Sexual and Gender Diversity in Educational Communities of Arica, Chile: Heteronorm Fissure from Multiculture

Abstract

Education is an inherent right of all people, which cannot be restricted by the expression of a gender identity different from the heteronormative model prevailing in school curricula, this is a challenge faced by educational institutions, requiring further research development. This qualitative study was aimed at understanding the meanings of sexual and gender diversity in the educational communities of basic and secondary education in Arica, Chile. The focal group was used as a technique of data collection, to know students' opinions; parents and guardians; teachers and education assistants, which were analyzed through the constant comparative method of the grounded theory. The results show tensions in meanings, represented by the reiteration of a heterosexual matrix inherited from the patriarchal hegemony in more adult generations that discursively tolerate diversity, but sanction its expression in the school environment, versus younger generations that accept and recognize it, emphasizing the urgency of training for social transformation, from the inclusion and non-discrimination of gender identities that fissure the feminine/masculine binomial, acting the ethnic and territorial multiculturalism as a propitiator of these resignifications.