Theatre, labs and gender: an education package to improve STEM working environment

Abstract

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Gender affects all aspects of life, and the working and learning environment of science, technology, engineering and geosciences presents no exception. Gender issues concerning access, permanence and ascension of women in exact and earth sciences careers, in general, relates between other causes, to the underrepresentation of women in science communications, sexual or moral harassment caused by professors and colleagues during undergraduate and graduate ages, or the overload of housework for girls, when compared to boys, during early school ages. In other words, gender imbalance in science and technology careers may be seen as the result of a series of structured oppression suffered by women of all ages. In this context, we propose the development of an education package designed to understand these processes at different levels. One of the tools of this package is known as the Theatre of the Oppressed. Elaborated by Augusto Boal in the 1970s, the Theatre of the Oppressed uses theatre techniques as means of promoting social and political changes. Usually, a scene takes place, revealing an oppression situation. The audience becomes what is called <q>spect-actors</q>, where they become active by exploring, showing, and transforming the reality in which they are living. In the context of gender issues in exact sciences careers, the students can stage situations that reveal subtle actions of power relations that usually put women in subservience places. Our experience showed that even though the acting is fiction, the spectators learn much from the enactment, because the simulation of real-life situations, problems, and solutions stimulates the practice of resistance to oppression in reality, within a condition that offers a <q>safe space</q> for practising making a change. The package also includes a set of laboratory routines based on the work of female scientists, directed to students from 12 to 18 years old. The idea of the labs is to work as a school reinforcement on natural sciences disciplines, and to give visibility to women in science, improving issues such as underrepresentation and mistrust in women work. We show the evaluation of learning efficiency by assessing the results of a quiz.</p>