Graduation in nursing: an analysis of the curriculum from a gender perspective

Objective: to analyze the Nursing Course curriculum of a public university from a gender perspective. Method: a qualitative study was conducted through documentary analysis. The curricular project and the courses syllabi were used as primary documents. Results: the curriculum is organized predominantly around biological and hospital care, which contributes to a fragmented view that does not include the relational aspects of care; patients are represented in a generic and decontextualized form, and gender issues are ignored. Conclusion: the curricular organization silences aspects that are fundamental for problematizing and understanding the health and disease process in its full dimension. Descriptors: Nursing; Gender and Health; Curriculum. RESUMO Objetivo: analisar o currículo do Curso de Enfermagem de uma universidade pública sob a perspectiva de gênero. Método: estudo qualitativo realizado por meio da técnica de análise documental. Utilizaram-se como documentos primários o Projeto Pedagógico e os Planos de Curso. Resultados: constata-se que o currículo está organizado predominantemente em torno da assistência biológica e hospitalar, o que contribui para uma visão fragmentada, que não contempla os aspectos relacionais do cuidado; e que os sujeitos são representados de forma genérica e descontextualizada, omitindo-se as questões de gênero. Conclusão: a organização curricular silencia aspectos fundamentais para a problematização e compreensão do processo saúde e doença em sua dimensão integral. Descritores: Enfermagem; Gênero e Saúde; Currículo. RESUMEN Objetivo: analizar el plan de estudios del Curso de Enfermería de una universidad pública bajo la perspectiva de género. Método: es un estudio cualitativo a través del análisis documental. El proyecto curricular, el plan de estudios y los planes de las asignaturas fueran utilizados como documentos primarios. Resultados: se observó que el plan de estudios se organiza principalmente en torno al cuidado biológico y hospitalario, lo que contribuye a una visión fragmentada, que no incluye los aspectos relacionales de la atención; y que los sujetos son representados en forma genérica y descontextualizada, se omitiendo las cuestiones de género. Conclusión: la organización del plan de estudios silencia aspectos fundamentales para la problematización y la comprensión del proceso salud y enfermedad en su dimensión integral. Descriptores: Enfermería; Género y Salud; Plan de Estudios. Enfermeira, Mestre em Educação, Universidade Federal de Campina Grande/UFCG. Campina Grande (PB), Brasil. E-mail: sheila.milena@gmail.com; Pedagoga, Professora, Pós-Doutora, Curso de Pedagogia/Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação, Universidade Federal da Paraíba/PPGE/UFPB. João Pessoa (PB), Brasil. E-mail: maria.eulina@pq.cnpq.br ORIGINAL ARTICLE Santos SMP dos, Carvalho EMP. Graduação em enfermagem: uma análise do... English/Portuguese J Nurs UFPE on line., Recife, 9(Suppl. 4):8079-87, May., 2015 8080 ISSN: 1981-8963 DOI: 10.5205/reuol.6235-53495-1-RV.0904supl201513 Until the nineteenth century, Brazilian Nursing was practiced empirically by religious and laity people. Only in 1923, with the opening of the Anna Nery Nursing School, was established the first nursing curriculum. Since then, there had to curriculum reforms in 1949, 1962, 1972, 1994 and 2001. The rescue of these reforms shows that until the 1990s the formation legitimized and reproduced the hegemonic medical paradigm of health practices with emphasis on curative and hospital-centered care. Given the demands of the labor market, these reforms have sought to strengthen the profession through scientifization and technicality and reaffirm the teaching conservation focused on biologicist, healing and hospital-centered model in nursing graduation. From the 90s, there were changes in the political and social scenes, leading to the change of the health paradigm, proposing the displacement of health education of the biological, technical and essentialist approach to the understanding of the health and disease process as a social, cultural and historical construction. It is understood that a project should include curriculum goals and contents that contribute to a critical socialization of individuals. This concern had caused the inclusion of content related to the humanities and social sciences in the curriculum least 1994 and was expanded in Curriculum Guidelines from 2001. The challenge is to redirect the training beyond the acquisition of scientific knowledge and technical skills, aiming to break the biologicist vision, medical and hospital-centered, which, while limiting the subject's vision in its full and relational dimension, reinforces the ideology of nursing subject to medical practice. In this sense, the educational process should include strategies for the development of skills and abilities that make nurses better prepared and with a broader vision for the performance at work. Guided by the paradigm of critical training, this new direction contributed to the reformulation of nursing curricula, in view to developing knowledge and practices that address health care for people, considering the relational aspects, such as gender issues. The concept of gender refers to the construction of social relations from the sexual differences that, in a dichotomous and a hierarchical way, create allegedly natural models and opposite of femininity and masculinity, in the framework of androcentrism. The knowledge around gender relations are reproduced and validated in the context of social institutions and practices, family and school. Overcoming a purely technical sense in favor of curriculum design as a producer of subjectivities and identities, the curriculum is a space where differences and inequalities are (re) produced and fixed. Therefore, the curriculum design is related to training a certain profile of citizen. In this way, curriculum analysis is established as an important way to give visibility to the attachment processes of gender inequities, because the curriculum is an instrument of formation of consciousness. Whereas historically Nursing has sought to enhance its value and professional autonomy through training, to question their paradigms is a way of contributing to the advancement of the training process. Furthermore, it is important to remember that nursing also historically constituted as a female profession. Thus, this article aims to analyzing the curriculum of the undergraduate nursing course at a public university from the gender perspective, reinforcing that such analysis offers a valuable specific contribution as critical cultural and critical knowledge, besides offering support for a reinterpretation of health and disease processes under the axis of completeness. INTRODUCTION Santos SMP dos, Carvalho EMP. Graduação em enfermagem: uma análise do... English/Portuguese J Nurs UFPE on line., Recife, 9(Suppl. 4):8079-87, May., 2015 8081 ISSN: 1981-8963 DOI: 10.5205/reuol.6235-53495-1-RV.0904supl201513 Article elaborated from the dissertation << Graduate nursing: a look at the curriculum under gender perspective >> submitted to the Graduate Program in Education of the Federal University of Paraíba, João Pessoa, PB, Brazil; 2011. To undertaking the curriculum analysis in nursing education, we opted for a undergraduate course of a public institution of teaching, established in 1973, being one of the eight Northeastern courses, a total of 105, who obtained score 4 in the National Student Performance Exam, which allows us to infer that the organization of this course is in line with the desired professional profile. For the development of this research there were conducted three previous inperson contacts with the coordinator of the Course, in order to request authorization to carry out research and the availability of documents. The visits to the institution and the apprehention of the documents were carried out during the month of March 2010. Printed copies of the current Educational Project were available (1999) and digital copies of Plans of Courses available for the period between the years 2007 and 2010. The total of Plans of Courses was 66 documents. The analyzed curriculum, in force since 1999, marked by Federal Law 1721 of 1994 by the Ministry of Education and Culture, was undergoing reformulation process to meet the Resolution of the National Council of Education no 3 of November, 7 , 2001, which established the National Curriculum Guidelines for the Undergraduate Nursing Course. It was used the document analysis technique of primary documents: the Educational Project and the Plans of Courses. Although these documents present limitations, because only indicates the paths that lead to pedagogical practice, they show the elements that translate the system of ideas that guide training. For the composition of the corpus of analysis, initially, it been read fully all information and, then, cataloged and dated in all documents. Plans of Courses repeated or incomplete filling were discarded. After the selection and organization of material, for the systematization of data on the Educational Project and Plans of Courses selected for the study, guiding forms of analysis were used, highlighting: explicit terminology used to designate the subject in the curriculum, sexist language, the academic work hours of the curricular component, the course description, content addressed and bibliography. The material was interpreted aiming to answer the following questions: What is the predominant attention paradigm in the Curriculum? Under what perspectives are represented subjects in the Curriculum? How does the curriculum in Nursing present Gender issues? What knowledge is valued in the Curriculum? What knowledges is silenced? Guided the analysis the concepts of Curriculum and Gender supported on the theoretical framework of Gender Studies, considering that these theoretical tools enable a further deepening of the issues intertwined