Male homosexual trainee students vigilated in a Center of Childhood Education

1. INTRODUCTION

 The present study we analyze the discourse of homosexual trainee students of a Municipal Center of Childhood Education (CEIM), the only public institution in the periphery of a suburb, situated in a city of the Planalto Catarinense. We describe the socio cultural and historical object of investigation. We point out theoretical methodological aspects used in the process of investigation; and finally, we examine the data collected, presenting some propositions searching for an education that can promote the equity of gender, and the respect for the sexual diversity.

 

2. Socio cultural Context

The relevance of this reflection comes from the context of our object of analysis, a suburb in the periphery of Lages, Planalto Catarinense: Lages was founded in the middle of the 18^th century, in the period of exploration of gold in Minas Gerais, according to interests of the Portuguese metropolis.

The region of Lages with its fields and native pasture is adequate to an intensive livestock farming. Around the settlement of the large farm, villages appeared providing social, political and economic relations with characteristics of a patriarchal society. This social formation developed in the context of a society of classes marked by economical inequalities a system of autocracy intra class, from where, the private and the public power used to come from the property of the land.

The relations of power in the macro and microphysics politics (Foucault, 1984) have its regional expressions in the local patriarchal familiar environment accompanied by its classic submission and historical assistance in the Brazilian society. It is usual to be repeated in the daily and colloquial language in the empirical field of this research that “here the farmer used to be the owner of the land, of the cattle and of the people”. It was possible to characterize historically the regional culture as a farm culture, in accordance to Locks´ reflection (1998), what constitutes a real ethos, from which many values, principles and prior knowledge persist contemporaneously.

The hegemonic familiar model in this social and economic formation is the amplified patriarchal family for, around the chief of the family gravitates his family formed by his wife, children and different kinds of employees that maintain the operation of the farm, including those workers involved with the labor with the cattle in the large farm.

 

3. Locus and object of the research

The Municipal Center of Childhood Education (CEIM) is situated in a periphery of a suburb, settled in the year of 2000. The residents come from other suburbs of the city, especially because they used to occupy areas of risk or green areas. Some residents that are retired, come from the rural environment searching for better conditions of social assistance, work, education and health. Two hundred and fifty families live in the local. The land offered by the public power are not legalized yet, and have never   received any infrastructure, not even before being handed over to the population, a situation that persists until nowadays.

The CEIM is the only public institution existing in the suburb, and this space is valued by its population. Besides fulfilling its first attribution, that is to offer education for a hundred children from zero to five years old, the center also shelters a group of elderly who meet once a month, and has an TI room which is opened to the local community. The Center has eighteen teachers, one manager, two auxiliaries for the general works and two cookers.

Countless disqualifying representations are attributed to this suburb. To live in this neighborhood may mean to make part of a community where drugs may be easily found, a place of dangerous teenagers who do not want to work, and of prostitutes, bitch women. Adding to these markers, the suburb is identified as a location just to sleep, where a significant number of workers as bricklayers, painters, electricians, and maids work in activities that are demanded by the society.

The manager of the CEIM accepted the request for traineeship of two male homosexual students from a secondary school of a state public school. They used to attend the Magisterio Course (a course that prepares teachers to work in the elementary school) and intend to be trainees in the Childhood Education. The object of this study consists on analyzing the admission of these trainees, the interaction with the group of the teachers from CEIM, the pedagogical actions accomplished by them, and their perceptions and perspectives about professional work.

 

4. Theoretical methodological procedures

 In order to make the data collection possible, we decided to use the method of case study. It focuses on the complete context. According to Lüdke and Andre (2013), the case to be studied should be firstly, delimited and centered with its limits decided in order to develop the research efficiently.

The case study, is the study of a case, be it simple and specific [...]. The interest, therefore, centers in what it has of unique, particular even if lately, certain similarities with other cases or situations can become evident. When we want to study something singular that has a value in itself, we should choose the case study (Lüdke; Andre, 2013, p.17).

We prioritized the qualitative case study, because it is eveloped in a natural situation, whose data arecollected by means of a dense description accompanied of a flexible and open plan where the reality isfocused in a complex and contextualized form.      The objective of the case study  of a qualitative nature is the search for, in a wide and complete form , the complex reality and experiences that are present in the development of the research, being relevant the context in which  the object  is situated.

The case studies emphasize the “interpretation in context”. A basic principle of this kind of study is that a more complete comprehension of the object is necessary to take into account the context where it is situated (Lüdke, Andre, 2013, p. 18).

In accordance to the authors, it is necessary to consider the multiple relations and determinations for an analysis and interpretation of the information that were obtained. With this in mind, the researcher find out conditions to interpret the reality more completely and deeply. Every social fact, as the one of education, is located in many dimensions of the social life. The research in social sciences does not need this phenomenon to make all its complexity evident, since we have to try “to reveal the multiplicity of dimensions that are present in a determined situation of a problem, focusing on it as a whole” (Idem, 2013, p. 20).

For Trivinos the case study “is a category of research whose object is a unity that is analyzed deeply. This definition determines its characteristics that are given, specially, by two circumstances” (2011, p. 133). The circumstances approached by the author, point out to the nature and to the wideness of the unity and to the complexity of the case study, that are determined by theoretical references used in the work of investigation and analysis. In order to get a good delimitation of the case study, Lüdke and Andre (2013) state that it is necessary to identify clearly the key elements and the contours that will be given to the problem that are being examined. After the delimitation, the researcher goes to the data collection in a systematic form, being possible to use instruments in a certain manner structured with some varied techniques. These characteristics of the study are determined by the option of the researcher, considering the aspects that are presented by the proper object of his/her study.

To contemplate the different points of view of our object of investigation, we should also use the technique of interview, since the development of the research aims at identifying the perception of the homosexual trainees, with respect to their insertion in the CEIM.

We carried out a case study aiming at knowing what were the reasons to choose a course that prepares students to teach at the elementary level of education, and still, if they are identified with the idea of being homosexual trainee students, this identification implies in the pedagogical practice as well as, in the relationship with the colleagues and the school community.

Education and sexual diversity at school are object of studies in the academy, and agenda of the educational public policies in Brazil, for more than two decades. The education since the modality child should also be a space of citizenship and of respect to the human rights. In accordance to Maciel (2013) there are few studies approaching the subject matter of the sexuality of teachers, who’s sexual identify is not hetero normative and that this blank permit to suggest that there is a latent need of theoretical deepening about the male homosexuality, in the field of childhood education

Within this context, we can find out banned and essentialist propositions, in the area of sexual diversity. We recognized languages that can be giving support to structures that are binaries and restricted as man – woman, heterosexual – homosexual which are produced by the media discourse, by the regional culture and by the educational system. The problematic of the research consists on knowing if it is possible for homosexual trainees to work as teachers in the Childhood Education Institutions.

5. Data Analysis

The presence of two homosexual trainees, in a CEIM of the educational municipality, occurred during the period of traineeship in Magisterio, a course of secondary education. These two trainees were indicated by a manager teacher working at this CEIM and who accompanied the accomplishment of the traineeship of these two homosexuals. This same teacher used to teach at the Magistério Course attended by these two students.

During the present research we asked them if they recognize themselves as homosexuals. Mario^[1] answered “Yes because I like people of the same sex”. It is possible to infer that both see themselves as homosexuals. For Mario, homosexuality means “people of the same sex who feel attracted by each other. I have never stopped to think about this subject matter, for Milton it is “to like the same sex” I am homosexual, I like the same sex. It is convenient to observe that the first participant allows us to think that his sexual orientation is natural since “he has never stopped to think about it “that is, as it was cited above, the sexual identity is forged during the process of socialization, something that cannot be attributed to nature, to biology, but it is dependent of the culture in which the subject is inserted.

In relation to the option for the Course of Magisterio, Mario declares that “since I was studying, I wanted to be a teacher, for this reason I decided to start by Magisterio.” Milton answered that “I identify myself with it, I like children, I always liked teaching” These words indicate that the reason for the choice by Magisterio do not seem to be linked to the sexual orientation, but to the profile of the teacher that is drawn by the values, behavior, social performance, patterns that were established by the culture. The Course of Magisterio has been the door to the course degree in Pedagogy and specializations on childhood education in the flow of the Brazilian teaching system.

Another relevant aspect to be considered is that the majority of people who look for the courses, mentioned above, belong to the female gender. We decided to use the word gender instead of sex, to comprise the aspect of the identification of gender, that is, the identity of gender - as people feel in relation to their biological bodies. The identity of gender is “a category pertinent to think the place of the individual within a determined culture” (Grossi, 2010, p. 12). It is a construction of identity related to a symbolic position among the possibilities of identification and of affirmation concerning to feminism and masculinity.

The relation between gender and teaching may become very efficient because the analytic category of genre limits the cultural and biological dimensions as well as the relational character that attributes the social construction of the biological sexes. According to Joan Scott “the use of gender emphasizes the whole system of relations that include sex, but it is neither directly determined by the sex, nor determines precisely the sexuality” (Scott, 1990, p. 7).

Researching gender and teaching, it is important to consider not only the focus on women teachers, but also on men teachers, reflecting about school education as a process, a social practice that is constituted by genders and is molded by them (Graupe, 2009).    The Childhood Education, since the beginning in the Brazilian context, was identified as an occupation linked to the female sex, especially because the responsibility of taking care and educating that were still related to maternity and to the domestic space. According to Rosemberg:

The childhood education in both models, nursery and pre-school - is an activity historically linked to the “human production” and considered of the female gender and, additionally, being always practiced by women differently from other educational levels, that can be more or less associated to the production of life and of wealth. That is,        differently from other forms of teaching, that were masculine occupations and became feminine, the activities of kindergarten and of social assistance directed to poor childhood started as feminine vocations in the 19^th century, with ideals that were diverse from the masculine occupations that were being developed in the same period (Rosemberg, 1999, p. 11).

In this context, we intend to infer that the performance of men in the childhood education is marked by challenges and tensions because historically, this conduct was considered as a function predominantly feminine, being still a greater challenge to include men who recognize themselves as homosexuals, in this level of education.

We have already noticed that there are some works in Brazil, in Master Degree levels and PHD that approach the presence or absence of men working in the field of childhood education such as Saparolli (1998), Araujo (2006), Lima (2008), Sayao (2010) and Carvalho (2007). There are studies that do not present explicitly, the sexual orientation different from the heterosexuality.

Louro (2012, p.229) asserts that “Gender may be a relevant concept, useful and appropriated to educational questions”. The association between gender and teaching reveals the discourses which consider the teaching performance, in the childhood education and in the first years of the elementary teaching, as an activity principally feminine. Additionally, they can lead us to know how the figure of the woman was constituted as the more adequate to the accomplishment of the teaching exercise.

  It is also important to remember that the first teachers of the elementary schools in Brazil were catholic men, white and euro descendants and that today, the women are predominant in the teaching function. In this case, it would be important to reflect about how the social and cultural representation of two men working with the childhood education is constructed. This modality of education, in accordance to the local culture, nowadays, is considered as a pertinent space for women teachers and their function that is associated to affection, to maternal love, to kindness and to patience. So, how can the performance of two homosexual trainees in the children education be understood?

We asked a specific question about the relationship among colleagues and the reaction of the school community with respect to the work of two homosexual men, in the childhood education. Both affirmed that did not suffer discrimination by the women teachers and that are well accepted by the children´s families. But, however, referring to the pedagogical practice, we noticed that there are some resistances specially among colleagues, and that the two feel constantly espied by everybody in the school.            

About the pedagogical practices Mario answered:

“Well, bad I think that I still do not have much practice, I help in the activities, I help to take care of the children, but I do not evaluate me badly. I would like to give up because of the stress with the school employees. Sometimes, someone enters and want to criticize me in relation to the work. Criticizing, in the sense of doing better, sometimes promoting stress. I get stressed. I think I am very stressed. I work with the babies from zero to one year old. Once in a while I feel resentful. If I am right, I speak, If I am wrong, I just hear.” The children are calm, it is good to work with them. We perform activities. I read books; I speak with them. Because they are babies the comprehension with them is another one. I understand that with babies the activities are differentiated, because they are babies.”

Mario’s statement indicates that he has not much experience with the pedagogical activities, for he is just a trainee that is still getting familiar with his field of work. What calls attention is the fact that, his self-evaluation is negative and that he thought about giving up. However, the origin of his stress seems not to be directly related to the work with the children, but to the interaction with the colleagues, at work. He used to perform the function of classroom assistant accompanied by the teacher who was responsible for the class. His stress may be understood as consequence of the critical observations in relation to his performance, and not directly, concerning to his sexual orientation. However, Mario also affirms that he used to like to work with the children.

Children at this age range, according to the report of the people who were interviewed, do not have prejudice in relation to sexual orientation, for they have not assimilated yet, the social and cultural representations referring to the sexuality hegemonically   heteronormative. This can explain the fact that in his traineeship, Mario does not feel embarrassment in relation to the children.

It cannot be ignored that this trainee is object of surveillance in function of his sexual orientation, that is differentiated from the heterosexual pattern of the majority of the women teachers, at the Center of Childhood Education.

Cruz (1998), when he points out the representations that the educators and the families have about the work of men, in the childhood education, summarizes them in two points: the care with the children considering the feminine function and, the conception of childhood education founded in a tradition welfare of nurseries, that are used to substitute the mother. Such conception makes the incorporation of men, in the field of childhood education, difficult.  

Yet, according to Cruz (1998) there are two representations about the men who work in the children education: the aggressor and the homosexual. In the present study, the participants of the groups of discussion dealt with the possibility of the male teachers being able to abuse sexually the children. We can observe that the group of teachers from CEIM accepted that the two men carried their traineeship out in the school but, at the same time, developed a constant attitude to spy and to discipline them. Foucault (1987,p. 143) used to say in his book Spy and Punish:

That this discipline “produces” individuals: it is the specific technique of a power that takes the individuals, at the same time, as objects and as instruments of its exercise. It is not a triumphant       power. It is a modest power, suspicious, that works in a form of a calculated economy but permanent. Humble modalities, minor procedures, if we compare them to the majestic rituals of a sovereignty or to the great apparatus of the State.

The disciplinary techniques rank the subjects in a mutual relation distinguishing what can be done from what cannot be done in the pedagogical practices, the “good” from the “bad”. The discipline sanctions the actions with exactness evaluating the colleagues with the “true”, and the penalty that it executes is the one of the corrections for, to punish is to exercise “(Foucault, 1987) In this case, it seems that exists a certain fear, a consternation that the male homosexual trainees can do something against the children, or it would be an “invisible”, symbolic homophobia since it constrains and causes “stress”.

 Felipe Fernandes (2011) theorizes the homophobia as a category that “can respond to interpretations about the individual and the collective violence, material and symbolic, that advises practices that are on the fringes of the hegemonic patterns of the sexuality” (p. 67, 68). Then, we have homophobia a category that encompasses all the types of manifestations of violence practiced with subjects: Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual, Transvestite, Transsexual, Transgenders (LGBT) in this case, symbolic homophobia.

The prejudice and the discrimination against LGBT seem to be the less realized form of heterosexism and homophobia, inclusive in the schools. This led us to think in the obsessive vigilance of the gender norms, in the construction and in the discipline of the subjects that have the identity of reference, the heterosexual male.  Daniel Borrillo, an important theoretic in this area of study, defines homophobia as:

The general hostility, psychological and social with respect to those men and women of whom, we suspect that have desire for individuals of their own sex, and have sexual practices with them. It is a specific form of sexism, the homophobia does not accept too, all those that are not pleased with the predetermined role of his/her biological sex. It is an ideological construction that is consistent with the promotion of a form of sexuality (hetero), in detriment of another one (homo), the homophobia organizes a ranking of the sexualities extracting from them, political consequences (BoRrillo, 201, p.36).         

The heteronormativity is the heterosexual matrix imposed to the individuals of the society, and that it is not natural, but “imaginary” –since it does not always happen as in the cases of homosexuality and of transgenders (Butler, 2003, p. 239). The heteronormativity, that is the reiteration of the norm sex/gender/desire constitutes itself, in the regulation of gender as a form to maintain the heterosexual order. That is, the sexual practices that are not considered normal confront the stability of the gender in the definition of what is or is not “normal” and because of it, possible, in terms of the sexuality and of an intelligible life.

The compulsory heteronormativity is a reiteration of the sex while biological apparatus indicating determined gender that indicates the desire or induces to it. Like this, this logic incites to a continuity, a binary norm between the identification of the male and the female – body – determining the gender of the subject that consequently takes to the desire of the sex/opposite gender (Louro, 2004, p. 81).

The two male homosexual trainees affirm that they had the opportunity to choose Childhood Education for their traineeship in the Course of Magisterio, in a level of secondary school. According to Mario “because the teacher of the Magisterio, who is also the manager of the CEIM, invited me to work with her. And Milton says that “Mario told me that there would be a vacancy there, I talked to the teacher. Then she invited me to know, to see if I was going to like it. As I liked, I decided to stay.”

It was possible to observe that the two trainees got into CEIM because their teacher at Magisterio was also the manager of CEIM, and created the opportunity to them. Therefore, we can presume that the teacher/manager has a preparation, whose profile is contemplated in the public policies of education, genre and sexuality at school, in the right to the difference, that is able to transcend the concepts and behavioral patterns, typified, reified and standardized by the culture of the heterosexual society. It is convenient to emphasize that the profile of this manager is an exception in the educational system of education of the municipality, in the empirical field of the present research.

The two trainees assign their ingress in the CEIM thanks to the ease and to the opportunities that were mediated and offered by the teacher/manager. Even considering the “obvious”, we questioned them about the fact that the initiative of the access did not come from the trainees (any of them).

The minorities that are victims of prejudice, labeling or stigmas, can be met in the marginality of the society, not always with sufficient capacity or empowerment necessary to search for autonomy and emancipation, while subjects and citizens. However, the reality indicates as analyzed above, that when these subjects mobilize and organize themselves in movement, they are able to reeducate themselves and the society, and to contribute for changes in the Brazilian State with respect to the diversity and to the right to the difference. One question was the reason for the greater attention by the interviewed: “How do you see yourself in the development of the pedagogical practices in relation to your mates’ women/men teachers and to the children? Mario answers:

I interact well with everybody, I am not a bad person, I am easy to deal with, I like joking with everybody. Entertainment        is what I like best. I do not have any complaint about anybody, everybody respects me. When it is necessary the colleagues call my attention, and orient when I am not doing the right things. Concerning to the children, I also interact very well, if I do not have a firm attitude they abuse of my trust. The children like me, they invite me to play, and pay attention to me. The children studying down there in the first floor (students that are above three years old) have already asked me if I am a man or a woman. I answered that I am a man. They have also asked me if I have a boyfriend or a girlfriend. I answered that I have neither one nor other. The children respect me.

He is a young trainee of the Childhood Education. He is in the condition of a learner and, like this, he is seen by the women teachers, as a trainee, according to his report. The contradictions, the mistakes and correctness are risks or possibilities in any professional development. The answer allows us to deduce that Mario established a relation very horizontal with the children and, the interaction is very good. He emphasizes the ludic dimension of the educative process, as an integrant part of the Political Pedagogical Process of the Childhood Education. However, what calls attention is the fact that Mario was already identified by the children as a different subject that is, someone that is not part of the heteronormativity. He should have externalized his way of living, of interacting, of acting, not in conformity with the other people or educators that are part of the collective of the group of workers, at CEIM.   

The creation of conditions to deal, in an appropriate manner, with the themes related to the sexual diversity and to the sexual rights in schools depends specially on educational public policies and on social mobilizations with the objective of destabilize the production of hierarchies, oppressions and  cleavage concerning heteronormative patterns, that historically have modulated and module the gender relations and the dynamics of (re)production of inequalities and differences. (Junqueira, 2009, p.163).

The affirmation “I interact well with everybody, I am not a bad person, it is easy to live with me, I like to joke with everyone” calls the attention because it seems that Mario feels the need to be recognized as a person who is not bad, in relation to the others. How can this be allied to his sexual homo affective orientation? It is known that the homosexuality is still viewed, and many times, identified by the society as something negative, bad, inconvenient, pathologic or strange.”

            The interviewed does not point out more details, but allow us to think that the children checked his identity of gender, when they asked if he was a man or a woman. The diversity may be accepted and lived as a cultural and social wealth or under the lens of attitudes of intolerance, discrimination, exclusion or prejudice. Concerning to this tension, it can be presumed, as fundamental in the pedagogical practice, the formation of the collective of professionals who work in the institution to guarantee a process of politicization and valorization of the diversity and, like this, to construct an inclusive and democratic education as it is presented by the public policies of gender, in the area of education.

From 2004 on, several public policies of gender were implemented in the area of education. In 2004 it was launched Brazil without Homophobia – Program to Combat Violence and Discrimination against GLBT and of the Promotion of the Homosexual Citizenship. In 2008, it was accomplished The I National Conference of LGBT, an important political mark that reinforced the commitment of the government and of the Brazilian society to face the homophobia. In 2009 the national Plan of Citizenship and Human Rights of LGBT pointed out to necessary actions to be adopted by several sectors of the government in order to reduce the situation of marginalization and of social exclusion that affects the LGBT population.    

It is important to notice that, despite having documents that bring a whole context for the sexual education, causing the discussion of questions which were comprised in gender and sexuality, we face resistance and difficulties to see the sexuality as part of the subject and where it should be developed in opened and constructed forms. Louro can help us to understand the context where the trainees are inserted, since he observes, in his studies, that the school is:

[..]without any doubt, one of the spaces more difficult for somebody to “admit” his/her condition of homosexual or bisexual. With the supposition that just one type of desire can exist and that this kind – innate to everybody – should have as a target an individual of the opposite sex, the school denies and ignores the homosexuality (probably it denies because it ignores ) and, like this, offers very few opportunities for the teenagers or adults to recognize, without any guilty or shame their desires. The place of the knowledge is maintained in relation to the sexuality, as a place of no knowledge and of ignorance (Louro, 1999, p.30).

From Mario´s and Milton´s point of view about their admission in the institution, with respect to fathers, mothers and the community around the CEIM, the following reports were obtained: the first one poses that:

Everybody treats me very well, the parents tell to their children to say me good bye. Despite the fact that the community is very poor, the persons are good. Everybody treats me well here. One day we were going up the hill and some adolescents called us bitch. I kept on going normally. On my opinion, it could be worst, because in another places and spaces we suffer more prejudice. When they called me, I did not pay attention to them, I do not get stressed any more, I ignore. I myself, was not used to accept, and I have thought about killing me. We were brought up to be a man, and when you are aware of a feeling for the same sex, it is not easy to admit to ourselves.

The declaration reveals the great anguish lived by a subject that admits the difference, in the context of a society impregnated of ethnocentric values thus, does not value the diversity, promotes hierarchic classifications, without respecting the fundamental human rights. Mario presents a positive evaluation concerning the perception of the parents, the people with whom they interact in the suburb, but does, not forget the experience by which was a victim of prejudice and of labeling. However, this kind of treatment is not the original mark of the social context in which, the CEIM is situated.

Mario declares that he has already wanted to kill himself what indicates that the acceptance of his sexual orientation, for him and for his family, has been a difficult experience. According to Sara Schulman, in her article Familiar Homophobia: an experience searching for recognition:                              

There are two experiences that the majority of homosexuals share: One is to “accept” themselves a process of personal interrogation in           opposition to the social expectations, that do not have parallel in the heterosexual life. The second common experience is that we were, each one of us, in some moments of our lives, seen by our families, as inferior, simply, but specifically, because of our homosexuality. This experience is reflected by the legal system and by the social dominant structures through which the gay people   should live, as well as, in the arts and in the entertainment industries, which select and control our representations. As a consequence, the familiar exclusion and the inferiority is generally extended by the behavior with which the gay people treat each other. They are therefore reinforced by a game of mirrors. (Schulman, 2010, p. 69).

As it can be noticed in this research, there is a treatment produced and generalized in the local society. For this reason, the informant starts to make a self-evaluation, in a certain way, criminalizing. His report reveals a society whose values, sexual identity and gender are presided by the male heterosexual domination. On the interviewed point of view, to assume a gender identity and sexual orientation that are diverse from the standardized and from the homogenous patterns, valid and legitimated by the group of the society, the subject begins to be seen as “abnormal” “defective” being hushed and downgraded.  

This report also indicates that the prejudice and the aversion for the homosexuals may happen from 12 to 19 years old (teenage phase – according to the Statute of the Child and the Adolescent, 1990) that is a period in which the young people are discovering and constructing their own sexuality. These teenagers are coming across the sexual diversity, identify it, but do not respect it as a right to the difference. For Mario, these discriminatory practices developed by the teenagers, from the community near the school, do not cause repulse on him anymore. Mario was called of “boiola” “viadinho” “bicha” and still affirms that this symbolic violence cannot be compared to the violence experimented in other contexts of the society. We can note up that the violence against homosexuals is a phenomenon that is generalized in the local society, and naturalized by the subjects. Milton assures that:

The children ´s fathers and mothers did not present any resistance because it is the man that is generally sexist, I was welcome. There was not any reaction among the teachers too. The children accepted me well. The children are kind with me, and like to be with me. Along with the community there was yes, because here, things are not easy. Very much prejudice, they call us viadinho and boiola. Some people used to look at me just indirectly. I do not do anything. As a teacher I maintain secrecy, I separate things, I separate work from “frescura”. I cannot identify myself with the children education. I would like to be a teacher of mathematics and physics. I really want to be a nurse. It is not clear yet, what I want as my profession. I do not know what I want. It has not been decided yet. I am going to finish Magisterio. I always liked to study. If I did not identify myself with the elementary school, then I am going to try Nursery.

Mario´s words distinguish two types of reaction in relation to his condition of a homosexual subject. Within CEIM, he presents a positive evaluation, and demonstrates surprise for being welcome. From the community ´s point of view, from the surroundings of the institution, emerges the difficulty of social interaction with the diversity, what provokes the appearance of the prejudice and the label. The strategy adopted by this trainee should be emphasized while, in accordance to what he says, he separates his sexual orientation from his pedagogical practice. However, he emphasizes that he is not identified professionally with the Childhood Education. His future professional field is still indefinite. In this sense, his traineeship fulfills the finality of questioning his relation with his school development and the with the choice of the professional field.

Anyway, even if Milton cannot identify himself with the Childhood  Education, he searches for the field of Nursery as a professional possibility,  a course that is regularly,  in its majority, looked by the  female  gender, that is , he chooses professions that are associated to the identity of the female gender. Mario mentioned the importance of his traineeship and pointed out the possibility of being a professional of education.

 

6. Final Considerations

In the present analysis we highlight some aspects which are relevant in two perspectives. The first one is related to the fact that this reflection may be inserted in the context of the debate of the public policies concerning education, gender and sexual diversity, specially with respect to childhood education. Also, when we approach the discourse of the homosexual trainees, in the context of the childhood education, we noticed that their reports revealed contradictions existing in a society that give support to rigid patterns of regulation and homogeneity with respect to values, to behaviors, to ways of living, in order to feel and to think the world and the social relations, resisting to the recognition of the sexual diversity existing in the school environment and in the society.

The second perspective shows the appearance of individual and collective subjects who are not seen, such as the participants of this study, that evidence the presence of sexual diversity in the field of education. Undeniably, the two trainees carry on the power of reeducation over themselves, over the society and over the teaching institutions in relation to the right to another sexual orientation, that is not the heterosexuality. Even identifying significant advances, there is a long way to be travelled in order to build a plural and democratic society, in which the homosexual educators can work in the Childhood Education without being constantly watched and punished.

It is opportune to ask if the manifestations of sexual identity that are normative in the area of education cooperates for the construction of a fair and inclusive society where the sexual diversity maybe transformed into “positive”. It is important to question and deconstruct the processes by which, a form of sexuality – the heterosexual – has become norm and understood as natural. The two homosexual trainees when revealed themselves as different in the context of the Centro de Educação Infantil and of the community in general, help to comprehend that their presences in these spaces, generates distress and oddness, what has demonstrated and affirmed that the sexuality is limited to beyond a merely personal dimension:  it is social and political.

To discuss policies of inclusion of the sexual minorities, specially of homosexual educators, in the area of childhood education, requires by the colleagues men women/teachers of the school community new forms of thinking, of language, of relationship, of overture to the dialogue that can rupture with sexist and homophobic patterns. We consider that the inclusion of homosexual trainees and teachers in the institution of teachers training, the discussion about social diversity in the school curriculum, in the pre-service and in-service courses, as well as, in the official documents that deal with public policies of gender and diversity, represent a significant advance in the Brazilian society.

Analyzing the perceptions of the male homosexuals that were trainees in CEIM, we can approach this stage of education in a perspective different from those approached by studies dealing with the presence and absence of men in the childhood education, that is , if the heterosexual men face frequently situations of discrimination and prejudice in the childhood education, this research showed  however, that the homosexual male, besides suffering  prejudice and discrimination  are the target of vigilance  and control of educators, of parents and of school community.

This research showed that the presence of the two young homosexual trainees, in the institution of childhood education, generated discomfort and they were constantly watched during the educative practices accomplished in the institution. This fact indicates, that the society maintains sexist values and prejudice, in relation to sexual diversity and to stereotypes about what gender is more suitable to work with children  from zero to five years old. The presence of these trainees provoked alterations in what is labeled as values, knowledge and acceptable behaviors in the area of children education.

In summary, the presence of homosexuals tensions the relations of gender in the area of childhood education, and challenges the deconstruction of models suggesting that men are not able to take care of children. Taking into account this scenario, we think it is important the discussion about gender, teaching and sexual diversity in the initial education, and in the in – service education of the professionals of this area, with the objective of constructing an educational paradigm that can be inclusive, democratic and supportive.