Gender transformations in the field of education? Attitudes and opinions of teachers in Chile

Abstract

This quantitative research describes the attitudes and opinions of a sample of 1.777 teachers about transformations that Chilean society and the educational system are experiencing in terms of gender, sexism, family, sexuality, sex-gender dissidence and sexual education. The results show favorable attitudes toward the changes, which depart from more conventional views on gender and sexuality. These favorable attitudes are consistent with the demands of the feminist movement of 2018 and the approval of new legal norms and educational policies on gender in the country and also aligns with results of other research with teachers in Chile. In sexual education, there is a lack of preparation of teachers in their initial teacher training, a deficiency that should be assumed by universities that teach pedagogy degree courses. Indices were constructed for each area and were crossed with sociodemographic variables: gender, age, religious creed and political tendency, resulting in statistically significant differences in 23 of the 24 crosses. This relationship between variables shows clear sociodemographic profiles of those who present favorable and unfavorable attitudes towards the transformations investigated, profiles that should be considered in the programming of training activities with these groups.