Representações de gênero de docentes do Instituto de Artes e Design da Universidade Federal de Pelotas

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the investigation regarding the representation of gender from teachers at the Arts and Design Institute at the Federal University of Pelotas. It aims to assess the influences that an art school may have in order to compose and (re)produce a symbolic structure of the differences and inequalities between men and women. Representations are the meanings that subjects, objects, events, real or fictions, have and which are made along the history of mankind. The theoretical basis for this research is the study of gender which deals with the conception that male and female identities are built in the relationships of power between the two genders and in the relationships with the society. The investigation about gender and education highlighted school experiences, assessing its role for the formation and reproduction of social differences between genders. In the approach about gender and art, two aspects from the History of Art regarding women were highlighted: their exclusion as an artist and producer of this History and the way female image representation was idealized. The overall aim of this research was to investigate which are how the gender representations were built in the conceptions of the teachers from Arts and Design Institute. The other aims were to identify what are the relationships among all the gender representations acquired along their personal life and those noticeable in their professional training ; analyze what the contribution of the teaching formation in visual arts is in order to build the representations of gender presented by the teachers; analyze the perception from the teachers about the representations of gender in the contents developed in Teaching and Bachelor degree courses in the Arts and Design Institute; identify the reasons which led teachers from the Arts and Design Institute to choose the formation and work as a teacher in a school of visual arts. This investigation was enabled by the qualitative research methodology, made up of semi-structured interviews, having the result of empiric work, carried out with four female teachers and three male teachers, allowing the analyses of family situations, school experiences, interactions in other social areas up to the moment it reaches experiences in Arts and Design Institute. As a result, it was possible to come to the conclusion that a school of visual arts is active in the (re)construction and (re)production of the gender representations and its teachers; however this construction is not isolated as it represents the continuity of a whole process of gender identity constitution which began in the family sphere and developed in different areas of subject interaction. This process, which is not clearly realized by the teachers, became visible in their discourses which allowed verifying that this construction has always been based on institutional actions of the differences of being a man and being a woman.