GENDER EQUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION: PROGRESS AND CHALLENGES

Abstract

This article joins the discussion of gender equality in higher education by exploring the universe of undergraduate students from Federal University of Paraíba -UFPB / Campus I, mapping the participation of men and women by area of knowledge, considering sex and gender. The methodological procedure adopted was an exploratory and descriptive case study, which consisted of a statistical survey, with dataprovided by the Information Technology Superintendence -STI / UFPB, addressing the number of students enrolled in the 2016 school year. When we distributed these data according to the areas of knowledge, we noticed that women remained underrepresented inExact, Natural Sciences, Technology and Engineering (33%), remaining in areas understood as feminine -Human Sciences (57%) and Biological and Health Sciences (63%). The courses in the areas of Education, Health and Social Welfare, Services and Humanities, considered feminine, are the ones that attract women the most. Following this traditional trend, men prefer courses in Arts, Technology and Exact Sciences. However, if we consider the small participation of women in masculine courses and of men in feminine courses, we can see that we are still far from achieving gender equality in academia, as Nísia Floresta dreamed in the 19th century.