Gender, education and fashion: curricular perambulations in a museum

Abstract

This article is a sample of a post-doctoral research in Education carried out at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) between the years 2020 and 2021, which focused on problematizing the gender relations said, not said and forbidden in the collection of different museums in the city of Belo Horizonte, MG. In the light of post-critical studies of gender and curriculum, meetings, observations and imaginative interlocutions were held with students and teachers from public schools, as well as with the teams from the educational sector of each space, during visits to the museums. In this friction, the idea of curriculum-museum was conceived, that is, a cultural artifact that teaches and produces readings about the world, which can happen in other territories, such as the museum. For the construction of the text, the Fashion Museum was chosen and three museum (de)objects were selected, understood as a discursive exercise of gender estrangement in the museum – an old sewing machine, a velvet handbag and a straw hat – as problematizing elements in the theoretical and empirical research. The results show that a museum-curriculum provides opportunities for powerful compositions with (de)objects in museums, generating shifts in the practice of learning about gender. Finally, the study signals the relevance of an expanded curricular practice based on the debate of gender relations and diversity in the museum.