Introduction
There are few Brazilian schools known to offer gender-differentiated instruction. Colégio São Bento, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, is a good example of a single-sex school in Brazil. Therefore, writing in defense of co-education may seem out of place. But is it really?
Rosenberg (2012, p.352) argues that women's increased access to school education did not in fact mean "[...] an equal opportunity to every woman including the experience of co-education". The author points out that the old school sexual segregation left such marks in teaching that this is reflected in curricula. According to her, there has been informal sexual segregation taking place even in co-ed schoolssince the 1970s.
Regarding the hidden curriculum (APPLE, 1982, 1989),Rosemberg (2012) recalls thatthe curriculum symbolically enacts what is suitable or not for men and women on social places. This is reinforced by Canotilho, Magalhães and Ribeiro (2010, 171), who emphasize that school culture is divided according to gender and other social inequalities ("race", ethnicity, sexual orientation, body appearance, intellectual and physical capacity). According to the authors, this division pervades representations of the teachers themselves about what is suitable or not for boys and girls regarding their roles as professionals and citizens. In addition, they point out that there is interference over values and conceptions transmitted to male and female students through the so-called hidden curriculum.
At a first glance, the same education seems to be offered for boys and girls in a mixed-gender school. However, even though under the same umbrella, curriculum and teaching and management practices have provided their students with gender-differentiated instruction. Due to this finding, in a political and intentional endeavor, co-ed school or co-ed teaching has been regarded as the instruction of men and women within the same physical and temporal space. In a broader sense, co-education refers to a mixed school, concerned with providing egalitarian and quality education for both sexes (AUAD, 2006)2.
In this text, therefore, the term co-education is used as a synonym for mixed-gender school, and co-education (in italics) is the option when referred to mixed-gender schools oriented to egalitarian and quality education for both genders.This differentiation reinforces that women’s access and accomplishment in the school system is more than a struggle today. What is called for is a mixed-gender school which delivers quality education, without any ethnic-racial or socio-economic discrimination, and without different content and pedagogy bias towards men or women according to hegemonic masculine or feminine ideals (ROSEMBERG, 2012, p.339).
Co-education is believed to be among the primary elements to achieve a democratic reality, which stems from more egalitarian relations. The pursuit of co-education is a significant aspect of the effort towards an ideal of educational praxis for democracy3 and towards the implementation of an education program aimed at human rights training.
The pursuit of co-education may also include a contributory factor to alleviate issues such as domestic violence, femicide4, homophobia and intergenerational tension. This way, this pursuit allows the exercise of seeing one another as well as oneself in a more humane way; contributes to the acknowledgment of different masculinities5 and femininities; and enables the development of subjectivities leading to happier and more fulfilled men and women.
Like Araújo (2005: 48), it is believed the greatest achievement of the feminist project Equality inDifference is the possibility of changing gender relations:
This has allowed men to free themselves from the weight of machismo and women to free themselves from the feminine imperative; both of them are allowed to be sensitive, objective, strong, insecure, dependent, independent, free and autonomous, not following categorical imperatives determined by gender. This is how the idea of gender materializes as a social construction. In this perspective, the reconstruction of the feminine necessarily leads to the reconstruction of the masculine. This relationship will never be a relationship without conflict; on the contrary, it will always be a space of struggle and dialectical tension, where different powers and desires are at stake. Thus, it is important that men and women in their subjective experiences are able to exercise logic, reason, intuition and sensitivity to build new values and new ways of relating in all social relations, such as one’s affective sexual life, marriage, family and work.
According to Waiselfisz and Maciel (2012), Brazil occupies the seventh position in the femicide ranking, which comprises a list of 84 countries, and these crimes usually happen within the domestic sphere. According to"Domestic Women's Alternative and Response" (UMAR, 2008, p. 1), the feminist movement in Portugal, domestic violence is the leading cause of death and disability among women aged 16-44 and their roots lie in the inequality between men and women, which persist due to gender stereotypes and prejudice.
School is considered as one possible sphere of action, in an effort to aim at a less sexist reality. To this end, Auad’s view (2003, p.140) cannot be challenged when she states: "There is no education for democracy without co-education. Thus, even though co-education is a practical regulative idea, only its pursuit can turn a school into an institution committed to ending inequalities". For UMAR (2008, p.1), "education for equality/parity is key since kindergarten, from group play, leadership roles, dynamics and games, to the highest levels of higher education". As Souza-Leite (2009, p. 34) warns, "[...] the conquest of citizenship involves the awareness that sexuality inhabits a political body".
The school space as an environment of human interaction and reflectionmaylead toinvestments in pedagogical praxis committed to encouraging citizenship and humanitarian values and that becomes an effective place to exercise democratic coexistence. After all, as Andrades (2010, 251) points out: "We are learning that without equality we lose everyone, men and women"6.
To this end, studies and investigations related to the history of education are of utmost importance. Science should be used to explain the reasons to invest or not in the education of diverse peoplein different spaces and time frames; to analyze the means and discourses that permeate diverse educational spaces; and to reflect on school in the social imaginary as an example of a social construction of reality (BERGER; LUCKMANN, 2010). Moreover, as Freitas points out (2013, 68), these studies warn that "[...] imaginary bricks are as responsible for building the school as the unmistakable tracing of their inner territories".
Reflecting on the possibility of egalitarian education requires thinking about the instruction available (or not) to men and women over time. Likewise, it raises questions about the kind of education that might be attainable for different men and women.
1. Women’s education and mixed-gender schools in Brazil
In the early days of Portuguese colonization, teaching was entrusted to and concentrated in the hands of religious orders, especially those of the Jesuits - their teaching aimed at catechesis and at the education of a colonial elite. In this period, women had little access to formal education: most did not know how to read or write. Only a small proportion of women, usually belonging to the elite, could read7. Writing was an uncommon skill among the female population. Carvalho (2011, p. 23) writes: "[...] in the colony, a woman being taught to read would only be seen in the images of Sant'AnaMestra teaching Our Lady".
Women’s education took place in their private world, their homes. The few girls who received any formal instruction were taught by a relative, by preceptors orevenin convents as of the seventeenth century. Convents were catholic religious institutions dedicated to young women’s education for religious contemplationandmarriageor to their custody and punishment. (ALGRANTI, 1993)
In Brazil, convents date from the seventeenth century. They are seen as dual spaces, representing either imprisonment and punishment or a getaway from predestination faced by women of the time (forced marriage, maternity, little or no education). Convents are feminine places, where many of their inhabitants were locked up and where many women were prevented from going to.
Convents represented a possibility for women’s education, but this did not mean their purpose was to receive applicants or to be an educational space for transgressors concerning society’s expectations for women at that time. According to Novais (1984, p.19), "until 1811 there were five convents in Brazil, one in Bahia, two in Rio de Janeiro and two in São Paulo."
The hegemonic ideal for women was actually not feasible or extensive to all in Colonial Brazil:
[...] with regard to families in Colonial Brazil, the patriarchal model would soon come to mind: that of an extended family, comprising blood relatives, in-laws and protégés, under the undisputed leadership of a male figure. The patriarchal family had great importance, which influenced even [...] the relationship between society and the State. But it was typical of the ruling class, [...]. Among people of lower classes, the extended family did not exist, and women tended to have greater independence whenever they had no husband or partner. In 1804 Ouro Preto, for example, out of 203 households, only 93 were headed by men. Even in elite families, a structure of submissive women had exceptions. They played an important role in economic activities under certain circumstances. (FAUSTO, 1996. p. 43)
Fausto's (1996) remarks do not lighten the weight of male power and laws on women. Instead, they lead to the inference of spacesforinsubordinationandresistance and the female reality of daily struggle for survival. This struggle has occurred without the same legal guarantees that benefit the male universe, regardless of official and religious social organizations, historically forged in androcentrism.
From the Pombalinas Reforms (1750-1777) on, opening royal schools for girls was allowed, but they were not taught alongside boys. Schools for boys and schools for girls had been planned. In these schools, the teacher should be of the same sex as the student audience, and there should be a different curriculum.
With the Independence of Brazil (1822), the only records found which concerned basic education and teacher education regarded male teachers. In 1835, a Normal School was created to teach the Lancaster Method or Mutual Teaching, aimed at male teacher education (BASTOS, 2005a and 2005b).
The Constitution of 1824 (article 178/32) states that primary education should be free to all citizens. This resolution was put forward in 1827 through the General Law of Education, dated October 15. It was the first legal instrument to regulate the national public education. For elementary education, curriculum and differentiated schools were defined according to the sex of the child: the boys should be taught reading, writing, counting and the four mathematical operations as well asnotions of geometry. The girls, however, should be taught reading, writing, countingand the four mathematical operations as well asembroideryand sewing.
The October 15, 1827 Act says: "In every city, town and inhabited place there will be as many elementary schools as necessary"8. Reality, however, did not reflect this legal requirement. Few children had access to schooling, because the state had not build enough schools to meet the demands in population numbers (MANOEL, 1996). To corroborate this finding, it is sufficient to recall that in 1872, half a century after the Proclamation of Independence of Brazil, only 16% of the population was literate. Carvalho (2011) also points out the lack of interest in the education of slave persons and the absence of a religious reason for being educated, since the Catholic Church did not encourage the practice of reading the Bible.
During this period, female education had been gaining increasing importance within families of the Brazilian elite due to its association with public exposure, a kind of social showcase. "No longer limited to giving birth to babies and managing the household, elite women began to take relevant roles in maintaining social networks and alliances among families" (HABNER, 2012, p.56). The daughters of representatives of the Brazilian elite received education aimed at socializing: speaking French, talking politely, behaving with elegance and refinement and playing the piano.
In the year 1832, there were very few educated female Brazilians, and the number of those who engaged in writing was even lower. Even printed publications in circulation which aimed at the feminine public were mostly managed by men. Among the few women who wrote during the imperial period were Minas Gerais-born Beatriz Francisca de Assis Brandão (1779-1860), Rio Grande do Sul-born Clarinda da Costa Siqueira (1818-1867) and Delfina Benigna da Cunha (1791- 1857) and Rio Grande do Norte-born Nisia Floresta, who published her first book in 1832, Direitos das Mulheres e Injustiça dos Homens (Women's Rights and Men’s Injustice, in free translation). Few women were blessed with differentiated education compared to that offered to the female population in general. These women extended their gifts of knowledge to other women: "[...] they opened schools, published books, challenged the current opinion that women did not need to know how to read or write" (DUARTE, 2003, p.15).
During the imperial period there were constant gaps between what was envisaged in legislation for education and reality. There was not enough investment in building and maintaining schools. The provincial governments found expenses with education to be high. From this period on, governments found a way to meet the demand for schooling with mixed-gender classes: "Teachers were allowed to teach boys up to a certain age, usually between 12 and 14 years old. This opened up a new field for female primary teaching: male/mixed-gender teaching"(STAMATTO, 2002, p.6)9.
The process of relating the profession of a primary teacher with mothering was a development of this opening. Based on the views of that time, motherhood was a woman’s natural destiny and their primary function, therefore nothing more appropriate than having female teachers teach children, a natural development of being a mother (SCOTT, 2012). At the end of the imperial period, there were mixed-gender classes in Brazil offered at Protestant schools or in public schools. However, education differentiated by sex was still encouraged, so girls still had fewer opportunities in the labor market and less social ascension when outside marriage.
The process of urbanization and modernization experienced in Brazil since 1870, along with the end of slave labor, brought new insights to the education of the Brazilian population10. One concern in the educational field was the number and the quality of teachers 11. In the final decade of the imperial period, several projects aimed at public schooling were proposed by Brazilian politicians12. One of them was Leôncio de Carvalho (1879). This politician put forward a bill which, despite restricted to the Court, represented an attempt to reorganize education and even encouraged the building of normal schools and the entry of women into these schools (SAVIANI, 2013)13.
Regarding Primary Education, the Leôncio de Carvalho Reform (1879) regulated mixed-gender education for children up to 10 years old; decided that this form of education should last no longer than four years; and divided it into primary and secondary school. In primary school, girls could take Sewing Foundations, besides the common subjects.In secondary school, there was a common curriculum to all student body, which included specific subjects for each sex: Notions of Domestic Economy andNeedlework for girls, and Notions of Social Economy and Manual Crafts for boys (MACHADO, 2005).
The Leôncio de Carvalho Reform (1879) was contrasted with Rui Barbosa’s project/opinion14, which covered all levels of education since kindergarten (SAVIANI, 2013). Among other aspects, Rui Barbosa recommended the adoption of the intuitive method; mixed-gender classes for children between the ages of 5 and 10; compulsory primary education for boys and girls from 7 to 14; and the permission for girls to miss three days of class per month (MACHADO, 2010). He believed that women were destined for children's education and determined that kindergartens, mixed classrooms, and girls' schools had only female teachers. The male classes of elementary education (7 to 9 years old) were allowed to hire either male or female teachers.
Debates about the educational issue and its importance for Brazil at that time, which dated from the end of the imperial period, continued under republican ruling. Likewise, the issue of co-education remained controversial. It was disliked by two great powers, the Catholic Church15 and positivist thinking. The mixed school issue may have related to the concerns of an incipient Brazilian Republic to civilize and order the Brazilian population from a positivist point of view, well synthesized in the national flag motto: “Ordem e Progresso” (Order and Progress).
New times required greater care with public instruction: it was necessary to educate workers according to the bourgeois view as well as modernizing society. The First Constitution of the Republic (1891) classified teaching as secular16 and charged the State with the responsibility for primary and secondary education17. In addition to the Federal District, several states were concerned with the illiteracy rates and with the expansion of primary public education (DA COSTA, 2010). In this scenario, an experience considered to be of great inspiration was the ReformaEducacionalPaulista (Paulista Educational Reform) (1893). Along with a project and investment in teacher training, it developed a laboratory for school practices and organization for primary education through school groups 18 (graded primary schools).
Based on the intuitive method (lessons of things), Escola Normal Paulista (Normal School of São Paulo), its Model School (1890) and its Kindergarten (1896) were regarded as centers of pedagogical innovation and became a benchmark for the national public education19. Reflecting on co-education, this project is considered less ambitious than the one proposed by both the Leôncio de Carvalho Reform (1879) and Rui Barbosa’sproject/opinions (1882 and 1883)20. In spite of opening doors to primary school for boys and girls, with equal vacancies for both sexes (SOUZA, 1998), only children aged 4 to 6 years (Kindergarten) had access to education in mixed-gender classrooms. The Normal School and the Model School were composed of men-only and women-only sessions 21.
Although they were based on a common frame, both contents and curricular practices were differentiated according to students’ gender. The curriculum of Normal School of São Paulo provided, for example, Military Exercises, Commercial Bookkeeping and Surveying and Political Economy22 for men and Gifts and School Exercises, Home Economics and Gifts for women. Male students were offered experience in the lathes and woodworking workshop, and female students had workshops on modeling and sculptures in clay and plaster. For the boys,exercises using bars and dumbbells. For the girls, activities with rubber bands.
In school groups during the first republican decades, the instruction of boys and girls was differentiated, even when lesson took place in the same building. Several are the signs of this distinction: classes separated by gender, activities specific to one gender or another, use of part of common spaces in the school at different times, separate entrance gates. Because of budget restrictions, there were mixed-gender classes in school groups of that time. However, some instruments of differentiated instruction were in place in these educational establishments. An example could be classroom desk layout in in order to make integration between male and female students more difficult.
Among many considerations on school groups and their related processes, some aspects in the context of this article should be highlighted. In due course, they may contribute to questions: the spaces of power occupied (or not) by women in these teaching institutions; the presence (or ‘invisibility’) of female personalities in the school curriculum; the places female and male characters depicted in the course materials occupy, for example, in the lessons of moral rules and of good living or of the precepts of hygiene; the handiwork planned for the instruction of boys and those provided for the instruction of girls. It is also necessary to reflect on who formed the majority of the staff and who held the positions of direction and inspection (ALMEIDA, 2016).
The events and new thoughts in the late nineteenth century and those that marked the beginning of the twentieth century ended up influencing major changes in the social relations and family composition of the urban strata. The ideal of an extended family (parents, children, near relatives and in-laws) was gradually being replaced by the nuclear family (parents and children), due to more value placed on privacy and the identification of family space as the locus of this privacy. Women were dubbed 'home queen' and the household was their kingdom and destiny. Men maintained their status of breadwinners. It was a new arrangement, but it maintained the old hierarchy of power in relation to both sexes. But not all of these families adhered to bourgeois values, either because they did not wish to do so or because they were not able to fully adopt (SCOTT, 2012).
According to republican thinking, the modernization of society and the education of the male labor force were objectives that could be achieved with the help of women, considered "guardians of the home", "moral force of society." In this context, medical and legal authorities defended female education as a means to achieve and maintain the idea of a progressive reality: educated mothers would be agents of good habits in terms of behavior and hygiene.
However, these progressists did not differ from traditionalists on how women belonged to a private world. They only "widened the meaning of the woman’s role in the family by emphasizing their power to direct the moral development of their sons and daughters and provide nation with good (male) citizens"(HABNER, 2012, p.57). The idea of motherhood was incorporated to the republican ideal of patriotism, so women were raised to the status of progress encouragers within the walls of her home, in caring for her family and in managing the household. Moralism was still regarded as a vector of "control from the oppressed" (MURARO, 1995, p.64).
Home remained the ideal place for women from all walks of life. However, because of family budget issues, many women could not dedicate themselves to the exclusive care of the household. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, factories were the destination of much of urban female labor force23. The space of factory work was seen as a threat to honor and family. When in there, female workers were either seen with a look of sympathy or pity due to their lack of choice. They were also considered guilty of provoking the harassment they suffered and had little voice to stand up to how they perceived the reality they lived.
By looking into the panorama of Brazilian education, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some thoughts and educational practices were different from the government’s ideas and proposals for official instruction. These, in general, have connection with some groups of immigrants or socialist or anarchist workers. Among the immigrant groups in rural areas, being a woman would mean sharing the work. Girls would work in agriculture as well as do the household chores. Among workers, especially among anarchists24, women's education was understood as a political need.
This period has also experienced female education aimed at orphans and/or poor girls and young women, through the efforts of religious orders. They had a moralistic, religious, and vocational focus, or they were designed to develop the skills that would allow female students to work in some function considered suitable for women, such as housekeepers, seamstresses, embroiderers and confectioners.
In the Brazilian panorama, the greatest change in the teaching of boys and girls happened in the 1920s, with Escola Nova. The Escolanovista movement, led by Anísio Teixeira, defended official, compulsory, free, secular and mixed-gender education, but did not transcend the conservative world view regarding female education and the places and functions seen to belong to women. Much like at the end of the Empire, the defense of mixed schools, was connected to the economic cost of universal primary education. Formal equality of opportunity was proposed, but with no reflection on gender, ethnic or socioeconomic issues in the educational area.
The ideas of Escola Nova, the nationalization policy of the Vargas Government, and the costs of implementing and maintaining compulsory and free schooling led the Brazilian educational scene to be made up mostly of mixed-gender schools. However, mixed-gender schools did not translate into egalitarian education, they did not change " [...] the traditional representations of the feminine and the masculine "(AUAD, 2006, page 68) and it was not their intention. To illustrate the lack of commitment to the adoption of a system of co-educational instruction including egalitarian education, Scott (2012) recalls an excerpt from Decree-Law 3,200, dated April 19, 194125, signed by then president Getúlio Vargas:
Men should be educated so that they become fully fit for the responsibilities of head of household. Women will receive education to become fond of marriage, eager for motherhood, competent for raising children, and capable of managing the household. [Emphasis added]. (SCOTT, 2012, p. 20)
During the twentieth century, the level of women’s education in general has increased for several reasons. The justifications concerned the importance of women’s education for the formation of a Nation whose population is more aware of their civic duties; the higher quality of women as mothers because of their education; and public health issues.
The relationship between women's education and public health issues (and others) is not an outdated idea. Discourses and intentions of investments in the area of education still mention this relationship. In the 1990s, multilateral organizations26, women's movements and national governments formed a "triple alliance to reduce poverty and facilitate sustainable development" (ROSEMBERG, 2001: 516). To this end, this tripod was encouraged to invest in projects and actions to girls’ and women’s education which emphasized the reduction of infant mortality; the improvement of economic productivity and the reduction of fertility rates as fruits of this investment. By and large, sponsoring projects whose goals and outcomes center on the personal development of female beneficiaries is uncommon. (ROSEMBERG, 2001)
The female presence in higher education was an important consequence of expanding the offer of Basic Education and feminine education as necessary for the republican progressive and civilizing project27. In the 1940s and 1950s, the student body of higher education was mostly male (ARAUJO, 2007). During the mid-1960s, in the middle sectors of Brazilian society, girls began to consider attending higher education and even investing in professions that used to be seen as belonging to the masculine world, such as engineering, economics, agronomy and computer science (AREND, 2012).
Research on Brazilian education indicates that during the 1970s the female population represented the majority of students enrolled and graduating in High School. These figures are partly related to teacher formation for the initial grades (magistério). Law No. 4,024 of December 20, 1961, LDB - Lei de Diretrizes e Bases (Law of Guidelines and Foundations) - guaranteed equivalence of secondary courses. This measure allowed many normalists, the ones who took magistério, to continue their studies in higher education courses via university entrance exams; one of the consequences was that many teachers pursued courses that would allow them to teach in High School.
In the 1990s most of the enrolled and graduating seniors were female, and in the turn of 2000 Graduate School had more women than men in the student body. Research shows that the indicators of growing levels of female education, which were typical until the 1980s, have been declining. In addition, categories such as access to school and school progression are related to factors such as family income. On these investigative results, Rosenberg (2012) concludes:
[...] better school performances among girls, teenage girls and adult women in comparison to boys, teenage boys and adult men virtually disappears in the middle and higher income levels. [...] inequalities in family income, color, ethnicity, region and place of residence and generation affect the education of men and women more intensely in Brazil than gender differences. This makes access and progression in women’s education equivalent (but not identical) to that of their male peers (ROSEMBERG, 2012, p. 350-1).
Indicators of greater access to formal education for women do not reflect the same percentage of equal opportunities for women’s education in general compared to men. Until the early 2000s, despite the large numbers of female enrollments in higher education, they were concentrated in certain areas of education, such as undergraduate courses, courses of low economic investment and those less valued by our society and the labor market. According to Bourdieu (1999), the relations developed in the school world, even when separated from the influence of the traditional Church, have still reproduced the ideals stemming from a patriarchal relation. As a consequence, there is greater appreciation of some school subjects to the detriment of others.
During the third millennium, Rosemberg (2012) defends the analyses show that the difference between the number of male and female students regarding areas of knowledge, such as those related to the sciences, are decreasing. This is true, as there is a greater influx of women into careers previously seen as 'masculine'. However, the same trend is not observed in relation to men and courses stigmatized as female. Given this information, Macedo's (2010) considerations regarding the greater access to higher education by Portuguese women are valid:
But it is clear that such remarkable access to higher education and, albeit more slowly, to dominant positions in the labor market is only viable in a society such as ours, where middle and upper-class women still have other women of lower classes and disadvantaged ethnicities do housework that continues to be done only by women, not by men. [...]. The great paradox, however, lies in the fact that a hierarchy still exists and that there is continued economic exploitation of women, not only by men but also by other women. But however negative that is, it also means that differences are now being defined not so much in terms of sexuality as in terms of social class. Is it better? Is it worse? It is different (MACEDO, 2010, p.59).
Macedo’s considerations (2010) refer to the persistence of hegemonic representations about what belongs to men and what belongs to women. According to the author, it is not about a redefinition or division of roles in the private world that allows middle and upper class women to experience the public world, but the work of other women in their homes. There is also the question of the double burden, a characteristic of women’s lives more or less intensely at different social levels.
The above statements refer to the aspect of gender hierarchies conditioned to hierarchies of class and ethnicity. With respect to educational systems, it is imperative to think again and ask: "[...] how do gender hierarchies interact with race and class hierarchies to produce an educational system so exclusive as the Brazilian one?” (ROSEMBERG, 2001, p.518).
In addition, it may be naive to simplify the analysis to a generalization of the differences embedded in the treatment and disputes of power in the relations between men and women, disregarding aspects of economic, social and ethnic origin which characterize educational spaces and the world of labor in addition to concomitant dimensions of the educational system: labor market, training places, consumer market. To this end, Rosemberg (2001) ponders:
Once again, I decided to present an overview of the educational situation of men and women in Brazil because it stresses the confluence of mismatches between the production of academic knowledge, the agenda of feminist movements - especially international ones, included in the Conferences, - multilateral organizations, government and public policies. I also think that such a panorama is a sphinx for universalist feminist theories: does gender domination permeate lines in all social institutions in an equal form? In all stages of life? Does it always mean discrimination against women? (ROSEMBERG, 2001, p. 518)
The higher level of education of the female audience in our society still does not reflect a significant change in the androcentric culture, built over centuries of patriarchal modeling. The experience of schooling in mixed-gender classes does not mean this paradigm has been broken, which makes contemporary what Woolf wrote (2012)28 during the 21st century:
Even when the way is nominally open, i.e. when nothing prevents a woman from becoming a doctor, a lawyer, a civil servant, I suppose there are many hardships and obstacles on the way. I think it is very good and important to discuss and define them, [...]. But it is also necessary to discuss the goals and purposes for which we fight against these tremendous obstacles. Setting these goals should not be taken for granted; they need to be questioned and revisited on a regular basis (WOOLF, 2012, p.19).
How can school space be a locus of activities and contributory reflections for gender equality? The answer to this question is far from simple. Efforts need to be made to intentionally change the status of a mixed-gender school to the quality of a 'co-educational' school. Only then will answers be found.
2. ‘Co-education’: a concept with a new understanding
Developing and using concepts cannot be disconnected to a political, social, economic and cultural context of an era and neither from space and place. Historicity is embedded in these concepts.
The terms coeducation and mixed-gender school are generally interchangeable, i.e., a school that serves both men and women. Nowadays, however, studying in a mixed-gender school does not mean receiving gender-differentiated instruction. Nor does it mean egalitarian education for boys and girls is sought. Therefore, the meaning of the term 'co-education' has gained a new meaning, aiming at adopting an education policy for gender equality, which aims at reflecting on social constructions about women’s and men’s roles, and on how school may have an influence on gender inequality or equality (AUAD, 2003, 2006, ZAIDMAN, 1996).
The co-educational perspective perceives "[...] attitudes and values traditionally considered as men’s or women’s in order to be accepted and assumed by people of both genders" (COSTA & SILVA, 2008, p.11). This understanding shows no intention to deny traces of the masculine or the feminine. Instead, it seeks to understand its social, historical, cultural and anthropological components and to avoid learning these traces as an incontestable phenomenon or derived from an absolute or divine truth. The goal is to elevate schools to a space of coexistence, interaction and learning, where the differences between genders are acknowledged without dogmas or hierarchy of values and without imposing behaviors and naturalized tendencies typical of boys or girls (BENEVIDES, 2006).
A school committed to 'co-education' takes three key factors into account: Equal access does not mean equalopportunities, diversity and equity:
a) equal opportunities, which is not a synonym of equal access; b) diversity, which understands that girls and boys are not equal and values each one`s uniqueness promoting existence from acknowledgment of difference; c) equity, which aims to respect the unique characteristics of students [emphasis by the author], believing that rules, methods and content do not meet everyone’s needs. (COSTA; SILVA, 2008, p. 11).
Auad (2006) argues whether school might be a place where is separation and of discrimination are learned. On the other hand, schools may also be an institution promoting equality and understanding that differences should not justify inequality. The scholar emphasizes mixed-gender schools, can be both means and presupposition for the existence of 'co-education’. She adds:
I advocate for mixed-gender schools with systematic reflection on boys’ and girls’ coexistence. I also defend the debate about the definition of masculine and feminine in our society. After all, what masculine and feminine do we want inside and outside our schools? (AUAD, 2006, p.55)
2.1 Gender-differentiated schools and the pedagogy of effectiveness
In this study, mixed-gender schooling is shown as a possible means of generating an educational space committed to removing gender inequalities. However, it is necessary to take into account the advocates for gender-differentiated instruction as the most adequate alternative.
Colégio São Bento do Rio Janeiro (Brasil), a traditional school dedicated to the education of boys, sometimes openly denies any intention to accept girls as members of their student body29. Contemporary public speeches by representatives of this institution differ little from speeches given in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s by defenders of military schools, linked to the Brazilian Army, as schools which offered boys-only education (CARRA, 2008 and 2014)30. Their arguments are similar to those presented by opposers of mixed-gender schools in the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century.
There is nothing new in concerns about the coexistence of both genders in the same classroom, and/or possible advantages or disadvantages listed in the speeches given in the 21st century. The defense of single-gender education as a premise for the achievement of a gender-equal society may bring innovation to the discussion.
Defenders of this idea say that, because boys and girls are different, they need a differentiated pedagogy. Although the same content is taught, the teaching method should be appropriate to the peculiarities of each sex. This model of teaching institution, as well as the rationale that supports it, has advocates in several European countries, Australia, Latin America and the United States. In fact, there are some of them in Brazil31.
Educators who adopt separation according to gender or who teach only one gender are called by their advocates as a "differentiated school". However, the concept of differentiated education goes beyond education designed only for boys or only for girls. In Brazil, an example of differentiated education is indigenous education (GRUPIONI, 2001)32.
This rationale based on pedagogical efficiency and biological differences between men and women claims to ensure a non-sexist school because of separate instruction of men and women, leading to less disparaging competition and comparison between genders during the whole period of basic education.
The advocates of the so-called personalized or gender-differentiated schools consider that differences between boys and girls, such as maturity, behavior, tastes, jokes and ways of learning, are related to innate characteristics. According to Charro:
[...] ignore the intrinsic differences between the sexes [...] This will be addressed as a second generation of differentiated education. I do not mean to separate girls to harm them or to teach them sewing, while boys are taught math. Nor is it the education of the time of General Franco’s regime, based on moral and religious beliefs. This differentiated education aims at gender equality. It is not at all religious or linked to religious or moral beliefs [...] It would be ideal if the mixed-gender model disconnected itself from the neutralizing egalitarianism of the genders. However, it is hard to attain that. If you teach in a reasoned, slow and analytical manner, girls get bored, while if you teach in an explicit and agile way the boys get lost. Men’s process of maturation and development is much slower than that of girls. Solving this issue is very complicated.33
There is no doubt that boys and girls, men and women, are equal in rights and duties, humanity and dignity. However, sexual-cerebral dimorphism leads to different forms of socialization, communication, affection, sexuality, behavior as well as different reactions to identical stimuli. These aspects will determine how their learning differs34 (CHARRO, 2009, p. 112).
Many advocates of differentiated instruction in the twenty-first century deny the influence of religion or of the Catholic Church in their arguments. However, in is present in the discourses, so that this model of education is perceived to serve the principles defended by conservative religious congregations/organizations.
This discourse dates from this century and is founded on scientific knowledge; in defense of an effective pedagogy; in the quality of formal education; in the search for non-sexist education; and in the right of choice of school education that families wish to offer their sons and daughters. Their arguments, however, do not date exclusively from the 21st century: they are extremely similar to the discourses in the past, such as those in the 1970s and 1980s taking place within ColégioMilitar de Porto Alegre and the community in which this school is inserted (CARRA 2008 and 2014)35. This discourse looks contemporary from the outside, but it is actually embedded with old certainties.
Conclusions
It is possible to consider that any discourse that defend education separated by gender, as well as those that defend mixed-gender education shed a light on efforts, movements and functions of gender relations and reflect the changes in the universe of these relations.
I do not disagree that women and men are different. In fact, there are differences between one man and another. There are differences between one woman and another. I believe that many of the functions and/or natural characteristics of men and women permeate culture and, to this end, are also part of the subjective.
I do not understand how separating education by gender can assure non-sexist education. Nor can it encourage female leaderships or equal relations between men and women, regardless of their sexual orientation, political choice, background or religion. We live in a plural world and it is where we will develop our relationships, choices and actions.
The debate about the education of men and women persists, it is open and current. I believe History of Education has much to add to this debate and to the efforts to build a less sexist reality, which also includes the school universe. To this end, I remember the words of Antonio Nóvoa (2004) when he answers the question: What is the purpose of History of Education? "To explain that there is no change without a history. Historical work and pedagogical work are very much alike. We have been learning to handle experience and making memories” [emphasis added] (ANTONIO NÓVOA, 2004, p.11). Like Nóvoa (2004, p.10), "I am not talking about chronological history, stuck in the past. I am talking about history that stems from today’s problems, which suggests points of view anchored in a thorough study of the past".