The institutional trajectory of reflexive groups for male perpetrators of violence in Rio de Janeiro begins with interventions designed and carried out by non-governmental organizations, until the enactment of Law 11.340/2006, in its articles 35 and 45, legitimized the Education Service and Accountability for men responsible for gender-based violence, as a public policy, within the scope of the Judiciary. In this movement of elaboration in process, as the implementation and reflection on the practices took place, several theoretical-methodological perspectives were set to support equally diversified proposals. Focusing on this method, this study aims to identify and analyze historical, theoretical and ethical-political foundations of groups made with men who are perpetrators of violence against women. Therefore, were elected as empirical field three Courts of Domestic and Family Violence against Women in the Metropolitan Region of the State of Rio de Janeiro and structured the analytical corpus from three sources and three data production techniques: 1) observation participant from the first to the last meeting of a reflective group in each researched court; 2) semi-structured interviews with conductors of the reflective groups observed; 3) analysis of documents and regulations instituting the Education and Accountability Service for male perpetrators. The data produced from the triangulation of sources – male responsible for violence, conductors of reflective groups and documents – and mentioned techniques were analyzed based on the relational perspective of gender studies and on feminist studies situated in the perspective of human rights, articulated to Pierre Bourdieu s concepts of habitus, cultural capital, field and agent. The conclusions indicate a growing tendency to standardize the work developed in groups with male perpetrators of violence, from the production of norms triggered by the enactment of the Maria da Penha Law, while preserving a relative margin of theoretical-technical autonomy for those responsible for conducting it. A significant part of the foundations of the work remains a result of the experiences and initial elaborations, with a marked influence of gender studies with an emphasis on women s rights and the need for accountability and changes in the perspective of male authors. However, the institutionalization of services, predominantly within the scope of the Judiciary, imposes important inflections in the correlation of forces in operation in the field, establishing a paradox expressed by carrying out a work that is intended to be re-educational in a space historically associated with control and punishment.