ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the hidden moral and cultural curriculum transacted in the classroom. It entails evaluation of students – and by extension, families and communities – against standards deriving from upper-caste, middle-class worldviews. This, in turn, leads to students being sought to be shamed into adherence to the moral curriculum. Specifically, the chapter focuses on three of the most pervasive features of classroom processes and pupil experience: (a) the idea of welfare dependence which was often seen as a ‘moral’ flaw by teachers, (b) rhetoric around cleanliness and (c) practices relating to gender policing. With each element of the moral curriculum, the chapter also provides insights into students’ worldviews and experiences, and their strategies to negotiate this curriculum; these insights also help challenge the gendered, casted and classed assumptions underlying this moral curriculum. Through a discussion of students’ views and practices, the chapter also offers a glimpse of potential solidarity between labour class pupils, especially bridging gender differences.
