Gender issues and education: State of research in Brazil

Abstract

In this paper, our goal is to present a recent overview of how gender issues have been investigated in Brazilian postgraduate studies. We hope, with the presentation of this scenario, to enable that gender studies continue to advance, but also that they find in teachers their strong allies in this important battle for a more egalitarian society. To achieve our purposes, the paper was developed in three sections. We start with a brief but broad review of the recent history of gender studies. About these, we focus on the relationship between education and gender, trying to emphasize how education can strengthen the difference between people, guiding their actions and materials in heteronormativity. In the sequence, we seek to highlight the current scenario of research on gender and education in Brazil, based on a mapping of the theses and dissertations recently defended. In the end, we hope to present teaching materials that promote the advancement of this important relationship between gender and education, with thoughts and teaching acting as the founding link.

Keywords

Art condition teacher training equality diversity

Introduction

Even with all the difficulties, school is a space within which new patterns of learning, coexistence, production and transmission of knowledge can be built, especially if values, beliefs, representations and practices associated to prejudice, discriminations and racist, sexist, misogynist and homophobic violence.¹ (Junqueira, 2009: 36)

The social movement for sexual diversity has an interest in having the public school as one of its allies, and in particular the teachers responsible for training children and teenagers.² (Seffner, 2009: 124)

The two passages cited in the epigraph highlight something that is latent in Brazilian society: all citizens should, without distinction, have rights and duties. However, this seems more like a chimera built by the politically correct speech. For this reason, many of the people who are outside the historical and cultural concept of heteronormativity (Louro, 2009) have been claiming their legitimate space for exercising citizenship, often using education as a basic support for the cause. We dare to say that this has fallen into a commonplace, it is no longer being new to speak, write, nor theorize about the equality of rights and duties for all human beings. It is well known, still, that the school plays a fundamental part in this process.

Nonetheless, it seems that ‘talking about’ equality, diversity, respect, etc. has reached a level of excellence, since everything that could be expressed about the multiple human forms of being, of recognizing oneself, of understanding and acting is already well known – if not in a global way, at least among educators. Even so, discrimination, prejudice, moral, physical and/or psychic violence are constant and insistent in everyday school life, revealing that the discourse, already saturated, has not found an echo in the actions of the lived world.

In this article, our goal is to present a recent overview of how these themes have been investigated in Brazilian postgraduate education studies, about situations that occur in our schools. We hope, with the presentation of this scenario, to enable that gender studies continue to advance, but also that they find in teachers their strong allies in this important battle for a more egalitarian society. This is because, despite the recent achievements, there are still mechanisms for normalizing subjects, reproducing heterosexual patterns, with man being the brave, imposing himself by masculinity; women, in turn, play the role of docile, romantic, and futile. Other ways of being and living are on the margins of society. But, as Deleuze (1988) has stated, we can no longer be indifferent to the fact that we are different.

To achieve our purposes, the article was developed in three sections. We start with a brief but broad review of the recent history of gender studies. About these, we focus on the relationship between education and gender, trying to emphasize how education can strengthen the difference between people, guiding their actions and materials in heteronormativity. In the sequence, we seek to highlight the current scenario of research on gender and education in Brazil, based on a mapping of the theses and dissertations recently defended. In the end, we hope to present teaching materials that promote the advancement of this important relationship between gender and education, with thoughts and teaching acting as the founding link.

How and why did the studies on gender arise?

Gender, for us, represents an important category in the approach to equality/inequalities between men and women, male and female, in a social, historical and cultural construction of identities and differences, without biological determinations or impositions, much less social ones.

Although women's struggles for ‘space and voice’ in society had taken place since the beginning of the nineteenth century, gender studies had their first disclosures based on Gayle Rubin (1973), dating back to 1975. Gradually, alongside religious leaders and teachers, among others, the presence of women becomes a reality, even though feminization³ in many professions was associated with inadequate conditions, lower wages and devaluation of women's action in work contexts and the permanent association of women to their role of ‘mother’, without ‘preparation’ for the work in these professions (Louro, 2008; Miranda, 2011).

Gayle Rubin’s (1973) essay ‘Trafficking in Women: A Note on the Political Economy of Sex’ was a very important contribution against the oppression of women. According to the author, sex and gender constitute a system through which society reverses biological sexuality into products of the activity developed by the human species to satisfy these transformed sexual needs – thus, the gender category is tied to historical changes and struggles (in the case of her studies, female struggles).

Bourdieu (1999), complementing this conception, affirms that gender differences result from a social construction, based on an androcentric vision, which, at the same time, legitimizes a relationship of domination (masculine) and forms itself as a social logic of naturalized inequality, inscribing itself in a relation of power, of domination, having the masculine principle as the center of all things.

In 1975, the United Nations established the ‘Women's Decade’, making the gender issue internationally visible. In this decade, books, magazines, newspapers, etc. marked this new moment, important in the consolidation of women’s struggles and in the explication of the power relations that define and limit actions, responsibilities and action in society, transforming biological differences in social inequalities (Lobo, 1991; Meyer, 1996).

In Brazil, from the 1970s, several transformations made possible the expansion of women's schooling. According to Lobo (1991), the transformations stemmed from the multiple demands of feminist women, such as changes in family organization, opportunities for study and access to certain professions, the right to decide on one’s own body, an end to sexual repression, the right to vote and against various other forms of discrimination. Thus, there was a growing search for insertion and professional ‘qualification’, and a search for undergraduate and graduate courses, which culminated in a better offer of salaries for women.

As a reflection of the transformations and the visibility of the subject, there was, in the 1990s, a considerable expansion of studies on gender as an analytical category for research on the social construction of the ‘feminine’ and the ‘masculine’, and the power relations that hierarchize men and women (Louro, 1997; Scott, 1995). Thus, in society at all times, we see these differences occurring, whether in dance, in films, in cartoons, in work and in the labor market, among others, whether in cases of violence against women or violence against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, to name a few. But in education, how do these changes take place? In the following section, we discuss the disputes, conflicts and transformations that gender issues have (or should have) provoked in our area of activity.

Why do gender studies matter to education?

The way in which gender actions are constructing and delimiting the social and historical spaces that have been historically embedded in educational processes is because they have been characterized by a masculine education that overestimates men and practices of patriarchal society (Santos, 2010). Such hierarchical relationships culminate in the production of inequalities and differences in schooling processes, as already stated by Dal’Igna: ‘boys and girls already seem destined to different social places according to what culture names as sexual differences’ (Dal’Igna, 2007: 255).

In school education, gender relations and roles appear in schoolbooks and paraprofessional textbooks, in the curriculum, in teacher training, in the speeches and actions of teachers, managers and other professionals in education. There are, therefore, textbooks and schoolbooks that point to a feminine identity subordinated to male domination, contributing to existing patriarchal and power relations; the boy is the protagonist, the girl is supporting. But we understand that books (and their illustrations) can (and should) combat sexist education with a unique pattern of what it means to be male and female, with support from a gender perspective, analyzing the more current roles of men (less traditional) and women (more participatory) in contemporary society.

In the face of the disputes of feminist and LGBT community social movements, in the last decades, we affirm that the curriculum must be revised, because of awareness and reflection on paradigm shifts, incorporating achievements (from struggles) to conceptions of diversity/plurality and democratic inclusion.

In the same way, the formation (initial and continued) of teachers, managers and other professionals of the education sector, in our opinion, could seek to overcome a fragmented, sexist and gender-biased vision, promoting changes of conception and imbricating more democratic and inclusive conceptions, in a scientific approach to analysis and discussion of the theme.

In addition, the importance of gender studies in education also lies in the fact that we can better understand the relationship of school failure/success with gender issues. Carvalho points out some reflections that we consider important, be it in relation to boys/men, or pertinent to girls/women:

To realize how the boy who goes well in school and is praised by the teacher ends up being despised by his colleagues, called ‘fag’ or ‘little woman’, and to assert his masculinity ends up having to resort to poor school performance, to indiscipline. How does this happen? How are children articulating these concepts? What can school do to discuss them productively?⁴ (Carvalho, 2003: 191)

In other words, school failure (and, often, school dropout) may be related to masculine and feminine referents of diffusion in society: while the ‘masculine’ pattern is based on aggressiveness and indiscipline (which distracts boys from school), the ‘feminine’ being is docile, disciplined, and obedient (obviously this brings the girls closer together than the ones wanted in school-conformed bodies and minds).

If in the contemporary world it is recognized that there is a diversity of cultures, beliefs, psychological, social, sexual and gender identities – and these identities are not fixed, that is, they can be transient, momentary, contradictory – a unique and hegemonic conception becomes impossible. But this does not mean treating boys and girls, or men and women one in the likeness of the other but making it possible for each to consciously develop in the way that seems most appropriate to him/her.

It is necessary to understand, as Giroux and McLaren (1995) pointed out, that we, teachers/educators, are also producers of culture, as well as transmitters of information/knowledge; therefore, we must always be reviewing concepts and, above all, prejudices. This is, of course, if we are striving towards building an effectively inclusive society. In this sense, critical multicultural perspectives should be articulated to the curriculum and practices aimed at teaching, during initial and/or continuing teacher training.

The current condition of gender and education discussions in Brazil

In order to understand the current condition of research on gender in Brazil, we carried out a search of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Capes)⁵ Theses and Dissertations Data Base (http://bancodeteses.capes.gov.br/banco-teses/#!/; accessed 8 February 2017), a virtual repository that stores information about the completion of master’s and doctoral programs at Brazilian universities. In this Data Base, it is possible to identify the type of material (thesis or dissertation), the type of program (professional or academic), its level (master’s or doctorate), the area of evaluation of the program, besides being able to consult the title, the abstracts, keywords, in addition to the names of authorship, guidance and members of the evaluation test.

We used the descriptors ‘gender and education’, the surprising result being: 953,150, in the different areas of study, between the years 2005 and 2015. We decided to analyze the most recent works, dating to 2015,⁶ finding 75,875 results. We then defined a new filter, choosing to search the results listed only in the area of education, and found 4268 results.

Thus, we cover the first 440 papers listed by the repository (representing approximately 10%), and of these, 58 papers were pre-selected by title and/or by summary. Here is the process of choosing these works: our initial idea was to privilege the representativeness of each one of the regions of the country, however, we did not find works from the North region among the 440 analyzed.⁷

In this way, we were choosing representative works that contemplated different angles/segments of education: gender and management; gender relations in public policies; gender in early childhood education; being a man, being a woman teacher; gender in high school; gender and deafness; gender and teacher training; gender and media/internet; gender and curriculum (higher education); and gender in the schoolbooks. In addition, we were careful to insert works from academic master’s degrees, professional master’s degrees, and academic doctorates, as a way to diversify the findings. We understand that research is necessary in order to communicate and reflect upon critical issues or legitimize theories in particular practices, located in diverse contexts.

In this search, our goal is to identify the state of art, which is a research method that goes beyond the bibliographical review, aimed at mapping and discussing a portion of the academic production in relation to the theme of this paper. Our intention is to understand how gender and education are highlighted in theses and dissertations. It is, therefore, a descriptive and analytical inventory of this academic and scientific production: once this survey is available, it is possible that, once the most studied categories are known, gaps can also be filled with new researches, since relations of gender inequalities have transcended the history of education from the beginning. As expressed earlier in this paper: society today still expresses these inequalities. This is also the reason why we seek to confront this research with our experience in relation to the theme of this paper and in relation to the theories here revisited.

Rizza’s (2015) thesis, supported by the genealogy of Michel Foucault and from a mapping of all federal public universities accredited by the Brazilian Ministry of Education in the five Brazilian regions, sought subjects (compulsory or optional) in several courses of undergraduate students who discuss sexuality using the key words: gender; diversity; sexuality; sex education; and sexual orientation. The research was conducted in 44 universities (73% of the total), of which 38 offered subjects with the researched subject. Rizza’s thesis details disciplines, courses and universities researched, including the link with research groups registered in the Directory of the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), and their findings reveal that there is a momentum in debates about sexuality and gender, of diversity and difference, becoming, at the same time, a control and regulation mechanism, revealing biopolitical strategies and relations of power (and survival with the maintainer organ) imbricated in the production of curriculum. This indicates that we should observe these mechanisms in curriculum implementation: there are always ‘hidden’ intentions that end up interfering in the full development of teaching and learning processes, for which we need to be attentive if we want social equity.

The dissertation of Veodato (2015) analyzed the relationship between deafness and gender and race conditions in schools in the State of Paraná, with support from census information (Basic Education Census and Demographic Census). Her findings reveal that deaf people have precarious conditions of schooling access and stay, as well as the need for specialized educational services, not only because of deafness, but also because they are associated with color, race or gender. This shows that gender inequalities remain imbricated in the most diverse school situations, accentuating the social discrimination of many students.

Machado’s (2015) thesis, supported by ethnography, and theoreticians such as Bourdieu, Butler, Louro, Ibiapina, among others, investigates meanings produced on notions of gender and race in the course of Specialization in Management of Public Policies in Gender and Race, offered by the Federal University of Maranhão, in the distance education modality, from 2011 to 2013. Their findings reveal that not all course participants have emancipatory thoughts and productions. This is because there is a lack of discussion about the subject outside the context of the course, such as the resistance to including this knowledge in the teacher training curriculum (undergraduate courses). As a conclusion, the author points out that it is necessary to move forward in the production of a new ‘culture’, with the constitution of knowledge and knowledge itself more contextualized/interconnected to our reality and our needs, this knowledge being recognized in Brazilian universities and society.

Santos’ (2015) dissertation, considering the curriculum as one of the relevant factors in the constitution of what is ‘being a man’ and ‘being a woman’, analyzed the discourses on gender present in the Curricular Proposal of the Municipality of João Pessoa in the state of Paraiba, with theoretical support in Louro, Meyer, and Soares, among others, in the field of gender, and Macedo, Lopes, and Hall, among others, in the field of curriculum, and in the post-structuralist aspect with the discourse theory of Laclau for the methodological course. Its findings reveal that, although the gender discourse is present in the proposal, following national guidelines (such as National Curricular Parameters), this same discourse allows for different readings and different interpretations, with re-significations and problematizations, often restricted to the area of Biology/Sciences. This only goes to show that there is still a long path to travel before equality, justice and tolerance are established.

Sales’ (2015) dissertation aimed at analyzing gender issues in the exercise of pedagogical coordination, using an exploratory research, through a questionnaire applied to coordinators of basic education schools in the state of Goiás. The results indicated two important aspects: on the one hand, men and women disagree that the functions of school management and teaching are feminine functions (with greater disagreement between men, perhaps to justify their presence in these activities); and on the other hand, the training offered by the Education Department may have contributed to the ‘homogenization’ of perceptions about the tasks to be carried out in pedagogical coordination. These findings indicate that gender stigma may still be surrounded by conservative conceptions, which are not presented in terms of what the Secretariat has established – hence the need for more research in the area.

Ramalho’s (2015) dissertation analyzed the impact of the debates on gender in the National Education Plan in the Departments of State Education in Rio de Janeiro and Mesquita City Council, using a semi-structured interview and theoretical reference to Safiotti, Arruzza, and Blonde, among others. Among the results, we highlight the distance (the ‘abyss’) between what was determined by the National Educational Plan (PNE) and the teaching discourse about its action in the classroom; in schools there were also no discussions or debates on the subject between teachers, managers and other officials. There is therefore a need to effectively discuss gender issues in education and society.

Pereira’s (2015) thesis sought to understand how students conceive and configure their office of student, with support in the concept of configuration, defined by Norbert Elias, in the theoretical and methodological frameworks of the sociology of childhood. Pereira developed a qualitative research, with a field work carried out during a year, in second year students of a public school in the city of São Paulo. His findings reveal that children actively interpret rules, routines, use of school materials, friendship, and mutual aid, among other things. However, Pereira noted a greater competition among girls. The boys occupied the court most of the time. In a way, the findings reproduce (in a non-explicit way) the relationships between boys and girls in the culture in which they live, that we have already outlined in this paper.

Tavares's (2015) thesis analyzed, from a Foucaultian perspective, integrated with Butler’s studies and cultural studies, and Ruth Rocha’s book ‘Knife Without a Tip: Chicken Without Foot’, in which two brothers exchange their gender identities. In the analysis, it focused on the categories of devices, resistance and subjectivity. Tavares's thesis started from literature as a possibility of questioning or reiteration of regulatory norms for the social construction of gender and sexuality. To this end, it also analyzes edicts of the National Library Program of the School and characters from books for children, understood as cultural artifacts at the service of pedagogical devices, aimed at normalizing issues of gender and sexuality. These analyses indicate mismanagement from official programs in the determination of gender identities.

In Zorkot’s (2015) dissertation, we find a discussion about the themes of sexuality and gender in a pre-school of the public network of a city in the center-west of Minas Gerais, in order to investigate practices and representations of care and teacher education in female teachers. In these practices, questions and tensions arose from the actions of caring and educating in the preschool, with support in bibliographical revision and application of interviews/narratives with the teachers, and references to the theories explained by Louro, Foucault, Veiga-Neto, and Furlani, among others, besides the content analysis of the interviews. The findings reveal silence and gaps that denote the urgency of ‘discussions/deconstructions/denatures’ on the subject in pedagogy courses.

Lastly, Almeida’s (2015) dissertation sought to understand the professional choice of male and female students, analyzing ‘differences and similarities between men and women’ in the search for vocational training and the existence or not of discrimination suffered or practiced by men and women in a technical course that is perceived as ‘mostly male’ in the State of São Paulo, with a theoretical contribution from the critical theory of society. The methodology involved application and questionnaire analysis to 25 students (12 females and 13 males). The results indicated that there is strong evidence that students choose professions based on ‘impressions about job opportunities’, rather than ‘expectations of professional and financial success’, followed by personal satisfaction, professional and social advancement, and the quality of the course, among men; the women focused on ‘quality of the course, followed by the possibility of having a way that allows continuity in studies’. In addition, it has been found that ‘being a man’ or ‘being a woman’ according to traditional patterns is rooted in their answers, and this could also influence career choice. Almeida also encounters remarks and discrimination because women are on a course considered to be ‘male’.

These dissertations and theses, all defended in 2015 (thus very current), culminate in confirming what has been presented as a theoretical reference and reveal the urgent need for insertion in school education of issues related to gender and sexuality, equality and sexual diversity, associated with discourses about ethnicity, disabilities, and cultural diversity, among others. However, we must think of ways to promote such insertion in a qualified way, in higher education, not only in initial and continuing teacher training, but in all undergraduate and graduate courses, in order to minimize the negative impacts of preconceived ideas ruled solely by deep-rooted social prejudice.

By way of conclusion

At school, we teach, directly or indirectly, behaviors, values, emotions and even knowledge. At every moment, by teaching, teachers reveal their ideological engagement, their social influences, their concepts of world, of society, of being human. Thus, through education, we expect the necessary transformation so that the ‘marginalized’ diversity enters the school universe and, consequently, in society. In order to do so, it is necessary that curriculum, teaching materials and professors understand, contemplate and take a stand in the face of human manifestations silenced throughout the civilizing process.

For this reason, discussing gender in education becomes relevant: the teaching that is propagated in schools does not present rights and conditions of equity for men and women, nor has it implemented actions consistent with the fight against social inequalities (and how these inequalities are devised in society); and even more so when it comes to gender identity and gender, between what is biological and what is social construction in the delimitation of the man or woman and the spaces, attributions, characteristics, behaviors, and careers of each one – it is as if all these were normal and natural. To provoke these reflections was the main objective of this article.

The educator, in the fullest sense of this term, as the one who invests in the development of the learner, is responsible for reflecting and practicing education without judgments, without labels, without imposing models of behavior as a result of gender, sex, religion, ethnicity, social class, etc. It is not up to the teacher to be ‘neutral’, but to help learners understand those relationships that culminate in excluding people from the society to which they belong.

It is up to us, to recognize the rupture with the traditional, when it oppresses us; it is also up to us to break with body control precepts, with passive attitudes of resignation before a pedagogical relationship, looking for new possibilities of understanding and intervention in the educational processes – in a dialogical and mediating position, contributing to the development of the autonomy of the students and their formation as a reflective, critical and capable citizen able to formulate an interpretation of the reality that surrounds them. The reading of the most recent theses and dissertations shows that there is a search for the qualified insertion of this theme in education – even if the path is long, tortuous and full of obstacles.

From our point of view, we believe that teacher training courses (whether initial or continuing) need to consider this discussion, making it cross different disciplines, under different approaches, overcoming biological and social prejudices. We believe that the insertion of historical, political, social, linguistic and cultural approaches to gender, sex, and sexuality is important for the reconstruction of meanings and actions, in a perspective of explicitly inclusive education. The same can be said for teaching materials and curriculum, both in higher education and in basic education. This is a responsibility that the school and its educators cannot excuse, under penalty of maintaining an unequal and discriminatory society unable to recognize human diversity itself.

Footnotes

Acknowledgement

The authors hereby acknowledge Linda Catarina Gualda, PhD, English language professor at the Faculdade de Tecnologia do Estado de São Paulo, Itapetininga, Brazil, for the English version of our paper and for proofreading it.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Ivan Fortunato is a PhD professor at the Federal Institute of São Paulo, Brazil. He is the coordinator of the FoPeTec research group for teacher education and Editor-in-Chief of Revista Internacional de Formação de Professores.

Ana Maria Iorio Dias, PhD, is a professor at Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, Brazil.

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(2015) Faca sem ponta, galinha sem pé, homem com homem, mulher com mulher: Quem defende a personagem queer nos livros para a infância? [Knife without tip, chicken without foot, man with man, woman with woman: Who defends the queer character in books for childhood?]. Doutorado em Educação. Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil. [In Portuguese.] Available at: http://www.ppge.ufpr.br/teses%20d2015/d2015_Evelize%20Cristina%20Cit%20Tavares.pdf (accessed December 2017).

25.

Vedoato

SCM

(2015) Relações entre surdez, raça e gênero no processo de escolarização de alunos surdos do Paraná [Relations between deafness, race and gender in the process of schooling of deaf students of Paraná]. Mestrado em Educação. Universidade Estadual de Londrina. [In Portuguese.] Available at: http://www.uel.br/pos/mestredu/images/stories/downloads/dissertacoes/2015/2015_-_VEDOATO_Sandra_Cristina_Malzinoti.pdf (accessed December 2017).

26.

Yannoulas

(2011) Feminização ou feminilização? apontamentos em torno de uma categoria [Feminization or feminization? Notes around a category]. Temporalis 11(22): 271–291. [In Portuguese.]

27.

Zorkot

(2015) Sexualidades e relações de gênero no cotidiano da pré-escola: entre práticas e representações de professoras [Sexualities and gender relations in the daily life of the preschool: between practices and representations of teachers]. Mestrado Profissional em Educação. Universidade Federal de Lavras. [In Portuguese.]