REPRESENTAÇÕES DE GÊNERO NOS LIVROS DIDÁTICOS DOS ANOS INICIAIS DO ENSINO FUNDAMENTAL: ANÁLISE A PARTIR DAS IMAGENS VEICULADAS

Abstract

Debates about gender have shown the various cultural practices that cause inequalities. For example, assigning different social behaviors, activities and functions to men and women based on the biological differences between the sexes reinforces stereotypes and hierarchies that contribute to the maintenance of unequal gender relations in society. This goes through all social spheres, including school education, which has the textbook as an important subsidy tool in the teaching and learning process. However, being a cultural artifact, this material can be a disseminator of exclusionary ideologies, reinforcing gender stereotypes, whether through images or texts. Therefore, this study aims to contribute to the development of gender studies in the field of Education, seeking to answer the following question: how are gender representations being presented/ conveyed, through images, in textbooks for the early years of elementary school? As specific objectives it was delimited: to know the basis of how the process of gender inequalities and hierarchies take place, treading paths to understand these reproductions in school education; to reflect on how the school reproduces gender stereotypes, being the textbook a resource/instrument for this to happen; and to analyze how gender representations are being conveyed, through images, in the didactic materials. Having as object of study the textbooks offered by PNLD and used by municipal schools of Irati/PR, this research, of qualitative nature, is based on the proposal of Cultural Studies represented by Kellner (2013), author who traces as a strategy the Critical Literacy as being one of the mechanisms for reading and analysis of images. The analyzed textbooks present moments of balance in the representations of gender, however, the quantitative predominance in the analyzed actions shows different activities and functions to men and women, referring to the 'nature' of each sex, which reinforces stereotypes and gender inequalities culturally constructed.