Políticas públicas e violência contra a mulher no Amazonas: em foco o livro didático

Abstract

Violence against women is a socio-cultural problem that has its basis on the sexist prejudices derived from a patriarchal society. With this in mind, this work intends to study the portrayal and discussion of domestic violence in public middle school textbooks. The middle school textbooks belong to different subjects such as Portuguese, Math, History, Geography, and Sciences. In total, Twenty five textbooks were analyzed. The selection of the textbooks was based on the fact that they were officially chosen by the amazon educational system and also they were aligned with the main legal document which establishes the core components of the official curriculum. The epistemic approach used in this study was historical materialism. Moreover, this study uses a qualitative method when it analyzes the textbooks and other sources like legal documents and topic-related books. Despite the existence of many legal documents that assure protection for women, women's situation points to another reality as it is shown by the high rates of crimes against them in the state of Amazonas. Concerning the educational field, the case is not so different. They are equally based on official documents that aim to the protection of students. In this sense, all these legal documents share the attempt to value and promote a more pluralistic community where differences of any sort should be promoted, yet not used as a tool for discrimination. This study demonstrates that the textbooks analyzed did not bring a critical debate about these issues. Topics about women were found, but without much inroads into more critical subtopics such as domestic violence. In short, this study did not found in the textbooks the appearance of more sensitive issues concerning women. For this reason, they lacked the chance to critically cover the nuances and implications of women's conditions. In this context, the study states that it is the school's responsibility to bring about the discussion of violence against women to debunk misconceptions still so much in vogue in our patriarchal society. In other words, if the school fulfills its social responsibilities as the legal documents preconize, then it will be helping to pave the way for liberty and equality.