Hidden curriculum and neoliberal rationality in the environmental awareness of future civil engineers
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This study analyzes the environmental awareness of senior Civil Engineering students from
a critical perspective focused on the hidden curriculum and its articulation with a neoliberal rationality. The research was conducted through a qualitative-interpretive approach with an ethnographic orientation at the Facultad de Ingeniería Mochis, Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa. Semi-structured interviews were used as the main data production technique, and 43 interviews were conducted with eighth- and ninth-semester students. The analysis showed that students’ environmental concern is not absent; however, it is shaped and constrained by labor hierarchies, profitability, speed of execution, and adaptation to market demands. The participants’ narratives reveal that sustainability is discursively recognized as desirable, yet it occupies a secondary place when it conflicts with technical and productive criteria perceived as more viable or realistic. The findings also indicate that professional training transmits not only explicit knowledge but also implicit lessons about which priorities should guide engineering practice. It is concluded that the low practical centrality of sustainability cannot be explained solely by individual decisions, but rather by a formative process crossed by a hidden curriculum that normalizes a neoliberal view of professional performance.
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