Collateral realities and the production of ignorance. A study of hormones and gender issues

Authors

  • Fábio Augusto Rodrigues e Silva Departamento de Biodiversidade, Evolução e Meio Ambiente Instituto de Ciências Exatas e Biológicas da Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto Campus Universitário Morro do Cruzeiro – Ouro Preto, MG, Brasil http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1245-2648
  • Francisco Ângelo Coutinho Departamento de Métodos e Técnicas de Ensino Faculdade de Educação da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais Av. Antônio Carlos, 6627 - Pampulha - Belo Horizonte – MG. http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4519-2870

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22600/1518-8795.ienci2016v21n3p176

Keywords:

, ignorance, collateral realities, post-positivist epistemologies, hormones, textbooks.

Abstract

This paper supports the ignorance study as a legitimate research topic in science education. The Epistemology of Ignorance or Agnothology assumptions support the proposition. According to that epistemological line, ignorance is actively produced and can serve to domination projects. In our study, “sexual” hormones were chosen as analytical object. In order to point out the ignorance construction about these biological substances and their effects in the organisms, we made efforts to dialogue with pos-positivists contributions, mainly the ones originated from the collateral realities studies. Pursuing the content along the history, we seek to demonstrate how the researches over sexual hormones had generated collateral realities which engineer a world concept based on an essentialist idea. In other words, this concept holds the meaning that there is a biological nature to define the human male and female sexual roles. This discourse is attendant in biology textbooks we had analyzed. Then, we reveal the need to signal, mainly in teacher training courses, how these biology spokesmen materials can update the sexism and the genre discrimination.

Author Biography

Fábio Augusto Rodrigues e Silva, Departamento de Biodiversidade, Evolução e Meio Ambiente Instituto de Ciências Exatas e Biológicas da Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto Campus Universitário Morro do Cruzeiro – Ouro Preto, MG, Brasil

Licenciatura em Ciências Biológicas pela Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (2000), mestrado em Educação pela Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (2006), doutorado em Educação pela Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (2011). Atualmente é professor adjunto, nível I, do Departamento de Biodiversidade, Evolução e Meio Ambiente do Instituto de Ciências Exatas e Biológicas da Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto.

References

Alcoff, L. (2006). Visible Identities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Audi, R. (1999). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bazzul, J., & Sykes, H. 2001. The secret identity of a biology textbook: straight and naturally sexed. Cultural Studies of Science Education. 6 (2), 265–286. DOI: 10.1007/s11422-010-9297-z

Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. Durham: Duke University Press.

Blackburn, S. (2008). The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Blok, A., & Jensen, T. E. (2011). Bruno Latour: hybrid thoughts in a hybrid world. London: Routledge.

Butler, J. Performative Acts and Gender Constitution. (1990). In Case, S. E. (Ed.), Performing Feminisms: feminist critical theory and theatre (270-282). Baltimore: John Hopkins University.

Brasil. (1997). Introdução aos parâmetros curriculares nacionais. Brasília: Ministério da Educação.

Brasil. (2011). Guia de livros didáticos: PNLD 2012: Biologia. Brasília: Ministério da Educação.

Chalmers, A. F. (1993). O que é ciência afinal? São Paulo: Brasiliense.

Code, L. (2000). Epistemology. In Jaggar, A. M. e Young, I. M. A companion to feminist philosophy (173-184). Malden: Blackwell.

Code, L. (2003). Epistemology/feminist. In Code, L. Encyclopedia of feminist theories (170-173). London: Routledge, 2003.

Ferrater-mora, J. (2001). Dicionário de filosofia. São Paulo: Loyola.

Feyerabend, P. (1977). Contra o método. Rio de Janeiro: Francisco Alves.

Fleck, L. (2010). Gênese e desenvolvimento de um fato científico. Belo Horizonte: Fabrefactum Editora.

Franzolin, F., & Bizzo, N. (2007). Conceitos de biologia em livros didáticos de educação básica e na academia: uma metodologia de análise. In VI Encontro Nacional de Pesquisa em Educação em Ciências. 2007.

Friedman, M. (2001). Feminist epistemology. In Audi, R. (Ed.). The Cambridge dictionary of philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Grasswick, H. (2000) Feminist Social Epistemology. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Recuperado de http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-social-epistemology/#EpiIgn.

Greimas, A. J. (1987). On Meaning: Selected Writings in Semiotic Theory. London: Frances Pinter.

Guyton, A. C e Hall, J.E. (2011). Tratado de fisiologia médica. Elsevier: Rio de Janeiro.

Harman. G. (2009). Prince of networks: Bruno Latour and metaphysics. Melbourne: Re. Press.

Houaiss, A. Grande dicionário Houaiss?eta da língua portuguesa. Versão eletrônica. Recuperado de http://houaiss.uol.com.br.

Jasanoff, S. (2003). The idiom of co-production. In Jasanoff, S. (Ed.) States of knowledge (1-12). London: Routledge.

Jasanoff, S. (2012). Science and public reason. London: Routledge.

Kuhn, T. (1962). The structure of scientific revolution. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Latour, B. (1994). Jamais fomos modernos. Rio de Janeiro: Editora 34.

Latour, B. (2000). Ciência em Ação: Como seguir cientistas e engenheiros sociedade afora. São Paulo: UNESP.

Latour, B. (2004). Políticas da natureza. Bauru: EDUSC.

Latour, B. (2012). Reagregando o Social: Uma introdução à teoria ator-rede. Salvador/Bauru: EDUFBA/EDUSC.

Law, J. (2012). Collateral realities. In Rubio, F. D. e Baert, P. The politics of knowledge (156-178). London: Routledge.

Law, J., & Hassard, J. (1999). Actor Network Theory and After. Oxford: Blackwell.

Lennon, K. (2000). Natural sciences. In Jaggar, A. M. & Young, I. M. A companion to feminist philosophy (185-193). Malden: Blackwell.

Longino, H. (1990). Science as social knowledge. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Mautner, T. (2005). The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy. London: Penguin Books.

Medvei, V. C. (1982). A History of Endocrinology. Lancaster: MTP Press.

Mikkola, M. (2011). Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender. Recuperado de http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/

Mills, C. S. (1997). The racial contract. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Mol, A. (2003). The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice. Durham: Duke University Press.

Mulvihill S. J. (1997). Gut hormones. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Annals of Surgery, 225 (2), 143–144. Recuperado de https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1190642/

Oudshoorn, N. (1990). Endocrinologist and the conceptualization of sex, 1920-1940. Journal of the history of biology, 23, (2), 163-186. Recuperado de http://www.jstor.org/stable/4331127

Polhaus, G. (2011) Wrongful Requests and Strategic Refusals to Understand. In Grasswick, H. E. (Ed.). Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science: Power in Knowledge (223-240). Dordrecht: Springer, 2011.

Proctor, R. N. (2008). Agnotology. The missing term to describe the cultural production of ignorance (and Its study). In Proctor, R. N. & Schiebinger, L. Agnotology: The making and unmaking of ignorance (1-33). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Quine, W. V. (1963). From a logical point of view. New York: Harper and Row.

Rubio, F. D., & Baert, P. (2012). Politics of Knowledge An introduction. In Rubio, F. D. e Baert, P. The politics of knowledge (1-10). London: Routledge.

Snyder, L., & Broadway, S. (2004). Queering high school biology textbooks. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 41(6), 617–636. DOI: 10.1002/tea.20014

Steup, M. (2005) Epistemology. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Recuperado de http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/.

Sullivan, S., & Tuana, N. (2007). Introduction. In Sullivan, S. & Tuana, N. Race and epistemologies of ignorance (1-10). Albany: State University of New York Press.

Temple, J. (2005). ‘‘People who are different from you’’: Heterosexism in Quebec high school textbooks. Canadian Journal of Education, 28(3), 271–294. Recuperado de http://www.csse-scee.ca/CJE/Articles/FullText/CJE28-3/CJE28-3-temple.pdf

Tuana, N., & Sullivan, S. (2006). Introduction: Feminist Epistemologies of Ignorance”. Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 21 (3), 1–3. DOI: 10.1111/j.1527-2001.2006.tb01109.x

Young, R. M. (2010). Brainstorm: The flaws in the science of sex differences. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Published

2016-12-20

How to Cite

Rodrigues e Silva, F. A., & Coutinho, F. Ângelo. (2016). Collateral realities and the production of ignorance. A study of hormones and gender issues. Investigations in Science Education, 21(3), 176–194. https://doi.org/10.22600/1518-8795.ienci2016v21n3p176