Mulheres sem rosto: imagens do feminismo nos livros didáticos de história do ensino fundamental (2004-2012)

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze how the feminine images are presented in basic education history textbooks, in the collections Nova História Crítica, from Nova Geração publishing company, year 2004, História Temática, from Scipione publisher, 2010, and the Vontade de Saber História collection, from FTD publishing company, year 2012. These are eighth and ninth year history books. One approaches World War I and II and the other one approached Brazil’s history during these wars. These collections were selected by public school teachers from Flores da Cunha and were handed out to the schools. These history books are being used in history class for the past three years. The methodological path is based on the Barbosa’s (2006) image reading, and Bardin’s (1977) content reading. The relevance of the chosen subject is due to the need to reflect about how women´s image is represented in the history books that are used in the final years of the basic education. It’s worth emphasizing, nonetheless, how these representations act on building a feminine universe in the society where the students are inserted. This whole study was born from a greater project called “Image Reading in History Teaching: A study on changes and continuities in prescriptions, textbook and cultural representations”, coordinated by Prof. Dr. Eliana Rela. This dissertation is inserted in the cultural history perspective, considering the contributions of Scott (1989), Burke (2004, 2008) and Chartier (2001, 2014), and representing different possibilities of exploring images from the textbooks, so that the teachers, and therefore the students, can reflect about the women’s representation and their history. The text has a basilar structure that points out the theory´s about the textbooks and the politics involved in its production, as well as gender and women history and the reading of 36 images and feminine representations that have been collected in the collections presented. Regarding the analysis of the textbooks, it’s worth mentioning that the text was produced with a public policy point of view until December 2018. The study’s conclusion reveals images and representations of fragile feminine, passive, submissive, standing beside or behind a man. They are, in majority, white women, of a privileged social class, legitimized by the bipolarity between saint and sinner.