Challenges and perspectives of sociology in vocational high school

an experience report

Abstract

This article aims to reflect on the extra-curricular pedagogical practices of sociology in a vocational curriculum integrated to high school, developed in a very peculiar context: the Brazil-Paraguay border. In this sense, I will analyze teaching, research, and community-based activities (especially those focused on the theme of women and gender) conducted at the Instituto Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul, campus Ponta Porã. My research question lies in the attempt to understand the place of Sociology, as well as that of my experience as a teacher, in a scenario of worsening political conflicts at both national and local levels – especially those related to the mounting of moral conservatism, typical of movements such as Escola sem Partido. Over the course of ten years, it was possible to observe an increase in the attempts to silence the democratic and progressive educational project. Such attempts, rendered visible in the anti-gender liberation discourse present at school and in the community that hosts it and that, not by chance, are projected as an echo of the current Brazilian society.