Vivências de uma professora trabalhando sexualidade na EJA

Abstract

Youth and Adult Education (YAE) is an educational modality aimed at individuals whose schooling trajectories were interrupted due to social, economic, and cultural factors. In this context, Science teaching - particularly the approach to sexuality - poses specific challenges, as it involves topics historically marked by taboos, silencing, and gender inequalities. This study aims to understand how sexuality is addressed in Science classes within a YAE group, based on the experiences of a teacher in initial training, analyzing interactions, students’ speeches, and the meanings attributed to the body, gender, sexuality, and social relations. This is a qualitative, narrative-based research that employs participant observation, field diary records, and audio recording of classe, later transcribed and analyzed through discourse analysis. The theoretical framework draws on authors such as Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Guacira Lopes Louro, Michel Foucault, and Jeffrey Weeks, who discuss dialogical education, engaged pedagogy, and gender and sexuality as social and historical constructions. The results indicate that the dialogical methodology promoted active student participation, collective knowledge construction, and the emergence of narratives related to personal experiences, enabling the discussion of issues such as sexual health, pleasure, masculinities, gender-based violence, and the prevention of sexually transmitted infections. It is concluded that sexuality education in YAE, when grounded in dialogue, listening, and trust-based relationships, contributes to health promotion, the strengthening of learners’ autonomy, and the consolidation of a critical and emancipatory pedagogical practice.