Genetic sex -the apparent fundamental biological cause of the two male and female human varieties- is a 20th century construct. Looking down the microscope, the stained chromosomes are concrete countable entities and lend themselves easily to genetic determinism. As the chromosome composition of a person is generally fixed at the time of conception, when a Y- or X-bearing sperm is united with the X-bearing egg, a person’s genetic sex is taken as permanent and unchanging throughout their life. Drawing upon gender theory as well as science and technology studies this thesis explores how our particular construction of the concept of ‘genetic sex’ relies on four features of biological sex (binary, fixed, spanning nature, and found throughout the body) and in addition proposes one unique feature, inheritance. The empirical research is based on an analysis of popular science books as well as two case studies of how genes relate to sex determination and development. The analysis of the metaphors used in these books and journal articles reveals how now, with genomic efforts to explore gene expression profiles, there is a shift away from seeing genes as having ‘responsibilities’ for determining phenotypes towards seeing them play a role along with other genes in genetic cascades where other factors such as timing can be incorporated. The analysis of genomic features such as imprinting and X-chromosome inactivation also provide evidence that such a change should be recognised. Rather than seeing sex in terms of fixed and static differences and similarities, current research offers new ways of conceptualising similarities and differences as dynamic and responsive to environment. This supports wider understandings of ‘biology’ as relying on the interactions between genetic processes, cellular environment, and tissue environment – in which the social physicality of bodies is important in forming and maintaining a person’s biology and genetic processes. Yet as the historical analysis of the shift between the one sex to two sex model indicates, it remains to be seen whether the social sphere will respond by incorporating this new evidence into the tacit, everyday understandings of sex or seek to maintain the binary and fixed relationship(s) between men and women by governing them as males and females.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:47:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Wilson do Amaral Filho.pdf: 1253847 bytes, checksum: 847aed048db5ca82ac8a0b81fbdd0221 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-04-12 / The objective of this thesis is to search the interdiscursivity between the Sermon of the Mount, from the Gospel of Matthew, and the Four Pillars of the Education from the Report of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-First Century presented to UNESCO. It is possible to identify immediately the ethical-religious nature of the Biblical text of the first century and the political-educational character of the report based on the contemporary education s worldview. At a first moment, the research sets the examination of the theoretical principles of the genders of discourse, the conditions of production, the ethos, and the interdiscursivity. After that, both discourses are examined under those principles so that, at last, it is possible to verify and confirm the interdiscursivity between these discourses about the question of learning to be. / Esta tese tem como objetivo principal pesquisar a interdiscursividade entre o Sermão do Monte, do Evangelho de Mateus, e os Quatro Pilares da Educação do Relatório da Comissão Internacional sobre a Educação para o Século XXI apresentado à UNESCO. De imediato se identifica o caráter ético-religioso do texto bíblico do primeiro século, enquanto que o texto do relatório revela-se político-educacional, alicerçado na cosmovisão de educação contemporânea. A pesquisa se detém num primeiro momento no exame do referencial teórico dos gêneros discursivos, das condições de produção, do ethos e da interdiscursividade, aplicados, em seguida, a cada um dos textos citados para, ao final, buscar-se e confirmar a concorrência da interdiscursividade entre esses discursos, quanto ao aprender a ser.