“The hard sciences field isn’t for women”

gender stereotypes in the trajectories of graduate students in Mathematics Education

Abstract

This article investigates which gender stereotypes related to the hard sciences permeate the trajectories of women graduate students in Mathematics Education. Grounded in the contributions of Guacira Lopes Louro, the study adopts as methodological procedures the use of focus groups, following Bernadete Angelina Gatti, with twelve participants from a graduate program. The discussions produced in this context are analyzed in light of Discourse Analysis inspired by Eni Orlandi, with excerpts from the statements of some participants being mobilized throughout the text, selected on the basis of their analytical relevance. The results show that gender stereotypes manifest from adolescence through the delegitimization of women’s knowledge and their underrepresentation in technical courses, and are reconfigured in academic and professional life, both implicitly and explicitly, including the denial of women’s intellectual capacity. It is observed that such discourses are reiterated by peers and professors, producing effects of exclusion, insecurity, and a lack of belonging. The study concludes that stereotypes operate as mechanisms for maintaining gender inequalities in the hard sciences, but can also be challenged by women themselves, who develop strategies of resistance and re-signification within these spaces.