Masculinidades em salas de aula da Educação Infantil da Rede municipal de Educação de Niterói

Abstract

This research focuses on the observation and analysis of the phenomenon of masculinities present in the space of public Early Childhood Education. Based on previous research about teaching as a space largely established for women, in which, despite historical, social and legislative changes, a culture of stereotypes remains and that generates an expected "profile" of teachers, especially for those who occupies the space of Early Childhood Education. When we “pull the thread” that keeps male teachers in certain places and not in others, we enter into the reflection related to gender and body. The problem investigated involves the insertion of the male figure in the Early Childhood Education (EC) rooms. The research field comprises schools that are part of the Municipality of Niterói, a city located in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro. We selected documents that record the displacement of male teachers to other roles, other than that of effectively regent teacher, of groups of children of early age to attend public units, as well as the return of these male teachers by directors. The institutional “strangeness” of those who insist on entering these spaces leads us to an investigative path in which it is necessary to observe the process of construction of masculinities in the school space. What process has naturalized the female teacher in this public space and has been excluding the male faculty from the EC room, due to a rearrangement that always leaves them out of this place? Our final considerations indicate that the components of gender and body are involved in this unequal construction between men and women, as well as institutional power, on occasions more or less influenced by conservative forces, but always under the support of patriarchal roots, in which there is reproduction of practices common to other institutions under the State and the system.