Abstract

OLIVEIRA, Anna Luiza Martins de  and  SILVA, Ribbyson José de Farias. Gender in Physics teaching: education by stone against the glass labyrinth. Rev. Educ. Questão [online]. 2020, vol.58, n.58, e-22507.  Epub Oct 16, 2020. ISSN 1981-1802.  https://doi.org/10.21680/1981-1802.2020v58n58id22507.

Two million individuals currently work as teachers in basic education in Brazil, most of them women. The majority of Physics teachers, however, are men. The present article uses Political Theory of Discourse and Poststructuralist Gender Studies to examine the rationale underlying the belief that Physics is an academic subject for (some) men and to explore the emergence of practices that challenge this hegemony. The corpus used comprises narrative statements from six Physics teachers from the Agreste region of the Brazilian State of Pernambuco. The results indicate that the standardization of scientific canons still prevails and this consolidates gender barriers, which are thereby established as social norms and hence seen as natural. Such mechanisms stunt the potential and impoverish the working life of many teachers but cannot expunge their existence. It is concluded that viewing science as a setting inhabited by living expressive beings is the best strategy for confronting the elaborate labyrinths that continue to be constructed.

Keywords : Physics teaching; Gender; Discourse; Experience.

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