Possibilities for gender equity through inquiry-based Science Teaching

Abstract Studies indicate that gender inequality, social exclusion, and historical factors of oppression lead to distancing between girls and Science. Therefore, our research aimed to understand the participation of girls and boys in investigative activities, and to analyze the contribution of the actions of two mediators to the participation of girls in gender equity conditions. The public consisted of 241 students aged between 13 and 14 years, from public and private elementary schools (8th and 9th grades) located in the metropolitan region of São Paulo. The meetings were audio and video-recorded, and the free software IRaMuTeQ was used to perform lexical analysis of the transcripts of 10 classes. Equal participation in the discussions is highlighted, in which girls and boys produced statements and raised hypotheses, indicating a large percentage of arguments in the cart collision experiment, probably due to the planning and theoretical basis for the work of the mediators to afford equitable actions.