Children’s perspective on gender issues within school

Abstract

This research investigates children’s conceptions about gender relationships and the role of school evaluation processes. From a sociocultural constructivist approach, the goal is to identify semiotic, cultural aspects present in the children’s narrative to make sense of gender relations within school experience. We selected two sessions of focal group meeting for analysis, one with boys only, other with girls. We used a hermeneutic, qualitative methodology to analyze communicative interactions. Results show that gender power relations can be detected among the participants, with a significant influence of the collective culture concerning the association of men to the public domain and violence, and women to domestic affairs and caring social roles. Asymmetrical positions entail struggle between control and victimization. However, contradictory positioning were also found, particularly in relation to classroom experiences and evaluation, for children experience a similar treatment by their teacher.