GENDER: REPRESENTATIONS OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Abstract

This article describes the results of a study to investigate gender representations among public school students in the initial years of elementary school II. The study was conducted in six classes of the sixth grade of elementary school, totaling 226 students, including 126 boys and 100 girls aged between 10 and 11 years. The children were asked to express, through written text and drawings, their opinions about what it means to "be a man" and to "be a woman". The aim was to discover the representations held by these students in relation to gender issues. In this activity, some pictures (drawings) are seen that show the students’ perspectives of what it means to "be a man and to be a woman" in the contemporary world, full of stereotyped views. Based on the students’ drawings, we can think about the challenges, and the opportunities to discuss the relationships between diversity and gender at school, in order to search for more effective proposals for teaching action, and build another look at diversity and changes in gender relationships in school, and thus, in society. This is certainly a difficult task, but a possible and emerging one, as gender inequality implies asymmetrical power relations.