Curricula and School Practices in the Amazon: a Perspective on Sexuality in Educational Contexts

Abstract

This paper analyzes curricula and discursive practices related to sexuality in basic education schools in the Amazon region. Pierre Bourdieu’s (1983) studies serve as our basis for understanding curriculum as a theoretical-conceptual field shaped by cultural, educational, and societal relations, emphasizing the importance of epistemological reflection in the process of denaturalizing hegemonic forms of knowledge. In addressing the linguistic taboo surrounding sexuality and the discursive practices present in school contexts, we adopt an interpretative approach grounded in Michel Foucault’s studies on the subject. Our main objective is to examine how this linguistic taboo of sexuality manifests in classroom curricular practices and how it implies a correlation of forces that operate in the formation of students’ identities and subjectivities. Through the tripod of knowledge–power– device, our approach offers a pedagogical reading of the implications of curriculum in shaping school discourses and the content that emerges from them. Methodologically, we employ discourse analysis and Foucault’s “toolbox”, namely the notions of discourse, knowledge–power, and resistance. The results suggest a curriculum that is woven through knowledge-power relations, giving rise to counterhegemonic practices. When these practices are implemented within the school context, they are met with mechanisms of force that suppress and provoke controversy surrounding their occurrence.