From Classrooms to Consciousness: How School Systems and Teachers Unknowingly Nurture Prejudices

  • May 31, 2025
  • Team SarkariSchool
  • Blog

by Sanika Patil

In schools, students don’t just learn subjects, they also form their views about society. But schools can also reinforce gender, caste, and class biases through everyday practices. This article explores how school culture and teacher-student interactions influence students’ thinking and perceptions. By going through existing write-ups and studying them closely, it shows how stereotypes are often passed on in subtle ways. The article emphasises the urgent need to reform school structures to promote inclusivity, equity, and social justice in education.

School systems and teachers significantly represent formal learning in our society, yet they can become breeding grounds for certain prejudices that influence students’ minds. Schools are the foundation for a child’s first relationship with the world beyond their families, which shape their social bonds and interactions. Therefore, it becomes essential to eliminate prejudice in peer interactions. All aspects of a school culture have deep sociological implications. They affect how students come to view the larger society and thereby create their personalities for playing their adult roles in the future. When certain stereotypical regulations are constructed, the very nature of a place at which students are supposed to acquire knowledge gets deconstructed or rather diminished into one of inequality.

As society is struggling with gender-based violence, caste discrimination, and inequality, addressing such biases within educational institutions is not just a matter of pedagogy but of social justice. Because schools are sites where not only does the knowledge get transmitted passively, but also sites in which the participants involved make meaning out of the knowledge and constantly mediate it. Thus, this article analyses how Indian classroom environments are not simply places of knowledge transmission but also forums that often reproduce social inequalities around gender, caste, and class through formal structures and hidden curricula. Its objective is to determine how school systems and teachers unintentionally impact students’ opinions in ways that reinforce bias or inequality.

The Hidden Curriculum and Its Influence on Students

Schools don’t just teach the visible curriculum: mathematics, science, languages, and so forth. They also shape how students behave, dress, socialize etc. The hidden curriculum, first introduced by Philip Jackson in 1968, includes intentional agendas and unintentional messaging transmitted through textbooks, teacher-student interactions, school norms, etc., and often serve to reinforce social prejudices unknowingly (Nanda, 2021). The core principles of a school environment get imbibed in the minds of young students thereby framing their identity in either constructive or damaging manner.

In India, even though textbooks preach gender and caste equality, the hidden curriculum in most schools often contradict these values. As Arpan Tulsyan, a Senior Research Scholar, points out, school environments subtly undermine girls through an unequal division of their time, attention and energies as well as their interpretation and illustration of the textbook content, teachers were often found to subvert the formal curricular goal of achieving gender equality through education (Tulsyan, 2021).

Gender stereotypes, the idea that only urban areas can develop, insensitivity towards varied linguistic cultures etc., can all be promoted inside schools, especially through textbooks that stand out to be the single most reliable resources for transacting syllabus. Since textbooks are seen as the most trusted source of information, students sometimes accept what’s written in them without questioning. This can lead to students developing a one-sided or biased view of society, mostly driven by the dominant culture. These textbook biases play a big role in shaping how students see themselves and others.

Teachers often discourage boys and girls from interacting freely. Students who break this unstated rule are usually lectured on how to behave ‘properly.’ This separation is also seen in physical spaces. Boys and girls are made to sit separately in classrooms, assemblies, and even outdoor areas. Through these practices, schools promote a fixed idea of what it means to be a ‘good person,’ and this idea is inculcated in students. It harms inclusiveness and affects social harmony in growing minds.

Research carried out in several settings has demonstrated that educators typically give preference to students who belong to the same caste or economic background (Hanna & Linden, 2012). Teachers sometimes form opinions about a student’s academic aptitude based on their caste or socioeconomic background. This can have an impact on their motivation, sense of self-worth, and future chances (Farkas, 2003). Children from lower caste and lower socioeconomic origins may not be able to move up the social mobility ladder due to biased assessments. Shradha Parashari and Wim Groot’s research in 19 Delhi schools conducted in 2024 reveals that teachers display in-group bias, often unconsciously favouring students of similar caste or economic backgrounds ( Parashari & Groot, 2024).

Parul Bhandari’s ethnographic study of a Christian minority school in Delhi shows how crowd, praise and power shape the school environment (Bhandari, 2014). Depending upon teachers praise certain career options come to be looked down upon, which affects the major life choices of students. The crowd aspect of hidden curriculum where only certain common qualities are appreciated, often excludes the unique talents of a few students.

Teachers’ social and political beliefs, even the way they talk, dress, or carry themselves can subtly influence students. Many times, primary school teachers don’t even realise they’re showing their biases.  For example, a teacher might unconsciously support a certain political ideology, hold biased thoughts about a particular caste or gender, favour students who speak more confidently, or overlook quieter children, all of which unintentionally shape students’ perspectives. On the other hand, college professors are usually more aware of this and try to stay neutral so their personal views don’t affect their students. But this kind of awareness is even more important for school teachers, because young children are at a stage where they’re easily influenced, especially by their teachers.

If the teacher humiliates a weak student, he/she might reinforce this negative attitude in such students and they will lose confidence in making up for losses. Behaviour and perception of teacher affects those of students. If teachers behave in a controlling way and let their personal opinions influence their actions, it can suppress students’ abilities and lead them to develop similar dominating behaviour towards others (Azimpour & Khalilzade, 2015).

Thus, hidden curriculum which is unintentionally hid contributes greatly in shaping young minds and creates a structure in the school to exert great control over the students’ thoughts and behaviours.

Uniforms as a Form of Hidden Curriculum

Apart from the many examples discussed above, school uniforms also serve as a clear illustration, further reinforcing the hidden messages conveyed through everyday school practices. In most Indian schools, boys and girls are given different uniforms. Girls usually have to follow more strict rules, while the situation becomes more liberal in the case of boys. “At a glance, the problem of gender stratification in the modern educational system does not exist; girls and boys have equal opportunities for the education” But, beneath the superficial image of equality lies “certain stereotypes with gender content and expectations in the educational system that still influence the pupils” and students’ “academic performances” (Guledani, 2011). We say uniforms promote equality but quietly teach different rules to different genders!

It is commonly seen that school dress policies in India focus more on policing how girl students dress, right from their hair to their socks. Many feminist authors have pointed out how such rules can negatively impact young minds by encouraging sexist ideas, objectifying schoolgirls, and supporting a male-dominated way of thinking (Sundar, 2020).

Girls even 11- and 12-year-olds are made to wear salwar kameez in schools, with the top part is usually covered with jacket or dupatta, because the pressure to be modest starts before puberty. Some people might say so that we can keep our traditions alive. Why are boys never expected to wear traditional attire like a dhoti as part of their school uniform? In almost every Indian school, only girls are made to wear clothes that reflect “culture” or “tradition.” This sends a subtle message to young children that it is mainly a girl’s job to uphold values like modesty and tradition, while boys are not held to the same standards. The authorities in schools often defend gendered norms as something that prevents male students from being distracted. However, when girls are sent out of class or sent home because of an article of clothing can send the message that a boy’s education is more important than education for girls (Gottfried, 2018). The sexist codes that are set for the students to follow go to the extent of attaching negativity to a particular gender.

This discriminatory thinking leads to many negative effects. It can lower girls’ confidence, promote the culture of male hegemony, and prevalence of prejudice and suppression. It also reduces inclusiveness, limits freedom of expression, and affects students’ productivity.

Gender-neutral uniform might seem like a solution, but in India, it’s nothing but the girl students were given pant and shirts. In 2021, a school in Kerala introduced gender-neutral uniforms and many others followed. Women’s rights organizations praised this initiative claiming, it will help reduce the gender inequality. But why is neutrality always about girls wearing pants? Why not boys in skirts? In promoting equality, schools are encouraging girls to dress like boys, essentially erasing femininity. The message to children is clear: to succeed, you must emulate men, even if you’re a woman. As long as the dress codes do not heavily burden one particular gender and are truly neutral by nature, it will not hamper the process of learning.

Thus, uniforms as part of the school structure shape students’ beliefs in ways that have negative consequences. They create gender inequality in students’ minds, which can later be reflected in their behaviour at home, at work, and in other social settings due to the foundation laid at school.

Recommendations

  • Positive Educational Messaging: The government must ensure that educational content in textbooks is impartial to avoid the transmission of unintended messages that could negatively shape students’ perspectives.
  • Teacher Training and Awareness: Equip teachers through pre-service and in-service training with sociological understanding, anti-bias education, and strategies to manage hidden curriculum.
  • Recognizing and Utilizing Hidden Curriculum: Schools should use hidden curriculum in a positive way to inculcate rational behaviour in students and reduce prejudices.
  • Structural Reforms to Minimize Bias: Implement standardized testing, anonymous grading schemes, and increase diversity within the teaching workforce to reduce favouritism toward particular student groups.
  • Inclusive Dress Codes: Implement inclusive dress codes that don’t reinforce stereotypes (for example, Kurta with bottoms of child’s choice). Create awareness among teachers and school staff about the impacts of dress codes and other norms on students’ beliefs.

Conclusion

It is therefore clear that a lot of what students learn in school isn’t just from their visible curriculum but it also comes from how things are taught, what teachers choose to highlight or ignore, and the school structures that inculcate certain dominant societal norms into students’ thinking. These can shape how young minds think about society, even if no one says it out loud. That’s why it’s important to recognize and transform these hidden dynamics in Indian schools, whether public or private. Schools must fulfil their role as places that nurture thoughtful and open-minded individuals, not carry forward prejudices.

Even though India’s existing policies like the Right to Education Act and the National Education Policy 2020 were not mainly written to deal with these hidden issues, they can still be very helpful if implemented more efficiently and effectively. Along with other targeted efforts and recommendations, these policies have the potential to create an inclusive and fair environment in schools, and a better place for all students to grow.

Sanika Patil is a Policy Research and Advocacy Intern at SarkariSchool.in and has completed her Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from KET’s V. G. Vaze College of Arts, Science and Commerce (Autonomous), Mulund, Mumbai. Please write your comment at [email protected].

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