Abstract:
The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the naturalization of gender inequalities in
society and how they are experienced in Child Education games. Thus, when reflecting
on the role of the school in the face of these inequalities and how toys and games
influence the construction of social gender roles for boys and girls, this research is
based on thinkers such as: Vygotsky (2007), Brougère ( 2006; 2008) and Kishimoto
(1997; 2008) who value playing in childhood and its importance in the constitution of
the subject. The theories of Foucault (1984; 2013; 2015) added to studies by Louro
(1997), Saffioti (2011) and Dorlin (2021) on gender inequalities underlie this study in
order to explain how toys and games are used as instruments for the docility of bodies
that legitimize gender (in)equalities at school. By understanding that the school
exercises power by sharing knowledge and knowledge capable of breaking barriers
and changing the thinking and attitude of adults and providing children with playful
learning that develops criticality and creativity as new forms of reality, allowing greater
freedom of expression in the construction of children's identities, this work concludes
that the role of the school is to educate boys and girls in the truth of science and history,
that is, to engender the construction of a critical and active subject, capable of thinking
for himself and questioning the norms and excess of prohibitions that impede creativity,
freedom, and equality. The present research approaches Cultural Studies by
proposing a study that demanded an interdisciplinary research with different
perspectives on a cultural issue.