Trajetórias acadêmicas: percepções e impactos na formação de professoras que ingressaram no ensino superior após os 25 anos na UFFS - Campus Chapecó

Abstract

In the last decades, women have been entering higher education in greater numbers, this is a fact. Women over the age of 25 years old are also entering higher education, bringing with them a desire to reclaim a dream that was once placed in the "back burner" at some point of their lives. The movement to resume this dream is also a movement of self- recovery. Thus, to dare speaking about the entry of women over 25 into academia is more than just diving into these trajectories. It is about shedding light on unique challenges and facing the reality of the silencing in which they are immersed, in order to answer: What impacts have the rupture and the resumption of the formal education process, from an intersectional perspective, had on the trajectories of women over 25 who enrolled in undergraduate teacher education programs at UFFS – Chapecó campus, considering their entry, retention, graduation, and professional insertion in the field of Education? Therefore, the general objective is: To analyze the trajectories of women who resumed their formal education process after the age of 25 in teacher education programs at UFFS – Chapecó campus, based on the categories of gender and class, as well as the impacts that access to higher education and professional insertion have had on their lives. To carry out this research, we consider the intersectional perspective as a conceptual foundation, with an emphasys on gender, class, and race, grounded in Akotirene (2022); Ribeiro (2017); Crenshaw (2014; 2019); Collins & Bilge (2020) and Collins (2022). Regarding higher education in Brazil and the history/organization of UFFS, we reference the analyses by Nierotka (2015); Soares (2021); and Pereira (2014). To support this aspect, we use institutional documents such as the Pedagogical Curriculum (PPCs) of each teacher education program, with particular attention to the objectives, justifications, and expected graduate profiles. In conversation with bell hooks (2013; 2020; 2021) on the formation of female educators, constructing this debate through the theoretical field of decoloniality, especially via Balestrin (2013), Grosfoguel (2021), Kilomba (2019), Dussel (1993), and Spivak (2010). The research methodology is based on Moura & Lima (2014), anchored in oral history through conversation circles, which in the development of the study were immersed in the intersectional concept from a decolonial perspective. Through two separate meetings — two conversation circles — we have listened to women representing the teaching degrees offered, one of each course, totaling seven participants. The research results indicate that access, retention, and completion of the course had a positive impact on the personal and professional lives of the participants. They also present suggestions for feasible actions and demonstrate the need for the institution to improve its welcoming and support, considering that this population has distinct characteristics and enters higher education already carrying a wide range of experiences and intersectional violence imposed by patriarchy and social class.