Saberes docentes: questões de gênero e o ensino de seleção sexual

Abstract

The teaching action is supported by a repertoire of knowledge, among the knowledge of a specific area there are social and cultural issues and gender issues permeate these knowledges. In the scientific contents of Biology sexist and discriminatory descriptions of males and females, men and women, appear naturalized. In the description of sexual selection, gender issues are observed through inferences made by researchers. The objective of our research is to understand the knowledge of the future Biological Sciences teachers in relation to the gender issues that permeate the content of sexual selection. The participants were undergraduates of the Biological education program of a Public University of Paraná, attending the senior year of graduation. A Potentially Significant Teaching Unit was developed with the purpose of training and data constitution. The data were consisted of questionnaires (initial, final and posterior), description of the visualization of the interaction between birds and analysis of technical texts with descriptions of sexual selection. The analysis of categorical thematic content was used in the data, for this we built units of context and register that allowed the analysis of empirical data, inferences and interpretations. The data revealed that future teachers understand gender relations in the descriptions of sexual selection, perceive creative and imaginative elements, and differentiate observation moments and inference in the construction of this knowledge. On the other hand, when they need to describe sexual selection they fall into socially accepted stereotypes; some do not conceive the interference of social and cultural gender values in the knowledge of sexual selection. Gender issues need to be widely discussed in teacher education to compose the knowledge necessary for teaching, because there is a difficulty to break both with the notions of common sense of science and to destabilize and deconstruct gender representations that are historically naturalized in society and by science.