The hidden curriculum of gender stereotypes in secondary school teenagers

The present study explored the hidden curriculum of gender stereotypes in elementary school students enrolled in a technical high school in a town located in the south of the State of Yucatan, Mexico. Under a descriptive, transectional quantitative approach and the use of mixed techniques such as surveys and focus groups, 64 volunteer students participated. Gender stereotypes coinciding with hegemonic models about the feminine and the masculine were found mostly as part of the hidden curriculum. It is considered that women should continue to represent good education, beauty, generosity, sociability and responsibility. Complementarily, stereotypes for men were associated with violence, being fun and relaxed, chivalry and intelligence. Unfair ideas about being a man and a woman were observed, based on the naturalization of the hegemonically feminine or masculine, being relevant to work on the elimination of prejudices and ideologies that limit the development of an individual identity based on the autonomy and self-determination of youth.