Gender prejudice and humanity: an analysis of the discourse in the textbook

Uma análise do discurso no livro didático

Abstract

We live in a society marked by gender prejudice, in which the discourse shows the persistence of this characteristic, including in the formation of the next generations of adults. The objective of this research was to analyze the use of the word man, to designate humanity in the textbook. The work was guided by discourse analysis – French DA, more specifically, by the studies of Michel Pchêux (1984) and Michel Foucault (1996). The object of analysis was the teacher’s manual of the geography textbook “Ápis Mais”, for the 4th year of elementary school, written by Maria Helena Simielli. More specifically, three complementary texts were analyzed, in which the word man appears designating humanity. It appears from the analysis that, despite the efforts observed in the writing of textbooks, efforts verified mainly in books in the areas of humanities and languages ​​and codes, the explicitness of gender prejudice is still very strong in the discourse.