FIGHTING SEXISM IN TEXTBOOKS: AGENDA CONSTRUCTION AND ITS CRITICS. This article aims to describe the creation of an agenda on "sexism in textbooks" at the international and national levels. To accomplish this, it includes a critical review of the literature from the 1960s to the present, with special emphasis on the changes and what remains the same, as well as the tensions detected in the implementation of policies aimed atfighting "sexism" in textbooks.
TEXTBOOKS -BIBLIOGRAPHY -BRAZILIAN NATIONAL TEXTBOOK PROGRAM -SEXISM
2Adult concern with the content of books and other supporting material used for forming younger generations is nothing new. Choppin (2004) highlights the importance that was attributed to the "ideological and cultural function" of textbooks "as from the 19 th century, with the constitution of national states and the development of the main educational systems within this particular context". As a privileged instrument in the construction of identity, textbooks "are generally recognized as a symbol of national sovereignty, in the same way as the currency or flag, and in this sense they assume an important political role" (p.
553).Starting from this viewpoint we carried out our first international reviews of school books, with the aim of eliminating the xenophobic prejudices that existed after the First World War. So, male and female teachers 1 and politicians, in addition to criticizing the "erroneous" images of the "enemies" as portrayed in Brazilian textbooks, adopted a series of initiatives within the Society of Nations that resulted in the preparation and signing, in 1937, of a Declaration on the History and Review of Textbooks (Pingel, 1999). It is in this period (1933) that we come across the first action by the Brazilian government for dealing with the establishment of rules relating to the content of textbooks, in the shape of an agreement signed between Brazil, Argentina and Mexico for expurgating from teaching texts those "topics that recall bygone passions" (Hollanda, 1957). To this end, in 1938 the Brazilian Committee for Reviewing History and Geography Texts was created, within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This Committee was the forerunner of the National Textbook Committee, so initiating the long and intermittent history of Brazil's public textbook policy, which has included a critical analysis of textbook content and which, since the 1980s, has been known as the National Textbook Program (PNLD).Analysis of the images of "woman", "gender relations", "sexism", "sexual or gender stereotypes" in textbooks, which began in the 1960s and 1970s, considers the textbook either as the "informant" or "constructor" of minds, in the case of "sexual roles" or "gender identities", depending on the period being considered. But, all of this did not originate from research groups or teachers, who are interested, above all, in textbooks: it originated from, 1 From this point on we shall abandon the formula, using out of preference the masculine gender, since the use of the two gramma...