Year: 2025 | Month: December | Volume: 12 | Issue: 12 | Pages: 965-975
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52403/ijrr.20251296
Hidden Curriculum and the Formation of Students Social Behavior in Community Learning Center (CLC) in Sabah Malaysia
Kiki Reski1, Eva Banowati2, Fadly Husain3, Hamdan Tri Atmaja4
1,4Social Science Education, 2Geography Education, 3Sociology and Anthropologi Education,
1,2,3,4Faculty of Social and Political Sciences,
1,2,3,4Semarang State University, Semarang, Indonesia.
Corresponding Author: Kiki Reski
ABSTRACT
This study aims to explore the role of the hidden curriculum in shaping students’ social behavior at Community Learning Center (CLC) in Sabah, Malaysia, with a particular focus on children of Indonesian migrant workers. The hidden curriculum refers to a set of values, norms, attitudes, and behaviors that are not explicitly taught but are absorbed by students through social interactions, school culture, and daily learning practices. Using a qualitative approach with data collection techniques including in-depth interviews, observation, and documentation, this study examines how teachers interpret and implement the hidden curriculum to instill social values such as discipline, cooperation, social initiative, tolerance, and nationalism. The analysis is limited to a structural-functional perspective to explain how the hidden curriculum functions to maintain social order, integration, and stability of interactions among students. The findings reveal two main points. First, teachers understand the hidden curriculum as a process of shaping students’ social behavior through social interactions, habituation, teacher role modeling, and school culture. Values such as tolerance, cooperation, responsibility, discipline, and nationalism are not only taught formally but also internalized through concrete examples and students’ everyday experiences. Second, the implementation of the hidden curriculum at CLC is carried out through various routine activities such as bringing lunch from home, classroom cleaning duties, peer-group learning, reciting prayers, and outing class activities. This study contributes to the discourse on nonformal education, particularly in the context of CLC, and highlights the potential of the hidden curriculum as an effective instrument for fostering positive social behavior among students who are children of Indonesian migrant workers growing up in oil palm plantation communities.
Keywords: hidden curriculum, students’ social behavior, community learning center, Indonesian migrant children
[PDF Full Text]