The article discusses the construction of teachers' and students' identities in the school system, articulating it with gender and sexuality issues. It presents an analysis of an experience in a distance education course in which, by means of a specific discipline, it was sought to map scenes and actions that were proposed in the school in order to produce a debate in the area of diversity. Identities consisted of genres, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, social class, generations, among other social markers, imply differences in living distinctions which are sometimes experienced harmoniously and sometimes in a rather conflicting and/or violent way. The instability, uncertainty and transience attributed to youngsters are also aspects that characterize our contemporary world. These new youth conditions generate tensions between the subjects involved in educational institutions (teachers, families, and among the students themselves). The analysis has also shown that in situations of conflicts there is a tendency to blame each other revealing: the inability of teachers, broken families, uncompromising students, among other factors. It is argued that the themes related to diversity and specifically related to sexuality and gender sharply constitute this scenario of conflicts, despite the discussions and advances in the understanding of these existing topics in the Brazilian society as a whole.
sexuality; gender; education; conflicts; generations