Vozes que libertam, corpos que resistem:

gênero e liderança estudantil como práxis política na Educação Profissional e Tecnológica.

Abstract

This article analyzes the relationship between gender and leadership as constitutive dimensions of the political praxis of student leaders within Vocational and Technological Education (VTE), taking the Federal Institute of Paraíba (IFPB) as the empirical field. Grounded in historical-dialectical materialism, the study draws on the contributions of Freire, Saviani, Bourdieu, Fraser, and Butler to understand how power structures, patriarchy, and coloniality shape student representation and influence recognition and redistribution processes within the institution. Employing a mixed-methods approach, it combines questionnaires and narrative accounts from student leaders across multiple campuses, analyzed through Bardin’s (2016) content analysis technique. The findings indicate that, although student unions and collectives constitute spaces of political formation, critique, and resistance, gender, race, and class inequalities persist, limiting the visibility and legitimacy of subalternized leaderships. It concludes that the youth in VTE emerge as political subjects of social transformation, oriented toward an omnilateral, emancipatory education committed to gender equity and the democratic radicalization of public schooling.