributes to analyzing the epistemic disputes present in the constitution of school curricula in rural contexts. This is a theoretical article developed as a theoretical essay, constructed from a narrative bibliographic review that mobilizes productions from the field of curriculum, Rural Education, and decolonial studies. It argues that the hidden curriculum operates as a historical and political mechanism of marginalization of peasant knowledge, reinforcing epistemological hierarchies that privilege hegemonic knowledge to the detriment of other forms of knowledge production. It is also evident that such processes produce movements of resistance and re-existence led by collective subjects from the field, who challenge dominant curricular logics and affirm other possibilities for the construction of school knowledge. In this way, the notion of hidden curriculum contributes to broadening critical analyses of curriculum and deepening the debate about the disputes over knowledge and power in Rural Education.