Girls aged 12-15 in a Brazilian working-class neighborhood: gender, sexuality, reputation.

Abstract

This project aims to describe and analyze the construction of different femininities in a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of the city of Campinas, Brazil, to understand the process of "becoming a girl and a woman" in this context. The research is anchored in an ethnography developed with girls mostly aged 12 to 15 years, for whom issues related to sexuality or love relationships begin to become part of their daily life in different ways. From an initial foray into the field, we noticed the existence of two groups with different behaviors and ideals about femininity: a group that already has sexual experiences considered harmful to themselves by most interlocutors, and a group in which most girls don't have relationships and strongly affirm to avoid them. Considering that the school institution appears as central to the construction of femininity in both groups, it is intended to understand the place that school education and the school as an institution occupy in their lives. The field research will be developed through interviews and regular follow-up of these two groups of girls in formal and non-formal education spaces. The expected results will be descriptions and analysis that allow us to advance the understanding of how some social categories, such as gender, class, youth and school, are articulated and guide individuals to trace certain trajectories rather than others.