Identidade de gênero e orientação sexual na educação e no ensino de ciências: o que revelam as teses e dissertações das universidades públicas do Mato Grosso do Sul e as Atas do ENPEC?

Abstract

We live in a world where many bodies have no voice, such as those from the LGBTQIA+ community, especially after the (mis)government of former President Jair M. Bolsonaro, who used his "gender ideology" to attack, discredit, and render invisible knowledge related to gender identities and sexual orientations. And even though these topics have gained a bit more visibility in various contexts, they are still far from being implemented across all spheres — including public universities, their master's and doctoral programs, and related academic events. In light of this, this research aims to understand how these topics are present in graduate programs in Education and Science Teaching at public universities in Mato Grosso do Sul (MS), as well as in all editions of ENPEC. The study is grounded in Freirean epistemology, known for presenting a humanizing approach that gives voice to all bodies and rejects different forms of prejudice, drawing from works such as "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" (1987), "Under the Shade of This Mango Tree" (2015), and "Pedagogy of Autonomy" (2019). With a qualitative and quantitative approach, this research is structured as a State of the Art review — that is, a bibliographic survey of a specific topic to be examined, which in this case is sexuality. It is important to highlight that searches were completed on 06/05/2024, meaning any research defended after this date was disregarded. The data indicate that both in ENPEC and the investigated programs, the inclusion of gender identity and sexual orientation was extremely low, as in both cases this representation did not reach 2% of the total. This is considered sad, worrying, and alarming, especially since ENPEC and the investigated programs target researchers who are also teachers. Consequently, it was expected that discussions focused on knowledge related to the social realities and challenges faced by students — such as frequent cases of sexism, homophobia, misogyny, and transphobia — would emerge. However, the priority seems to be otherwise.