A Multidisciplinary and Intersectional Educational Approach for Motivating Adolescent Girls in STEM
ISBN: 978-1-80382-594-6, eISBN: 978-1-80382-593-9
Publication date: 15 August 2022
Abstract
The sexual division of labor remains a strong, discriminatory aspect of Brazilian society, with a high percentage of women engaged in precarious, caregiving, and service work that is devalued within the traditional patriarchal family and school socialization. This chapter relates and analyzes the development of a multidisciplinary, intersectional, and interinstitutional project, Fast Girls, which addresses this situation of inequality and exclusion by promoting and strengthening learning in STEM and psychosocial dimensions for adolescent female students. It is currently deployed in three public schools on the outskirts of Brazil’s capital, Brasilia, but the focus here will be on the pioneering initiative, in one high school which has reached 150 participants since 2013. This project was conducted by professors and researchers from the engineering, social sciences, and humanities departments of the University of Brasilia (UnB) in Brazil and France’s Sorbonne Paris North University who are the authors of this autoethnography, which is based on interventions, interviews, and field observations. Principle academic results included articles, dissertations, and expositions at related national and international events characterized by the integration of various scientific fields. The intervention prepared participants for college attendance who was both unprecedented in their families and contributed to their occupying a social and subjective place quite different from the majority of youths in black and poor communities around the capitals of Brazil.
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
To Fundação de Apoio a Pesquisa (Research Support Foundation) of the Federal District, FAP – DF, to DEX/UnB, to DPI/UnB and to CNPq for financial support. To Centro de Ensino Médio 404 for the partnership and pedagogical support to students in the project.
Citation
de Almeida, T.M.C., Brasil, K.T., Viana, D.M., Lisniowski, S.A., Shzu, M.A.M., Ganem, V., Ávila, S.M. and De Paula, A.S. (2022), "A Multidisciplinary and Intersectional Educational Approach for Motivating Adolescent Girls in STEM", Segal, M.T. and Demos, V. (Ed.) Gender Visibility and Erasure (Advances in Gender Research, Vol. 33), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 145-161. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1529-212620220000033016
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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