Abstract:

For decades, the Italian school system has been a predominantly female professional space, especially in early childhood and primary education. National and international data show that women represent an overwhelming majority of primary school teachers in Italy and in Europe, yet this presence has not substantially changed the contents of cultural transmission. School knowledge remains strongly marked by a male, hierarchical, and universalist epistemological construction, producing an educational paradox: women teaching knowledge conceived by men, about men, and for men. This contribution aims to explore the gap between those who teach – predominantly female teachers, often unaware of their gender positioning – and what is taught – a body of knowledge that continues to exclude or marginalize female experience.

The proposal is based on theoretical and pedagogical reflection supported by national and international literature and includes a qualitative analysis of textbooks, teaching materials, and curricula, especially in history, literature, and philosophy. Prior studies and exploratory analyses highlight how female figures appear only marginally in Italian school texts or are portrayed according to passive, stereotypical roles that support patriarchal narratives. This gap creates a symbolic tension in which the voice that teaches is not reflected in the content it transmits. The hidden curriculum silently operates as a space for reproducing gender hierarchies, while daily practices – assessment, text selection, examples – reinforce male dominance in knowledge. The female teacher thus becomes, often unwillingly, a mediator of a culture that excludes her as a subject of knowledge.

The contribution also reflects on the role of pre-service and in-service teacher training, which often lacks tools to recognize and deconstruct gender as a pedagogical category, risking the perpetuation of a formally neutral but effectively selective and unequal didactic approach. In this context, gender education is conceived as a practice that allows individuals to critically question and reconfigure gender norms, promoting emancipatory attitudes and critical awareness. Several transformative pathways are discussed: the reconstruction of female genealogies in knowledge, the adoption of teaching practices attentive to representation, and the empowerment of the teaching profession as a critical subject capable of questioning content and redirecting transmission. Particular attention is paid to approaches that include trans and gender-expansive identities from early childhood, countering the reproduction of cis-heteronormative norms.

Finally, the proposal reflects on the school’s role in overcoming acquired educational conditioning, not only through explicit critique of androcentric knowledge but also through the development of practices and discourses that make visible the plurality of female subjectivities and their histories. The ultimate goal is to outline the traits of a complex gender pedagogy, capable of integrating equality, difference, and plurality, and thus supporting a structural transformation of the Italian school system.

Keywords:

Gender pedagogy, feminist education, knowledge transmission, gender representation, educational bias.