GENDER AND CURRICULUM: PERSPECTIVES ON THE EDUCATION IN SPACES OF DEPRIVATION OF FREEDOM

Abstract

This article discusses the Education of Young People and Adults (Educação de Pessoas Jovens e Adultas – EJA – in Portuguese), in spaces of deprivation of liberty. These discussions are linked to the theoretical fields of gender and curriculum, which are based on the presentation of data collected in a questionnaire survey administered to 137 women in three female prisons, in the state of Minas Gerais. The interviews were semi-structured and were performed with 10 students at one of these institutions and also with 02 educators who were responsible for monitoring the educational experience offered to women that were educated in the institutions where the courses were offered, as well as the analysis of the propositions for educational projects implemented by the institutions. The data confirm the prevalence of young women living the condition of household providers — they are mothers and have low education. The analysis of women’s experiences in the institutions surveyed reveals a silencing in the curriculum regarding to topics related to their own lives; the reproduction of the modes of operation of prison in school; the universalization and infantilization of subjects in the Young people and Adult Education. An analysis of the data collected leads to the consideration of the complexity of the relationships between gender, the system in prisons and education of young people and adults – which reveals the inequality present both in historically shaped gender inequalities and in educational inequalities.

Key-words: Gender; Prison institution; Curriculum; EJA.