As diversidades nos livros didáticos dos anos iniciais: entre os processos de massificação e de educação cidadã

Abstract

This work integrates the research line of Educational Policies of the Post-Graduate Program of the Federal University of Fronteira Sul (UFFS) in Chapecó (SC). The research is concentrated on textbooks attributed to Brazilian schools by the Programa Nacional do Livro e do Material Didático [National Book and Teaching Material Program] (PNLD). Throughout the years, this program has gone through changes in its different releases. The Decree number 7084 of January 27, 2010 expressed some of these changes. It was revoked later making room for Decree number 9099 of July 18, 2017. After the promulgation of these guiding documents, the next PNLD’s rescripts aiming the First Grades of Elementary School were those in 2013 and 2019, being that they both present mutual and distinct elements about Brazilian diversities. Thinking of the relevance and the potential of textbooks in Brazilian schools, this research aims to analyze the photos and the guidelines related to them on Fifth Grade’s Elementary Schools Geography textbooks in order to prospect for elements that can or cannot make Brazilian diversities visible and, from that, check if they contribute either to education for massification or to education for citizenship. We intend to answer how the photos and the guidelines related to them take into account and express the continuity of a traditional education aimed to massification or bring up a new possibility of a education for citizenship from the proposals and viewings existing in Geography Textbooks of the beginning years of Elementary School in 2013 and 2019. The methodology of this qualitative research includes bibliographic and documental investigation concerning the Decrees number 7084 of January 27, 2010 and number 9099 of July 18, 2017 and PNLD’s rescripts of 2013 and 2019, as well as the analysis of Fifth Grade first grades’ Geography Textbooks referring to those rescripts. In analyzing the photos and the guidelines related to them the results of the research propose a reflection about the use of textbooks in schools and their contributions or weaknesses in what concerns the acknowledgment of Brazilian diversities. The research’s results show some meaningful progress in the rescripts and in excerpts of the works, however, there are still several silenced aspects that need the teacher’s interaction with the students in order to go beyond the description and presentation of photos that only show patches of reality.