GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN RESEARCH AND CONTINUING TRAINING

THE EXPERIENCE OF MARANHÃO

Abstract

Gender and sexuality issues have been increasingly recurrent in school daily life. However, it has been questioned: Are teachers prepared to deal with these issues as they are becoming increasingly common in school and society? Understanding the complexity surrounding such themes, the Gesepe Group of Studies and Research on Educational Practices (Gesepe), from the Federal University of Maranhão (UFMA), has been developing research projects and interventions, offering continuing training courses for teachers from the state of Maranhão, highlighting the discussions of theoretical and methodological alternatives that deal with gender relations and issues of sexuality in basic school daily life. Among the actions developed by Gesepe and research objectives, the following stand out: analyze the conceptual basis of gender and sexuality studies; understand the processes of construction of gender relations and sexuality in school education; reflect and intervene with actions aimed at sex education in schools of São Luís, in different municipalities of Maranhão, as a way to seek alternatives to the deconstruction of myths, taboos, prejudices and discrimination on gender and sexuality issues. As data collection instruments, questionnaires are initially applied to education professionals from Maranhão, whose aim is selecting the research participants and the project’s formative action. As a proposal for intervention, articulated to teaching and research, the extension course Gender and Sexuality at School (GSE), is offered in the semi-present modality. For the completion of the course, theoretical and didactic texts are written by the project’s executing team, members of Gesepe. These texts are studied and discussed during the course activities, when participant observation, workshops and short courses are held, both for teachers of basic
education, subjects of intervention research, and for students of kindergarten, elementary school and high school. As partial results of one of the research and formative action that took place from January 2017 to December 2018, it was found the increase of discussion spaces on gender and sexuality issues in Maranhão state school education.