Trauma as Hidden Curriculum: Racialisation and Pedagogical Silence in Times of Polycrisis

This paper examines how social trauma associated with ongoing and unresolved crises is negotiated, displaced, and silenced within international higher education, focusing on how teachers’ racialised identities and perceived geopolitical proximity influence students’ openness. Using the China–Taiwan and China–Hong Kong contexts within international art education, it explores how geopolitical trauma shapes pedagogical relations in everyday teaching encounters.

Drawing on semi-structured interviews and the author’s teaching experience, the paper argues that experiences of social trauma are rarely addressed within institutional pedagogical frameworks even though they frequently surface in students’ artistic practices, research interests, and classroom discussions. Instead, unspoken norms, racialised expectations, and institutional strategies of risk avoidance shape what can be articulated, by whom, and at what perceived cost.

The findings suggest that student engagement and pedagogical practice are mediated by racialised perceptions of teachers as traumatically “proximate” to particular crises. Educators read as closer to a source of collective trauma are often presumed to hold predetermined political or moral positions and are denied epistemic neutrality. This attribution exposes teachers to professional vulnerability; intensifies emotional labour; and reshapes student participation through heightened defensiveness, emotional withdrawal, and reduced openness. In response, educators may strategically mute or depoliticise trauma-related content in teaching and assessment, driven by concerns over complaints, accusations of bias, or the risks from transnational surveillance or censorship, thereby narrowing pedagogical latitude.

The paper proposes three interventions: strengthening institutional safety infrastructures that recognise the affective and ethical burden placed on educators navigating trauma in real time; co-producing shared expectations that acknowledge uneven exposure to trauma and risk; and adopting low-intensity practices that introduce traumatic content gradually, clarify the teacher’s role as facilitator rather than authority, and frame openness as collectively supported practices. Together, these approaches position the classroom as a critical site for engaging social trauma in times of polycrisis.