The 1984 introduction of the Women's Health Integral Assistance Program, incorporating the female identity issue (i.e., seeking to view women relative to their body and sexuality, as well as the way in which these representations related to the social significance of motherhood), resulted in its becoming essential to rethink the health services practices carried out up to then. With a view to aiding the educational activities of health professionals, a pedagogical tool was devised at the time: the Gertrudes Doll. The present research project, conducted during 1995 and 1996, assessed the reach of this pedagogical tool, taking into account its diversity of uses in educational practices in the health care field and, mainly, whether this variety of uses was the result of the pedagogical properties that constitute the Gertrudes Doll: the expression of a dialogical methodology and the concretization of the female body. This investigation intends to contribute to the discussion on the development of further tools, dealing with gender issues, for assisting educational work in the health care field.
health education; gender and sexuality; women's health
