Introduction

Legal Education in Brazil follows a traditional and dogmatic methodological trend, largely removed from social discussions and debates. The national legislation that provides for the guidelines and rules that regulate and guide Higher Education Institutions, since the 1988 Constitution, has undergone constant changes in order to update the way Law is taught, seeking to align this field with the dynamicity of relations and the new social needs that arise from them.

Despite legislative changes and the implementation of specific goals, the full training of the law professional faces obstacles especially in the methodologies used in the classroom. Institutions maintain a technical and uncritical modus operandi and do not seek, in practice, to adapt and make use - almost always - of new pedagogical methodologies that promote debates, research and university extension, resulting in what several studies (^{CHAUÍ, 2001}; ^{ALMEIDA, 2016}; ^{BONELLI, 2017}, 2019; ^{ALMEIDA NETO, CARDOSO, 2020b}; ^{DINIZ, CARDOSO, 2021}) have called, for decades, the crisis in legal education and higher education.

The massification of law programs, which prioritize quantity over the quality of higher education, and the lack of institutional stimulus to critical methodologies, currently result in the training of thousands of unprepared legal operators without citizen and political awareness of their social role, since they found an education strongly directed - solely - to the exegetical interpretation of codes and manuals. Thus, it is not difficult to observe how the work of professionals in this field reproduces discriminations and violences.

Accordingly, the research problem of the present research is the following question: what is the political-scientific role of legal higher education in relation to the reflection on gender issues in the context of the city of Arcoverde, Pernambuco, Brazil? Based on the issue in question, we propose to critically reflect on the legal education in a non-metropolitan area, situating the reality of the elected municipality and the context of the institutions. Therefore, the general objective of the study is to analyze the political and scientific role of legal higher education in relation to the reflection on gender issues in the context of the municipality of Arcoverde, Pernambuco, Brazil.

On the other hand, the specific objectives chosen consist in: describing the politicalscientific vocation of higher education in relation to traditionalism in Brazilian legal programs; discussing the structural absence of gender studies in the technical-dogmatic curricular components of undergraduate law programs; and, finally, analyze the Pedagogical Projects of the undergraduate law programs in the municipality of Arcoverde, Pernambuco, from the perspective of gender studies.

In this study, we dimensioned theoretical assumptions about the technicist trend in legal higher education, in order to emphasize the social role of education at this level. The point is demonstrating the perspective of the fundamental aspects for the full education of students in these programs through the necessary intersection between education, research and extension. Similarly, we seek to present the importance of studying gender issues for the education of critical graduates, aware as to discrimination and violence. To this end, documentary analysis of the Pedagogical Projects of three law programs located in the city of Arcoverde-PE, based on the axes of education, research and extension, helps understand how the context in which social discussions (including those related to gender issues) are situated organize and dimension the political-scientific commitments of these programs and, later, the educational process of the HEIs.

This is an inductive study (BRAUNER, CIGALES, SOARES JUNIOR, 2013) that is based on the problematization of the Pedagogical Projects of Law programs in the city of Arcoverde aiming to - throughout the reflections - expand toward broader assumptions related to legal education. Through a descriptive investigation, we seek to conjecture the problem studied and, later, make use of some assumptions, either in dialogue with the bibliographic survey carried out or with the description of the institutional sets of information chosen through documentary analysis (^{SILVEIRA; CÓRDOVA, 2008}). Thus, the research adopts a qualitative approach (^{SOUZA; KERBAUY, 2017}), considering the analysis of narrative aspects present in the PPCs. The research universe consists of the Pedagogical Projects of the Undergraduate Law Programs currently in operation in the municipality of Arcoverde-PE. The data collection technique was based on documentary research, observed considering the relevant bibliography, which is responsible for the deepening of publications and thematic categories that are related to the chosen topic (^{LIMA; MIOTO, 2007}).

Legal Traditionalism and the Social Role of Higher Education

Education, as a place of signification of social phenomena and, at all its levels, can be understood as an instrument through which people have the possibility to develop critical thinking. Thus, the main role of the university - ideally - is the dissemination of knowledge, the democratization of knowledge, the training of professionals with social and citizen awareness (^{PIVETTA et al., 2010}). Since the 1988 Federal Constitution, a series of documents have been edited and promulgated in order to combat strictly technical education in universities and to fulfill its role in society. After all, professional training requires, in addition to technical knowledge, critical thinking, sensitivity, social awareness, and concern with the problems that go beyond the context of the universities themselves.

Law 9,394/1996, the National Education Guidelines and Bases Law, in its article 43¹, provides for the purpose of higher education. Among such aspects, the promotion of cultural development, the encouragement of research, dissemination of cultural and scientific knowledge, the execution of university extension activities, the universalization of knowledge, and personal and technical improvement (BRASIL, 1996) are emphasized aspects. Firstly, the university must go beyond mere technical vocational training, assuming its inherent social role comprehensively. However, despite the well-known importance of the university as an instrument for transforming culturally constructed paradigms, a minimal portion of society has the opportunity to attend an undergraduate program (^{MARTINS; VIEIRA, 2018}; ^{ZAGO, 2006}). The difficulty of access begins, for example, in relation to the amounts charged in private institutions for attending the program, regarding the centrality of institutions in large urban centers and the interruption of the process of expansion of public higher education in the country, starting in 2016, with the rise of neoliberal governments.

In relation to Public Universities, several entrance examination processes account - due to the absence of affirmative policies - for preventing the access of people who neither had the opportunity to study in full-time private schools nor to attend more renowned exam preparation courses. Therefore, it is not difficult to observe the economic class, the ethnic, racial, generational and gender dimensions of students who, for the most part, attend the classrooms of programs considered to be of high demand and prestige, such as law programs (^{RISTOFF, 2014}). Similarly, it is people of this profile who make up the teaching staff, in view of the path taken by them, from the master's and doctorate degrees, to becoming part of the staff of professors of Public Universities, especially (^{BONELLI et al., 2019}).

In this sense, the educators play a decisive role in maintaining or overcoming the mechanistic and acritical precepts that govern the university and its teaching practices, as well as the choice of priorities and agendas. Thus, since the legal field is mostly composed of professionals who have close relationships with the interests of hegemonic groups, who have the power to 'say the law,' the way in which legal programs and logic are operated is hardly contrary to such interests, being, in fact, a reflection of the aforementioned agenda of values, visions and priorities (^{ALMEIDA, 2016}). So, in what way, other than by getting closer to communities, can people who are part of universities understand and intervene regarding social needs, desires and vulnerabilities? Considering the fact that there is no representation of the most vulnerable classes in the university spaces, how can the problems that directly affect them be highlighted and made visible? The formulation of solutions or means of social transformation of everyday issues reproduced in reality also depends on valuing the social role of the academic community.

According to ^{Chauí (2001}), socially, and considering the university as a social institution integral to society and, therefore, a reflection of it, the other, the different, be it in relation to class, gender, race, ethnicity, generation, is not situated, in most cases, as a subject of rights. It is not recognized in this space, therefore, how certain social factors guide university practice. Those that are different - reinforcing the notion of inequality - are viewed hierarchically, as the other is seen as inferior. On the other hand, subjects who identify themselves as' equals,' based on hegemonic characteristics, reinforce this connection of 'recognition.' In this context, we have, on one side, the relationship of identification/kinship and, on the other, relationships of clientelism and assistentialism, and, in fact, there is no concern with contributing to the daily lives of vulnerable groups of the population.

In order for academic education to be able to surpass mere vocational training and raise the students’ critical awareness of the world, it is necessary to make them capable of being a transformative agent. According to ^{Santos (2010}), it is necessary to consider the three axes that support and broaden the process of training and dissemination of knowledge in higher education: education, research and extension. The 1988 Federal Constitution, in its article 207, provides the necessary connection of the aforementioned domains so that academic training is complete, as: “Universities enjoy didactic-scientific, administrative, and financial and asset management autonomy and will obey the principle of inseparability between education, research and extension” (BRASIL, 1988, p. 36).

Thus, through university extension, for example, students have contact with social issues and understand the relevance of certain discussions for changing the status quo, comprehending the daily demands of the most vulnerable population. Combining this process with research, so it enables critical problematization of common sense, and with education, based on praxis, there is a wide possibility, through the interconnection of the axes, of considering acting as a social transformer (^{SANTOS, 2010}).

Resolution No. 5, dated December 17, 2018 (BRASIL, 2018), by instituting the National Curricular Guidelines for the Undergraduate Law Program, in accordance with the CNE/CES Opinion No.: 635/2018, demonstrates, in the same way, the concern that the academia operates bby the inseparability between the three dimensions (art. 2, § 3)². In addition, it also indicates the duty of the Pedagogical Project (PPC) of the Program to include in its provisions ways of implementing interdisciplinarity, the ways of integrating the world, and the unity between theory and practice. Article 3 of this Resolution demonstrates the concern as to the Law program ensuring training in a holistic manner, that is, in a humanistic and formal way, and being responsible for developing the capacity to accept cultural pluralism and diversity (art. 4, X)³.

The guidelines present in the educational documents and directives, which encourage education not only from a technical perspective, have been recommended since the 1988 Federal Constitution (BRASIL, 1988). However, with the institution of he Education Guidelines and Bases Law (BRASIL, 1996), there were significant changes in the aforementioned educational guidelines, with the repeal of the minimum curriculum, seeking to overcome the limitation of the autonomy of undergraduate programs. Since then, there has been greater concern with the improvement of the pedagogical practices adopted in universities, so such training spaces are more consistent with the social needs (^{PIVETTA et al., 2010}; ^{BENTO, CARDOSO, 2021a}).

Thus, the Public University has the role and challenge of transmitting knowledge beyond technical aspects. The incentives for research and the opportunity to participate in extension programs, projects and actions, in this reality, are dimensions that, in the case of Brazilian legal programs, are still hindered by the attachment to the traditionalism of the educators and by the precepts according to which these professionals think about the educational practice. It is worth mentioning that, despite the commitment to include such dimensions in the official documents on legal education, according to ^{Colaço (2006}), in addition to the legal practice, considered mandatory in the aforementioned documents, the implementation of the extension is not common in Brazilian legal programs, nor is the institutionality of research projects and groups.

In parallel with research, a universe of extreme importance for higher education, university extension affords the possibility of fostering other practices and agencies, beyond the mere bibliographic or dogmatic exploration of Law. It is possible to understand, through extension projects, that people, often only remembered by hierarchical investigation processes (^{CARDOSO, CARVALHO, 2018}) - such as trans women, women victims of domestic and family violence, incarcerated women, among others - are not just 'objects of study.' As true protagonists of the problems raised academically, they possess, with propriety, knowledge and experiences that have much to contribute to the resignification of higher education (^{GOMES, MELO, 2021}). The distancing produced by and in academia ends up evoking the notion that researchers do not deal with real problems and people (^{SALATA, 2018}), that they live daily with mere research questions, solely.

The debate on higher education, legal training and traditionalism needs to be reconsidered according to new fronts and spaces for reflection. Particularly, the ways of adding social transformation to pedagogical practice, beyond merely technical or technological methodologies, coincide with the resistance to positivist and uncritical neoliberal education. After all, higher education is the proper space for students to approach and intervene in relation to social issues, such as gender discussions.

Admission to undergraduate Law programs, already characterized by multiple inequalities, must be followed by the validation of a curricular matrix and critical education, research and extension practices. As the legal program approaches the completion of training, the predominant discussion on legislation itself, according to the logic and requirements of market traditionalism, ends up distancing students from relevant issues that can contribute decisively - after graduation - to overcoming different forms of inequality. The result of this path, according to ^{Chauí (2001}), is that Brazilian universities train professionals with precarious critical sense, without citizen awareness, reproducers of violence and inequalities, naturalized by everyday authoritarianism and hierarchized social relations.

The Undergraduate Law Program and Gender Issues

The traditional and technical aspects of education observed in Brazilian undergraduate Law programs (^{BENTO, CARDOSO, 2021b}) are trends seen in much of Latin America (^{CAOVILLA, 2015}). In this sense, this field disregards the movement of some countries and fields of knowledge, which have shown greater concern with the social needs of the vulnerable population.

Brazil has more than 1,755 Law programs throughout the territory (^{CORTEZ, 2020}). In the city that is the universe of this study, Arcoverde, Pernambuco, with approximately 75,000 inhabitants, there are currently three institutions offering law education, two private and one public. In four years, following the trend and number of places offered, the city will train approximately 250 professionals per year.

In contrast to the constant increase in programs, in 2019, according to ^{Ernesto (2021}), only 13% of the evaluated undergraduate programs obtained the 'OAB Recommends' Quality Seal. The criterion used to award this seal is, only, the performance in the Bar Examination. This factor shows, on the one hand, the priority criteria based on which the body assesses the quality of a legal program, reducing it to the performance in a multiple-choice and a subjective test, in conjunction with a professional piece, and, on the other hand, the disregard of academic aspects related to education, research and extension.

In addition to the unrestrained expansion of Law programs in the country, often seen only as a profitable niche for the market in question, and because they mean financial maintenance for a number of private universities, considering the high demand in university entrance exams, legal education coexists with endemic pedagogical problems (^{BENTO, CARDOSO, 2021b}). Characterized by aspects of neutrality and impartiality, incompatible with the position occupied by Law itself in society, legal higher education is organized, recurrently, based on the alleged exemption in relation to discriminatory issues, even reproduced by academia. According to Severi and Campos (2018), legal positions, whether related to private law or public office, are predominantly held by cis, white men from favored social classes. Thus, under the discourse of legal certainty, neutrality and impartiality, in dialogue with complex social issues, they end up forging an epistemic and political locus that is comfortable for legal operators and institutions.

The technicality, observed in Brazilian law programs, culminates in the absence of indepth discussions on topics such as gender and sexuality (^{LEITE, DIAS, 2015}), but not only these. The way the subject is instituted in legal programs, usually related to material and criminal procedure law, or in sporadic elective subjects, shows how 'less important' issues are dealt with in the training of such professionals, and students, even during the program, may not experience any debate on the issues mentioned. In addition to contributing to the uncritical training of future professionals, the supremacy of technical aspects ends up rendering gender issues invisible (^{PAVÃO, CARVALHO, 2021}), culminating in the “inability when faced with these issues and the continuous reproduction of harmful gender stereotypes in the legal production and work” (^{ALMEIDA, 2016}, p. 37).

According to Polonia and ^{Cheron (2019}), the absence of discussions related to gender and sexuality in education, not only in undergraduate courses, but in different institutional spaces, reflects the diffusion of binary views. Heteronormative standards determine the meaning of normal and abnormal, inferior and superior, included and excluded, in terms of gender and sexuality. This vision ends up reproducing, in all its forms, misogyny, sexism, discrimination and related violence. Among the problems faced in the struggle against gender violence, in addition to the aforementioned structure, the absence of specific guidelines, various forms of victimization reflect the lack of preparation and qualification of the agents that are part of the protection network, often reproducing discriminatory statements, which distance victims from state protection (^{BERNARDES, 2014}), which is already precarious, disqualified and inefficient.

The expanded scope of the problem dates back, for example, to March 2021, 23 years after the enactment of the Federal Constitution of 1998, when the Supreme Court was activated, through ADPF 779, to decide on the unconstitutionality of the thesis of legitimate defense of honor, commonly used by lawyers for the defense of male aggressors in trials in cases of domestic and family violence against women (BRASIL, 2021). As a result, the Supreme Court unanimously decided for the unconstitutionality of the thesis, since it violates the fundamental principles of human dignity and gender equality.

The wide utilization of this and other discriminatory theses implicitly denounce the educational gaps in the approach to gender issues in the process of legal education, whether in relation to professionals who follow careers as lawyers, as judges - accepting absurd and clearly discriminatory theses -, in addition to public agents, who are in direct contact with victims of gender violence.

As pointed out by ^{Duarte, Dall, and Souza (2012}), the way in which subjects are traditionally presented and distributed in university legal programs promotes - surreptitiously - the hierarchy between the curricular components. We have, on the one hand, subjects of what is referred to by the authors as 'fundamental training axis' - known as propaedeutics, generally inserted in the early periods of training, such as the History of Law, Philosophy, Anthropology or Sociology and, at the other end, those that constitute the socalled 'professional axis' - dogmatic subjects, seen, implicitly and even explicitly, as those truly relevant to professional training, since these will lead professionals to achieve their goals through public service admission exams or the practical examination of the OAB.

The tendency to divide the subjects into separate compartments, as if they were separable, independent, compromises interdisciplinary teaching and the understanding of what Law is in its pedagogical scope (^{SOBRAL, 2016}; ^{ALMEIDA NETO, CARDOSO, 2020a}, 2020b). All areas - Human Rights, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Procedural Law, Sociology, Philosophy - are complementary and equally important. They need to dialogue and build connections with one another so students build their worldview, understanding the purpose of the norm in relation to society and people. Because the semantic and political value of the laws and of their interpretations needs to give practical relevance to the legal system and the goals of social movements. Despite providing visibility to social problems, the legislations, products of the political struggles of social movements - such as the Maria da Penha Law and the Femicide Law -, in isolation, are not capable of achieving the transformation of reality. It is necessary to integrate social institutions and people's experiences in the dynamics of legal-academic training, otherwise education will also contribute to the reproduction of systemic violence.

Changing the current situation of Brazilian legal education involves not only curricular changes, which are often inefficient, nor the mere modification of the names of the subjects or the inclusion of others belonging to the dogmatic axis. On the contrary, it is essential to observe the scientific structure and dynamics adopted in legal education and which discussions are effectively promoted in the academic space. The CNE/CES Opinion No.: 635/2018, accordingly, reinforces this understanding, stating that: “encyclopedic curricula do not represent correct answers to the demands for knowledge and skills of graduates in the area” (CNE, 2018, p. 12).

From the critical perspective emphasized by Paulo Freire on the 'Banking model of education,' ^{Brighente and Mesquida (2016}) problematize the need for education not to be organized in order to prioritize the mechanical aspects of learning, through memorization, for example. As, when practicing education in a banking manner, there is no possibility of training critical and conscious professionals. The professor deposits the knowledge in the classroom, the content is memorized by the students only until the exam that will approve them. Subsequently, students advance their training and simply discard what was supposedly memorized. Thus, there is no two-way exchange, a dialogue that promotes reflection on the world. Without a close reflective relationship between student and professor, there is no possibility of change (^{BENTO, CARDOSO, 2021a}; 2021b). Therefore, the need to enable the liberating role of education.

It is worth mentioning that, as argued by ^{Kipper (2000}), the relationship involved in education is not limited to the relationship between student and professor. Higher education institutions have direct responsibility for the way legal education is produced in the classroom. The lack of autonomy and support to professors, in addition to obstacles in the implementation of pedagogical innovation, research and extension projects, are crucial for the neoliberal rationalist maintenance of the current legal education situation.

In this context, therefore, there is a greater incidence of undergraduate Law programs with uncritical, market-oriented proposals, which are focused only on the mere discussion of laws and judicial decisions, purely, without the necessary problematizing view of these instruments. Similarly, increasingly distancing themselves from the desires and needs of the society in which they operate, contrary to the documents that guide higher education in Brazil, legal programs, despite the recent changes in the guidelines of legal education, reproduce a given logic of knowledge, violent and authoritarian.

As described by the National Curricular Guidelines prepared by the Thematic Advisory Chamber on Regulatory Policy for Legal Education, proposed to the CNE by the Department for Regulation and Supervision of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education (SERES/MEC), approved by MEC Ordinance No. 1,351, of December 14, 2018 and based on CNE/CES Opinion No. 635/2018, education must: “provide a teaching-learning relationship that meets a multidimensional process of construction of autonomy, of the pillars of knowledge: learning to know, learning to do, learning to coexist, and learning to be” (BRASIL, 2018, p. 10). The document also establishes the importance of current aspects, such as environmental education, human rights, and issues related to gender, generation, ethnic-racial issues, and others.

Having the power to state the right and to decide conflicts are privileges. The greater the power of the social and institutional position held, the lower human diversity is observed. Without representativeness and pluralization of decision-making spaces, the obstacles experienced by the most vulnerable population and by people who play roles with the potential for transforming society are increasingly intensifying. That is why it is important for future professionals to have contact with discussions that show the various forms of vulnerabilities experienced by different groups. After all, understanding the factors that permeate unequal social structures and forms of violence brings students closer to understanding the effectiveness of social justice.

The Context of Legal Education in Arcoverde, Pernambuco, Based on the Pedagogical Projects of the Programs in the Municipality

The municipality of Arcoverde, located in the Moxotó Backlands in the State of Pernambuco, with an estimated population of 74,822 inhabitants (IBGE, 2020), has three undergraduate Law programs, which are located in a Public University - which began its activities in 2010, offering 40 annual places -, a Municipal Authority - established since 2018, offering 100 annual places -, and a private college - with its first class opened in the second half of 2019, offering 150 annual places. In this study, we will use the three Pedagogical Projects⁴ of the Law Programs in the city as a corpus, which we will call PPC1, PPC2, and PPC3, respectively.

In addition to understanding the way in which priorities are established in the programs, we will observe the way in which the curricula are distributed, providing - or not - a milieu conducive to debate on gender issues. These documents enable verifying whether HEIs are concerned with a holistic vocational education, beyond dogmatism and legal technicism, based on the analysis of the three fundamental axes of training provided by the undergraduate programs, namely: education, research and extension.

We know that it is not feasible to teach and assess Law fully without understanding the reality experienced in the social environment in which a college is situated. Social demands vary according to each region, so that it is not possible to establish a universal and standardized teaching formula capable of encompassing the peculiarities of any and all social contexts. It is therefore necessary to monitor the dynamicity of human relations and to conceive pedagogical projects and teaching plans respecting the individuality of each community.

Throughout their projects, the three higher education institutions in the municipality present an apparent concern with the introduction of students in the labor market and in the reality of the local community. In the documents chosen and analyzed, there is recognition of the university's role in relation to society, albeit in a generic and, certainly, abstract way. In addition to the ratified importance given to the training of professionals, the texts mention aspects that, at the textual level, refer to a humanitarian view, indicating that students need to build sensitive knowledge, citizen and environmental awareness, situating them as agents that transform the reality of which they are part.

Among the characteristics assumed by the projects, concepts such as flexibility and interdisciplinarity are recurrent as to the definition of central paradigms assumed by institutions and programs and the way in which the subjects are selected and distributed in the curriculum. Throughout the three documents, there is the option of a methodology, in theory, that claims to favor discussions of a social and everyday nature, seeking the construction of students' autonomy and critical view, mentioning the institutional commitment to surpassing, in theory, the mere presentation of content in the classroom.

Committing to encouraging debates relevant to the environment, the three selected undergraduate programs mention in their projects a work aimed at the inseparability between education, research and extension, through which the social demands of the local community, students and professors would be considered. Below, we present the analysis of these documents based on three basic axes: education, research and extension.

Final Considerations

The present study aimed to analyze the political, scientific and pedagogical role of legal higher education in the face of gender violence in the municipality of Arcoverde, Pernambuco. By carefully evaluating the Pedagogical Projects of Law Programs of the municipality and thus contextualizing the chosen discussions, we problematized the trend of national and local legal education, distributed among the three axes referred to by national legislation for the academic training of professionals, namely: education, research, extension.

We found that, despite the apparent concern of the three Higher Education Institutions as to the non-reproduction of technical education paradigms and as to the inseparability between the three dimensions, the documents do not establish unique didactic positions regarding the debates on gender inequality, gender violence, discrimination, violence and cultural diversity. Thus, the three institutions build the program presentation in a way that is unrelated to the local reality, which, as observed, has significant figures for gender violence and an inexpressive structure for fighting it.

As for the education axis, little space is reserved for gender issues throughout the syllabus. Of the three institutions, one of them, HEI-2, does not even mention the content in its subjects, not even randomly. According to the analysis, there is inconsistency between the program presentations and the syllabuses and recommended bibliographies, and HEI-1 is the only institution concerned with explicitly referring to the need for critical reflection of each component made available.

Regarding the research axis, the programs adopt a fragmented discourse, despite the recognized importance and the commitment to foster undergraduate research established in the documents, the goals and actions included are generic, and there is no way to recognize the institutions’ intention to commit to specific topics. The only HEI with registered research groups is HEI-1, that is, without the institution's support, the students end up having contact with the axis in the compulsory courses of Scientific Research Methodology and Program Completion Paper, which compromises the construction of knowledge in a way critical manner.

Regarding university extension, the documents also adopt a stance that does not establish specific objectives. Legal practice, in turn, is assumed to be a central element of this axis. Although HEI-1 and HEI-2 commit to the curricularization of the minimum university extension, which is required by regulatory bodies, the projects do not include goals focused on topics that contribute to improve the reality of the municipality and its local needs, including gender issues. The documents are structured solely with the concern of meeting basic requirements that guarantee authorization to operate and recognition by the MEC, without the actual intention of promoting discussions aimed at changes in the local community. The political-pedagogical role that should - in theory - be played by the undergraduate law program is absent, as is the construction of a horizontal view of at social and gender minorities.

Therefore, the documents demonstrate the semantic, didactic and pedagogical emptiness of the proposals and the adoption of poorly articulated and apolitical discourses by institutional projects, which directly affects the approach to gender issues in legal education. We observed a limitation regarding the object of research analyzed, since the documents are vague in several aspects and, particularly and systematically, leave it up to professors to devise initiatives involving social issues, including gender issues and related issues.

Therefore, the pedagogical projects analyzed, as such, do not establish didactic parameters that contribute so professors address the topic in question in the classroom and so the minimum objectives established by the program for citizen higher education are, in fact, fulfilled. Although it is not possible to determine - based on the analysis of the documents alone - the institutional justifications for the lack of implementation of education, research and extension projects that address and problematize gender issues, this is a significant gap in the legal higher education of the municipality of Arcoverde and Sertão de Pernambuco. Finally, issues related to the technical and dogmatic practice of the programs end up being assumed, almost exclusively, as quality elements of the higher education of law bachelors.