Giving Meaning to Teachers’ Discourses Related to Biology Knowledge From Feminist Epistemologies

Abstract

This research aimed at analyzing utterances regarding gender and power relations observed in teachers’ discourses addressing certain biology knowledge and giving them meaning from the standpoint of feminist epistemologies. The participants were six university professors working in a public institution. The analysis corpus was built up using semi-structured interviews. The utterances were analyzed relating Foucault’s tools and feminist theories. We observed the repetition of discourses that naturalize social relations from biology knowledge, discourses that keep dichotomies and silence diversity, and discourses humanizing cells and molecules. Discourses of the science critique and of resistance to different modes of oppression were also repeated. What is said or not when teaching sciences is influenced by power and knowledge relations, thus, some discourses are evidenced in detriment of others, since circulating other truths confronts such power relations.