This article has stemmed from a research developed from the perspective of gender and cultural studies, linked to Michel Foucault's post-structuralism. By connecting those fields, I have analyzed some of the ways gender has crossed (embodied and mobilized) and constituted the pedagogical discourse which, associated with other discourses, has defined and regulated what has been understood as school performance in the first grades. In order to compose the research corpus, I have built an investigation methodology, which I have called Group of Discussion, with teachers of initial grades from both municipal and state schools in São Leopoldo/RS. The intertwining of conceptual tools and materials has enabled me to visualize, as well as discuss, analyze, and problematize the power relationships that have constituted, classified, and ranked boys and girls in differentiated, hierarchical places concerning school performance, thus assigning different meanings to it.
School education; Gender studies; School performance