A ousadia de cursar engenharia: o reconhecimento dos direitos à existência e à educação de dissidentes sexuais e de gênero no IFRS

Abstract

PhD research conducted at the Universidade de Caxias do Sul Post-Graduate Education Program, under the topic of gender and sexuality in higher education, is presented. The overall objective was to investigate whether the IFRS engineering training contemplates humanization processes in academic experience, providing for welcoming sex and gender differences, recognizing rights to the existence and education of sex and gender dissenters (DSG), contributing to the reduction of prejudices and discriminations in the university context and outside of it, especially in work organizations. Specific objectives set are: to analyze how gender and sexuality relationships are established in the classroom environment and at campus, in the perception of faculty, students and course coordinations; to examine the educational training of teachers who work in engineering courses; to identify in the pedagogical projects of the IFRS engineering courses the guidelines for humanizing training; to investigate how the interlocution between faculty, students, and coordinations of engineering courses occurs with affirmative action centers and/or teaching, research and extension projects at each campus; to discuss the faculty praxis necessary for the formation of citizens who become professionals and leaders who can act as transformation agents of the cisheteronormative socio-organizational context. This is characterized as a case study, carried out in the context of the IFRS engineering courses in Serra Gaúcha. The mixed-method research involved seven steps: historical analysis of the Brazilian LGBTQIA+ movement; survey of the legal milestones achieved by DSG in Brazil; realization of Knowledge Status; analysis of the Educational Projects of the courses; Application of online questionnaires to faculty and students interviews with course coordinators; focus groups with students and faculty. The data were built from documentary, bibliographical and field survey sources. Quantitative data were statistically analyzed and qualitative data were submitted to documentary analysis, content analysis, and textual discursive analysis (TDA). It was concluded that gender and sexuality relationships in the courses analyzed occur from cystheteronormativity. DSG live their engineering training, based on the pedagogy of the closet, according to what is established as a way of being an engineering student in Serra Gaúcha, predominantly male, cisgender, heterosexual, christian, serious, unsociable, permeated by the work and school culture, to move the social gear of the capitalist system that, in its neoliberal model, requires people to be ?entrepreneurs of themselves?. In order to exercise their right to education in the engineering course, their dissenting life is revealed in restricted circles or remains anonymous. Some DSGs don?t even get to the course and the engineering job market. The course faculty, mostly doctors, with initial training in exact sciences and engineering, sought educational training; but part expressed difficulties/unpreparedness to address the topic. Humanizing education is proposed in introductory disciplines that address transversal topics; integrating and extension projects, in addition to the suggestion of interlocution with the affirmative action cores. Taking profit of such possibilities will depend on the personal interest and initiative of faculty and students. The participation of faculty and students in the affirmative action iniciatives and teaching, research and extension projects is minimal, either due to lack of knowledge, little disclosure, incompatibility of schedules, or the low attractiveness of the grant amount offered to them. In general, it is concluded that humanizing processes need to be taken over and implemented in general and not precisely in the courses analyzed. Although empirical interlocutors have expressed that their courses /campi are welcoming spaces for the DSG, and more welcoming than in other universities and companies where they work, the way of being an identified engineering student shows engineering as a cisheteronormative course, for equals, not for dissenters. With a view to contributing significantly to reducing prejudices and discrimination in and outside the academic environment, it is essential to invest in dialogical praxis, in teaching and in the provision of structures for the profile of workers/students. It is presented as a thesis that those who, as a sexual and gender dissident, dare to pursue the dream of becoming an engineer, the recognition of the right to higher education will still occur at the expense of concealing to those who direct their affections and/or how they feel and define their gender identity. [resumo fornecido pelo autor]