Relevance of Gender and Sexuality Themes for Children’s Scholar Education: What do Pedagogues Think?

Abstract

This article presents partial results of a completed research funded by the São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (fapesp). Using part of the data collected through an open questionnaire applied to undergraduate students in Pedagogy, the objective was to analyze the conceptions of these subjects about the importance of gender and sexualities in their personal formation and future professional performance at school. The participating sample corresponded to undergraduate students enrolled in the initial and final years of the Pedagogy course that set the research, from a public university in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, and the analysis was guided by the Content Analysis technique together with the consulted basic theoretical framework, notably the feminist literature on gender and sexualities. It is noteworthy that the concepts were divided between full recognition of the importance of the themes, partial recognition and non-recognition. Attention is drawn to the conflict between the idiosyncrasies of these future educators with their social and legal commitment, affirmed in public educational policies, which guarantees the presence and approach of the issues in question in the school education of children. If the educator does not recognize its importance for his own formation and professional performance, he will hardly provide this perspective of education at school.