Banca de DEFESA: CARLOS EDUARDO DA SILVA BARBOSA

Uma banca de DEFESA de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : CARLOS EDUARDO DA SILVA BARBOSA
DATE: 23/06/2025
TIME: 14:00
LOCAL: Seropedica
TITLE:

SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF HOMOSEXUALS INSIDE AND OUTSIDE CHURCHES, ACCORDING TO LEADERS OF PENTECOSTAL PROTESTANT CHURCHE

KEY WORDS:

 Homosexuals; Pentecostals; Social Representations.

PAGES: 174
BIG AREA: Ciências Humanas
AREA: Psicologia
SUBÁREA: Psicologia Social
SPECIALTY: Processos Grupais e de Comunicação
SUMMARY:

Christian religions have sparked numerous debates in ecclesiastical circles on social issues such as abortion, sexual and domestic violence against women, sexual abuse and divorce. However, none of these issues cause as much commotion and divergence of opinion as addressing issues involving human sexuality, especially when referring to sexual orientations other than heterosexual. The research aimed to identify the social representations of Pentecostal Protestant leaders regarding homosexuals within churches, comparing them with the social representations of homosexual people, without specifying “within the church”, with the hypothesis that the inclusion of the group “within the church” may generate differences in the structure of representations. This was a qualitative, exploratory and descriptive study, based on Abric's structural approach with theoretical support from the Theory of Social Representations, founded by Serge Moscovici. 100 Pentecostal Protestant leaders participated in the research. A structured questionnaire containing two Free Word Evocations was used for prototypical and similarity analysis, in addition to open and closed questions. The closed questions underwent descriptive analysis and the open questions were analyzed according to Bardin's content analysis. In the control group's evocation of the term “homosexuals”, it can be interpreted that, only the term “homosexuals”, without specifying that they are for people of the religion of Pentecostal Protestant leaders, and without specifying that they are “within the churches”, homosexuality is seen as a sin and as a sexual option. When we are more specific, asking them to express what they believe people of their religion think about the term “homosexuals within the churches”, the cognate sin is repeated, without the cognate sexual option, but with the cognate possession. Thus, we can assume that, when we move from a macro view (homosexuals) to a micro view (homosexuals within churches), outside of churches homosexuality can be seen as a sin and sexual option, and within churches it can be seen as a sin and possession, indicating representations strongly rooted in moralizing and condemnatory views, anchored in moralizing and spiritualized religious doctrines. The analysis of the open-ended questions reinforced these findings. When asked what they think of homosexuality, the leaders grouped their answers into the categories “sin”, “possession”, “childhood trauma” and “disease”. Regarding Pastor André Valadão’s speech about homosexual couples in the church, we observed discourses of exclusion, conservative agreement, criticism of the approach and attempts to promote conditional inclusion. In reports of experiences with homosexual people in churches, categories such as ambiguous inclusion, institutional exclusion, moral control, pastoral conflicts and full acceptance emerged, evidencing social practices guided by ambivalence and resistance to sexual diversity. It is concluded that the social representations of leaders are mostly negative and exclusionary, based on the association of homosexuality with religious categories of sin and possession. However, the presence of discourses of acceptance and mercy in the periphery indicates fissures and tensions in the representations, signaling possible future transformations

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Presidente - 1765641 - LUCIENE ALVES MIGUEZ NAIFF
Interna - 1808252 - ANA CLAUDIA DE AZEVEDO PEIXOTO
Externo à Instituição - EDUARDO DE FREITAS MIRANDA