PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Educ.
Sec. STEM Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1611252
This article is part of the Research TopicRedefining Learning in the Digital Age: Pedagogical Strategies and OutcomesView all 12 articles
The Hidden Curriculum of the Amazon Future Engineer Educational Program
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Los Andes, Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
- 2Faculty of Education, University of Los Andes, Bogotá, Cundinamarca, Colombia
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Abstract This paper critically examines the Amazon Future Engineer (AFE) program, a global educational initiative designed to expand access to computer science education for underserved communities. While AFE promotes itself as a philanthropic intervention aimed at bridging the digital divide, this study interrogates its hidden curriculum and ideological foundations. Drawing on critical pedagogy, curriculum theory, educational sociology, and critical data studies, the paper argues that AFE serves as a vehicle for neoliberal ideology, prioritizing human capital development, corporate interests, and platform-based governance under the guise of technological inclusion. Through its emphasis on employability, standardized digital content, and scripted pedagogy, AFE reconfigures education as a site of economic productivity and brand expansion. The paper also critiques the program’s epistemic reductionism, its neglect of ethical, social, and ecological dimensions of engineering, and its disregard for more-than-human knowledge systems. By naturalizing technocratic values and depoliticizing educational goals, AFE contributes to the erosion of educational sovereignty and civic imagination. This analysis situates AFE within broader shifts in the political economy of education, marked by increasing corporate involvement and datafication. Ultimately, the paper calls for the development of alternative, justice-oriented pedagogical models that resist the colonization of education by market logics. By exposing the assumptions embedded in AFE’s design and discourse, the study invites educators, policymakers, and scholars to reimagine education as a democratic, relational, and decolonial practice grounded in ethical responsibility and collective agency.
Keywords: hidden curriculum, Platform capitalism, critical pedagogy, Corporate philanthropy, Technological inclusion, Engineering Education, datafication of education
Received: 13 May 2025; Accepted: 08 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Balán. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Laura Balán, University of Los Andes, Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.