Gender relations and teaching work: shifts and rhythms in the everyday life of female and male teachers. / Relações de gênero e trabalho docente: jornadas e ritmos no cotidiano de professoras e professores.

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2008

RESUMO

This research analyzes the pertinence and intensity of how gender relations interfere with the shifts and rhythms that define the teaching work. Located in between the studies in Sociology of Education, Labor and Family, it starts thinking over the concept of gender, as proposed by feminist theorists Joan Scott and Linda Nicholson; of sexual division of labor and its consequences in the life of men and women, as defended by Helena Hirata, Danièle Kergoat, Elizabeth Souza-Lobo, Joan Scott, Cristina Bruschini, Bila Sorj, among others; and the notion of time, developed by Norbert Elias and Alberto Melucci. Next, based on a survey of the academic production on teaching work under the viewpoint of gender relations, the research finds the gaps in such production about the working times, analyzes how the teaching work is instituted, and shows the feminine and masculine meanings that are intertwined in it. Empirical data are of qualitative nature and were collected among male and female middleschool teachers in a public institution in south area of the city of Sao Paulo, in 2006 and 2007. Data were acquired by means of questionnaires, diaries were the use of time was written down, semi-structured interviews and field diary. The study by Cláudio Dedecca about time, labor and gender provided the elements to construct the analytical concepts. Most teachers - either male or female - have extensive hours of total work partly as a result of their low wages. In addition to the school services they perform at home, which are recurring in the shifts in the entire group, teachers also face many hours of social reproduction work, even if in a diversity of degrees. The importance of the articulation between the several dimensions of time in the life of the subjects, pointed out by Dedecca, considering the tension between them, has allowed the acknowledgment of the necessary separation between feminine work and masculine work. However, the analysis of the everyday life led by male and female teachers taking part in the research allows one to think about a characteristic highlighted by most studies focusing on work, other than teaching work: the dichotomy between the times of economic work that are longer for men, which assume waged work and times of movement, and time of work for social reproduction that are longer for women, which include home chores and taking care of children. This needs to be questioned, at least in the face of what teachers have responded. Moreover, educational and social public policies, in order to ensure equal opportunities and living conditions for male and female teachers, have to consider the articulation between the spheres of production and reproduction.

ASSUNTO(S)

educação escolar tempos de trabalho docente times of teaching work school education sexual division of labor relações de gênero gender relations divisão sexual do trabalho

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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