Gender in the social representations of teacher education (pedagogy) students about professional identity and pedagogical work

Abstract

Considering the current feminization of Pedagogy – the name of the undergraduate program that prepares teachers for elementary and pre-school in Brazil – this paper aims to explore how gender shapes the social representations of its students’ professional identity. An open questionnaire, based on the model proposed by Ioannis Tsoukalas, was applied to concluding Pedagogy students at Federal University of Paraíba (Campus of João Pessoa), reaching 47 respondents. Based on the structural approach of social representations, the analysis pointed out that gender acts as a constituent element of social representations organized around teaching as the central nucleus, corroborating its feminization. However, when the concept of teaching was expanded to include other functions of the pedagogue, according to the National Curriculum Guidelines for Pedagogy, female students represented teaching associated with management and male students with research. Thus, the social representations of teaching display change and permanence, with women aspiring management, as a space for exercising power, in the configuration of their professional identity, and men displacing their prospects to research, an activity with greater prestige in relation to school management. The research was funded by CNPq and Capes.
KEYWORDS: Gender. Social Representations. Teacher Education (Pedagogy). Professional Identity.