Critical training and sex education in the City of Buenos Aires: the politicization of pedagogical discourse

Abstract

In this article, we analyze, from the approach of critical sociolinguistics, discursive practices developed in a high school Language and literature course, in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, during the year 2022, in which gender and sexuality issues were problematized. Our research hypothesis is that the change of conjuncture in gender issues produced in Argentina in 2015, from the Ni Una Menos march and the wide dissemination of feminist discourses, had a strong impact on educational contexts, mainly by enabling in classroom practices the circulation of, on the one hand, gender issues that transcend the field of health and hygiene; and, on the other hand, perspectives from the social sciences and humanities. Consequently, the problematization of these issues in the classroom would bring with it a social, historical and political dimension, a fact that implies a change in the pedagogical models underlying educational practices and would contribute to the critical formation of students. The results obtained from the analysis of classroom interactions and the textbook used in the course allowed us to identify a series of particularities in these discursive practices that distance them from the hegemonic pedagogical discourse, such as dialogic openness, reversibility in classroom participation formats, appeal to students' beliefs and sensations, and polemic, characteristics more typical of political discourse and that contribute to the critical positioning of students with respect to the topics addressed in class.