Teodora e Porcina: faces simbólicas da natureza em narrativas de mulheres sábias

This research looks at the collective imagination in which it keeps alive the issue of heroin wise. Two wise women appear in the narratives of popular history and the History of Donzela Theodora and History Imperatriz Porcina, collated by Luís da Câmara Cascudo in his Five Books of the People. The universality, mobility and circularity of these narratives are discussed by authors such as Bakhtin and Guinzburg. The research is developed from three key categories: Knowledge Magic as the knowledge of tradition (Almeida), sensitive knowledge (Levi-Strauss), thought mythical / magical / symbolic (Morin); Wise Women as carriers of this knowledge, which merge and overlap with the imagery of witches and healers; and Mythical Elements which corresponds to the archetypal images (Jung and Silveira), symbols and other images that relate to the magic universe, the magical beliefs and practices considered, ie belonging to the imaginary magic (Bethencourt). Porcina and Theodora are understood as bearers of knowledge of Métis (Detienne and Vernant), or the cunning intelligence, the manipulation of phármakon (Derrida), the healing potion, which may be the word or ointment of the herb. The route takes us to meet the great archetype of the Wise Woman as psychic power of the feminine, the anima. Narratives are medicinal balms (Estes) and is the clash between the anima and its embodiments by wise women, and animus, his opponents, which gives the transmutation of the psyche, a work comparable to that of alchemyThe Knowledge Magic, operating through the female, myth and nature can recover from its essential value to the emerging paradigm that suggests a more complete human science and a more plural

Corpo e gestualidade :o jogo da capoeira e os jogos do conhecimento

In the direction of questing a sociology that considers the flesh dimension of the existence, that favors to think the body while place of the production of the knowledge, our itinerary of research is characterized for the reflection on the gesture of the body as power of life and production of knowledge, recognizing the precision of the gesture as a privileged breach of comment of the collective life, of the projection and registration of the culture, of the symbolic, of the sensitivity. Our problematic can be meet in the possibility to enhance an open and sensible rationality, tattooed in the body and accessible for the gestures, that its materialized in the relations of the human being with the other and the world, in singular and collective relations. Therefore, the gesture, constructed in the intention the experience of the body, can tell us about the human being, the society and the culture, therefore the sensed of the gestures is constructed from the established and recognized mutual actions for the citizens. It is in this field of production of the knowledge, of knowing of the meat that we direct our perception, in the challenge to immerge into the intention of the gesture in the capoeira game. Of the methodological point of view, for the analysis of the gestures of the capoeira, therefore, of the body as knowledge power, we consider registers of images as well as narratives registers of the universe of the capoeira, as well as my experience of more than seven years in the group of capoeira cordão de ouro1. A epistemological exercise has as support a qualitative research where parts of the quantity of images of the investigated group, as well as interviews, daily registers in of field and over all my experience of life next to the group and to the capoeira, in intention to recognize symbols tattooed in the body and for it produced in the inter subjectivists relations. We search therefore, to evidence sensible and meanings drawn for the gesture and evidenced by the look of the researcher. We presents as objectives of this inquiry to nuance ribbings around of the social and cultural elements in the production of the knowledge of the body, of the gesture, weaveeed for the sensible rationality

Vai trabalhar, vagabundo :valores e representações sobre o trabalho

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior

Os batistas regulares e as armadilhas históricas do iluminismo

Taking the Regular Baptist Churches of Rio Grande do Norte as the research field, this paper seeks to contribute to a new, more appropriate vision of the new picture of the religiosity of the Brazilian Protestantism. Established since 1938, the Regular Baptists Churches have been representing and producing their speech through their 58 churches spread throughout the state, besides a Theological School, two camps, an association (AIBRERN) and a House of Spiritual Assistance to Drug Dependents (CAEDD). A reflection of the symbolic substratum of the spirituality of the group agrees with the external description of its presence in RN. We understand that the Regular Baptists represent yet one more translation of a modern religious speech and that their focus is on the inheritance of a Christian fundamentalism based on the illuminist rationalism. In this way, we observed this group trying to find in its doctrines, practices and rules of conduct a demonstration that the spirit of the post-modernism challenges the group to new dynamics in the conservative model of its spirituality

Escrever o movimento: o cinema itinerante como reinvenção de uma estética do viver

La tesis parte del presupuesto que el cine ofrece la imensa capacidad de entretejer de forma compleja realidad e imaginación. Con eso sugerimos que tal cual una "escuela de vida", según la definición de Edgar Morin (2003), el cine, por medio de sus producciones y exibiciones, pude ser capaz de operar un movimiento de reinvención de una estética del vivir en el espacio de lo improbable. De ahi surge la pregunta: ¿Cómo un fenómeno artístico, estético e imagético puede realizar tal movimiento? Tomando como referencia el guión de vida del personaje de la vida real José Isaias de Lucena Filho, más conocido por Zezeco, encontramos pistas de esa reinvención. Residente de una pequeña ciudad del interior de la província de Rio Grande do Norte, llamada Ouro Branco, en la década del 1960, se desplazó hacia el centro-sur de Brasil y retornó a su lugar de partida con la idea de trabajar proyectando peliculas. De manera singular y plural, este sujeto asumió el riesgo y la incertidumbre de enfrentar determinismos sociales, climáticos y culturales para proponer nuevas simbolizaciones por medio del cine itinerante. La presencia del séptimo arte en pequeñas ciudades de hábitos rurales marcadas por la miséria, el hambre, la negligéncia, el coronelismo político y los problemas climáticos, alteró escenários, actualizó mitos y proporcionó nuevas interacciones entre los sujetos. Zezeco entró en las cifras del éxodo rural y emigró hacia Rio de Janeiro, pero su éxodo fue cinematográfico, porque le sirvió como base para la inserción de efectos especiales fantásticos y poéticos en guiones de vidas inmersas en lo trivial y lo contingente. Tal cual un cinematógrafo vivo, capturó el escenário cultural efervescente de Rio de Janeiro y lo proyectó en la pequeña ciudad de Ouro Branco y en otras ciudades del interior de las províncias de Rio Grande do Norte y Paraiba. Con ello le atribuyó un nuevo uso a la vida de su lugar de partida y de retorno. Actuó en la ambiguedad, la ambivalencia y la complejidad entre el sapiens e el demens; real e imaginario; prosa y poesia de la vida; razón y pasión; racional y simbólico; lógico y mítico. El alcance de la investigación contempla entrevistas, memória, registros manuscritos y fotografías de colección particular de habitantes de la ciudad de Ouro Branco-RN. Como referenciales teóricos principales, tenemos las obras de Edgar Morin sobre el cine y de otros autores como Giorgio Agamben y Maria da Conceição de Almeida que expanden la comprensión sobre el entreejido de realidad e imaginación, vida e ideas

A cor ausente: um estudo sobre a presença do negro na formação de professores - Pará, 1970 1989

The subject of study of this work is the teacher spawning of the Instituto de Educação do Pará in the decades of 1970 and 1980. It aims the enablement offered by the institute concerning the racial issue. The thesis highlights the inferior condition to which the black student is relegated and the discrimination it suffers. Our argument is to affirm the omission of the curriculum and the reference resources as far as the racial issue is concerned. Before the singularity of the Brazilian case a country with a slavish background, with serious social unbalance problems, many of them resulting from the racial segregation implemented by that slavish system , this work claims that the preparation of the teachers for dealing with this issue is crucial, since the absence of this preparation leads to the reproduction of the prejudice inside the classroom. This thesis is based on the theory of Pierre Bourdieu on the notion of habitus and symbolic power

Habitus docente e representação social do ensinar Geografia na Educação Básica de Teresina - Piauí

The literature about the Geography teaching has shown that most male and female teachers of this subject go on guiding their teaching practice based on the traditional Geography fundamentals, whose main characteristic consist in the description of places. The incorporation of scientific standards that change the old principles and concepts have not been happening, unless in a punctual way. The overcoming of the traditional Geography, related to the aspects accepted by the scientific field have not happened in Brazil yet, not only because of certain obvious obstacles, as the literature has been pointed out but also by symbolic obstacles, which block the incorporation of the new, of the non habitual action. One of those obstacles that motivated the accomplishment of this study was the social representations that are theoretically studied here under the perspective developed by Serge Moscovici. Then, the focus of this doctorate study is concentrated in the apprehension of the content and structure of the social representation of teaching of Geography and its relation with the habitus that gives form and social visibility to the ones who are teachers of that subject in Teresina. The consecution of this work was especially based on the Pierre Bourdieu´s praxiology, mainly on the concepts of social field, habitus and capital, as well as the theory of social representations, specifically on the approach of central nucleus developed by Jean-Claude Abric and Jean-Claude Flament. The initial hypothesis pointed out the existence of a Geographer´s primary habitus built through the development process of the geographic science field in Brazil, as a basis of production of a social representation of teaching geography . That representation, however, would act as a symbolic obstacle to the incorporation of the new scientific contents and pedagogical practice, which require from the teacher investigative and questionable attitude in the presence of the reality and contents approached in the classroom. That initial hypothesis laid on the theoretical purpose that it has been developed by Domingos Sobrinho (1997), which states that there is a narrow relationship between the habitus and social representation. The study was developed with male and female teachers of Geography from public schools of Teresina. The methodology involved the use of a questionnaire, the free-word association technique and deep interviews. The achieved results showed the presence of a complex process of representational construction and its articulation with a habitus produced by the synthesis of several situational and cultural referents, from among of them we can point out an insertion in a social field of practice exclusively related to the teaching and the reproduction of a professoral teaching (SILVA, 2003), built through the school development process, which those male and female teachers were exposed. The initial hypothesis that considered the local reproduction of a primary habitus of the Geography was denied, therefore, it was verified that there is not in Teresina the production/reproduction of the structures, rules and practice of the national scientific field, in which this subject is inserted. Hence, the incorporation of the new patterns of the geographic scientific knowledge is difficult because of the inexistence of a scientific habitus, that is, mental schema systems that would let the teachers mentioned above connect themselves appropriately to the science and its practices. So, it has gotten a social representation of teaching geography based on contents strictly related to the reproduction of structures, mental schema from the educational field which attach themselves to the hegemonic pedagogical practices in the national scope

O discurso formativo do Biólogo sobre a morte: matizes e metáforas do saber que o sujeito não deseja saber

This study - Biologist s formative speech about death. Nuances and metaphors from knowing that the subject of do not want to know - shows a marginal cognitive construction in scientific education from biologist - death. It considered as obvious that death is a theme that covers both the scientific education from biologist and the division of the subject, and concerns the splitting of the double life-death and the principles of inclusion and exclusion of the subject. Part of sensitive question: What is the epistemological weave who supports biologist's speech about death? It is constituted an object of study of the biologist s speech on death. It is advocated the thesis that: Death is an epistemological obstacle announcing for something always aims to escape from the perspective of knowledge, especially of scientific knowledge because, since it is understood as cognitive learning about the disruption of biological phenomenon life which is involved on weave of imaginary and symbolic constructions about the finiteness of life; it has constituted a metaphorical knowing - encouraged by the noisy silence - which does not allow to know in full, mobilizing hence subject in searching for transitional truths that reduce the ontological being-mortal anguish centered in subjective dimension involved in the act of knowing. From this movement of search that the object mental life after death wins a symbolic value that requires a real-looking multi-referential for the study of biology - life - and its implications: the finiteness of life, especially by moving the omnipotence of scientific objectivity expressed by signs and symbols that seek say the completeness of scientific knowledge-, signaling thus the existence of the dynamics of incompleteness implicit in subjectivity that supports knowledge relating to the double, life and death, and to the temporality of the existence of Homo sapiens sapiens, with the axis guiding the desire of the subject, do not want to know about death, implicit in the mechanisms objective-subjective founded by non-said of death is the epistemology of the existence of objective-subjective subject, whose core is the negation of death. The theoretical methodological knowing web is anchored in the multi-reference which favors a transit by theoretical current, as the Psychoanalysis, bachelardian philosophy, the epistemology of complexity, the Thanatology, the Social Psychology, and Etnocenology, and Understanding Interview. The unveiling of the study object from the analysis of oral speech of eleven biologists who serve in high school, from three main guiding: Death in the history of life,Death in biologist s academic education and, Conceptions about concepts

Representações sociais, relações de gênero e programas de assistência e educação à saúde da mulher no climatério em Natal/RN

Climacteric is the name of the period of the human life that it is going from the 40 years old, approximately, until the 65 years old. Though, for besides a biological phase of the woman's life, the climacteric is an object of the social world that is rendered to different apprehensions and readings on the symbolic plan. In this study, it was looked for to know the social representations, that health' professionals acting in the programs of the climacteric and the users of those same services, build in respect of that purpose. Besides, it tried to be seen that the social hegemonic representation that guides the actions and the agents' attitudes in the practices of attendance and education for the woman's health in the climacteric in the extent of the investigated institutions. The data were collected through interviews, questionnaire, focal discussion group and direct observation. The observation field was constituted by the three institutions that develop the attendance and education for the woman's health in the climacteric phase, in the city of Natal. A gender perspective was also been adopted, sought to evidence as the cognitive structures that assure the masculine power reproduction, pronounce to the social representations to build a sense to the investigated purpose. It was verified that the social representations of the climacteric are built mainly around the semantic fields old age and disease. For the health professionals, the meaning of the simbol old age carries the marks of the indentified system of the middle class employed, but also, of the feminine habitus that guides them to have an ethical and aesthetic apprehension of their own body. The climacteric, in that way, is seen as a difficult phase , a painful event that scares . For the women attended by those professionals, the sign old age means feeling emphasis from the biological climacteric aspects, in other words, the sensations and signs that forbid the body to accomplish certain linked basic life functions. Along the whole course of this thesis, it was verified that the climacteric is a complex phenomenon that needs to be faced as such. While cultural phenomenon, it is urgent to look for means to help to combat the centrality of the professional representations that face the climacteric as old age and disease, particularly in the field of health

Paisagens sonoras, tempos e autoformação

Les sociétés actuelles vivent des temps de vitesse, de l'individualisme, de l'absence d'enracinement historique: en harmonie avec le processus de formation de la civilisation du monde occidental contemporain profondément marqué par le paradigme de la globalisation. La pollution visuelle et sonore des grandes villes est, en même temps, l'expression de la pollution des sens et des affections humaines. En reflétant sur ce processus, la thèse discuter em faveur d'une formation réglée dans la logique du sensible qu'il a dans l'écouter près de la nature (Lévi-Strauss) un de leurs piliers épistémologiques ondamentales. Cette forme de penser et vivre reconnaît dans l'autoformation (Edgar Morin), et dans l'exercice de construction, par le sujet, de leurs propres paysages sonores (Murray Schafer), deux opérateurs cognitifs capables de nourrir les principes de la diversité, complexité, interdépendance et respect à la nature (Fritjof Capra). Dans le parcours argumentatif de la thèse gagnent emphase les savoirs de la tradition, les pratiques et les connaissances produites par les sociétés le plus proche de la nature qui, par des stratégies cognitives ouvertes et des polyphoniques, donnent importance aux facultés sensibles et à la complémentarité des deux itinéraires de la pensée: symbolique/mythologique/magique et empirique/technique/rationnel (Edgar Morin). Proche d'une perspective autobiographique, la thèse se présente dans la forme narrative d'un registre avec des évocations poétiques, philosophiques et musicales germées de l'écouter d'un paysage particulier, la Lagon du Piató, localisé dans la région de l'Assu (Rio Grande do Norte) et, en particulier, des récits et des évocations de mémoire d'un de leurs habitants auxlesquels nous pourrions appeler d'un philosophe de la nature , Francisco Lucas da Silva (Chico Lucas). Ensuite, ils sont décrits non-place (Marc-Augé) des scénarios métropolitains, en discutant ainsi les excès de pollution sonore, visuelle et de l'afection. En ayant comme estimé une éducation complexe ancrée dans non séparation il entre réforme de l'éducation et reforme de la pensée, de la formation et autoformation (Edgar Morin), à la fin, la thèse propose des ateliers d'expérimentation de l'écouter sensible entre des jeunes et des enfants sur le contexte scolaire, en pariant dans les futures générations (Ilya Prigogine) pour la reconstruction d'un monde plus juste et solidaire

Natal como destino turístico : um estudo das imagens (re)veladas pela mídia, pelos turistas e suas implicações educacionais e culturais

This thesis is a result of a research on Natal/RN as a tourist destination. We understand that cities are chosen as tourist destinations beyond its cartographic localization, from other dimensions of meanings that, in its set, constitute images. These images are, probably, very different of the images constructed by native and resident populations, who possess relations of identity with the place. The knowledge of the meanings that others attribute to this city as tourist destination, bring us near to the symbolic bonds established by individuals or social groups on the act of their choices, as well as bring us near to the interaction process city-tourists where the expectations are confirmed or not. The images divulgated by the media also participate of the complex formation of the tourist image that is being constructed and available for the different public, in different social contexts. The tourism constitutes a symbolic asset of the modern society, being considered by the studious, as one of the most expressive phenomena of the modernity, for involving each year displacement and the interaction of thousand of people of different cultures in the entire world. All this people s mobilization points to practical social related to personal motivations, to the entailed desired to the idea to travel and to exceed borders. It is already consensus that tourism is a phenomenon of economic growth, generating jobs, income, professional, qualification, bringing improvements for the host cities. Since 1995, in Brazil, the tourism as a sector of the economy, passed to be considered one of the national priorities, and in this perspective, the national politics of the tourism invested in infrastructure of Brazilian cities with high tourist potential, objecting to increase the flows of Brazilian and foreign tourists. Owing to this fact, the country still invests in programs of tourist marketing, mainly divulging the images of the natural beauties of Brazil abroad. And for Brazilians, the campaigns appeal to rescue the feeling to be Brazilian, associating the idea to travel and know its country. Natal city possesses an excellent positioning in the tourist marketing, being predominantly divulgated in national and international level, for its naturalistic singularity, where the images of its natural enchantments as warm water beaches, white dunes, warm weather, constant breeze and an always blue sky are shown as the favorite scene on this city. From what was viewed above that the choice of a tourist destination articulates from a determined imaginary of a place, already constructed or in process of construction, we consider the knowledge of this imaginary a basic learning for the population of the city and especially, for educators, in the formation of professionals in this area and for tourism managers, elaborators of public politics. Based on this estimative, we developed this research that had as a general objective to identify the images that illustrate Natal city as a tourist destination - our objective of study, particularly the meanings and senses attributed by the tourist marketing (hotel s folders) and by the tourists that visited the city during this study. The discussions and reflections that had guided this research had been given from the theoretical link between imaginary and social representation, also considering some interfaces between the fields of communication and symbol. From the studied authors, Baczko (1985) clarifies that the study of social imaginary is directed for the mechanisms and structures of the social life, especially for the intervention accomplishes and efficient of the representations and symbols in the practical collectives, as well as in its direction and orientation . Following this same thought, Moscovici (1978) says that the social representation are produced in communicational and symbolic contexts, and these representations once that already constituted circulate socially as almost tangible entities. Based on this fundament and on the analyze of Barthes (1990), particularly in the approach given to the reading of photographic image, we could observe on hotel s folders that each page evidences senses and meanings of functionality of internal and external spaces, pointing to the way of leisure offered by the keepers of city which is the hotels. About, the leisure that they offer, it is directed to young public, giving meaning to the young myth of personalized leisure tourism on children, young and adults images. The image about security that hotels offer and the singular image of Natal city as a paradise place, provide an idealization of pleasure through the sun, dunes, and beaches and also due to the hospitability of the natives who are assigned as educated . For the tourist that participated on this research, Natal city is tied only by the imaginary of leisure and nature which constitute the emotional link of the relation media-city-tourist. And with such force and fullness of directions the city discloses without tensions and contradictions as a place protected by a mythical and sacred aura. The study also demonstrates us that the potiguar culture remains (almost) forgotten, due to the silenced in this imaginary. In this perspective, we highlight that this culture silence is very close related to the disvalue of education in its general meaning. We defend that the imaginary apprehended constitutes a new reading and a new looking and understanding the tourist reality that comes historically consolidating in this city. In this direction, we glimpse that this study and its future dismemberments can collaborate with the process of rescue the cultural values of the potiguar people, in the way that the meaning of tourist may be redefined, and the tourist image of the city can be also disclosed for its identities particularities of its culture

Uma visita ao universo matemático de Lewis Carrol e o (re)encontro com sua lógica do nonsense

Notable mathematics teacher, Lewis Carroll, pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), made the mixture of mathematics with literature a ludic environment for learning that discipline. Author of Alice s Adventures In Wonderland and its sequel Alice Through The Looking Glass, he eventually created a real and complex universe which uses what we call the logic of the nonsense as an element to motivate the development of mathematical thinking of the reader, taking it as well, learn by establishing a link between the concrete (mathematics) and the imaginary (their universe). In order to investigate and discuss the educational potential of their works and state some elements that can contribute to a decentralized math education from the traditional method of following the models and decorate formulas, we visited his works based on the studies of archeology of knowledge (FOUCAULT, 2007), the rational thought and symbolic thinking (VERGANI, 2003) and about the importance of stories and narratives to the development of human cognition (FARIAS, 2006). Through a descriptive, analytical study, we used the literary construction and presented part of our study in form of a mathematical novel, to give the mathematical school a particular charm, without depriving it of its basics properties as discipline and content. Our study showed how the works of Carroll have a strong didactic element that can deploy in various activities of study and teaching for mathematics classes

Tramas do impedimento: os sentidos da desistência entre Alfabetizandos da EJA

For young people and adults that have not yet conquered reading and writing, being literate is the most important thing in life , a dream . Scholarly learning for them is like hegemonic knowledge in contemporary literate society. Thus, for them to get into school is to be able to have such knowledge and, through it, feel inserted into this society. However, along this process of learning, they start to drop out, little by little, statistically increasing the number of people who give up on young people and adult education Eja, as well as slowly reducing the contingent of illiteracy in the country. With this reality as a starting point, we question the concrete and symbolic reasons or motives that lead to a dropping out of the literacy classes at Eja. To do so, we have established, as the object of our study, the feelings of giving up among those involved in young people and adult literacy training. To understand such feelings is our purpose in this investigation. The theory of Social Representations (MOSCOVICI, 1978, 2004) was the theoretical-methodological option for subsidizing data search, analyses and interpretation, making us perceive the significance of the object of this study for these individuals. The gathering of such symbolic content involved the use of semi-structured interviews with eleven drop-outs and ten students who had repeated this modality of teaching in public schools in Natal, RN, during the 2006 school year. From the thematic and categorical analyses (BARDIN, 1977), we identified elements that gave support to some themes. Later, these themes led to three categories, suggesting that feelings associated with dropping out were based on the following: learning difficulties because they did not understand the contents; having their lack of knowledge exposed, thus bringing forth feelings of shame, humiliation, and embarrassment for not knowing how to read and write at a mature age; work, tiredness and sickness. The students who manage to remain in school are those who force themselves to live with the feelings of maladaptation and those who develop a sense of adaptation the other way round to the institution, that is, acceptance of institutional failures and omissions

Representações sociais de formação continuada: com a palavra as professoras do ensino fundamental da rede pública de Natal RN

Metaphorically, research is presented as a journey by sea, having as object of study the social representations of Continuing Education for teachers of elementary school and as aim, to analyze them in comparison of participants from state and municipal systems, located in Natal-RN, Brazil .They have contributed to the achievement of this objective the voices of 158 teachers, the vast literature on training in professional development and the theoretical formulations proposed by Moscovici and colleagues, with relevance to the Central Nucleus Theory advocated by Abric. The corpus resulting from evocations about continuing education, as well as teachers' justifications were submitted to different computer methods/techniques, through the EVOC ALCESTE Programs, respectively, providing the opportunity to highlight a network of interconnections between the likely core and the production of discourse. Although the educational ideologies that underlie social perception of the state teachers are anchored in New School and technicist concepts and the teachers in the city tend to an ideology of social interaction, the choice of working with the symbolic field identified the political-social commitment of groups with the impacts of training on learning of their students

Praxiologia, representação social de menopausa e práticas educativas de enfermeiras na estratégia saúde da família

This research, whose theme is related to climacteric, aims to know the social representation of menopause developed by the nurses working for Estratégia Saúde da Família (Family Health Strategy) in João Pessoa PB, as well as identifying its structure and verifying the way it interferes with the assistance and educational practices to the climacterial user. In the theoretical level, it is based on a model that articulates the social representations theory, the central nucleus complementary theory and the central concepts of Pierre Bourdieu s praxiology: habitus, cultural capital, social field and symbolic power. A hundred and forty-seven female nurses who work for Estratégia Saúde da Família (Family Health Strategy) in João Pessoa (PB) took part in this research, and the data collection period was from February 2008 to March 2009. As to the methods and techniques, we used the method to determine the central nucleus based on the free association of words, a questionnaire to identify certain regularities that constitute the nurses habitus, and the semi-structured interview to explore opinions and attitudes when facing assistance situations and educational practices and to collect other relevant information. The data analysis was developed, when referring to the free associations, with the help of the EVOC software, which is a group of articulated programs which carry out the statistical analysis of the evocations and the identification of the possible elements of both the central nucleus and the peripheral system of the social representation. As to the questionnaire, we used the descriptive statistical analysis and the analysis of correlation between the variables. The interviews were submitted to a categorical analysis of the content. The EVOC result indicated that the cognition hormone was the only element of the central nucleus of the social representation of menopause. Due to its symbolic value and structuring power, this central nucleus ensures the strict and, at the same time, flexible character of the representational content. The analysis of the social advancement, of some fundamental features of the group habitus, as well as the analysis of its insertion in the health field and of the attitudinal opinions and dispositions concerning the assistance given to the climacterial user, and the analysis of the pedagogical dimension of this assistance, all these analyses lead to the conclusion that the nurses who took part in this research share a social representation of the menopause resulting from the association of different technical and scientific knowledge. These derive from the biomedical pattern as well as from hegemonic values which disqualify old age and overvalue youth, from pedagogical conceptions arising from patterns that are presently regarded as authoritative and old-fashioned and from cultural references (responsible for the semantic variations concerning the central nucleus) which are specific to the subgroups the nurses belong to. This research enables the creation of opportunities for discussion between active nurses working for Estratégia Saúde da Família, and the nurses who are teachers at institutions of higher education, aiming at linking theory to practice, so that they can find ways of thinking about the climacteric and working, in a more comprehensive way, with users who are experiencing this stage of life