O corpo humano no ensino de ciências: do biológico ao sociocultural

Abstract

Studies on the body, in the field of culture and education, present themselves with relevance in contemporary times and, therefore, represent great importance for school curricula, permeating all curriculum components, through their teaching practices. In general, in the area of Natural Sciences, throughout history, the study of the human body has been restricted to a biological bias, focusing on anatomy and physiology, limiting the approach to organs and their respective functions. However, knowledge about the human body is not restricted to the biological perspective, because it is a construction that involves sociocultural aspects, including issues present in students' lives. Thus, this research aims to understand how the human body is presented under different approaches in Science Teaching, in elementary school. This study is linked to line 1 of the Graduate Program in Science Teaching (PPGEC), and has a qualitative theoretical-methodological approach, identifying itself with post-critical studies and poststructuralist theorizations. Methodologically, it is a qualitative research, bibliographical and documentary, divided into three stages. The first and second consist of bibliographical research. Initially, a bibliographic research was carried out considering the dissertations and theses on the human body in CE, in elementary school, available electronically at the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (BDTD). In the second stage, as the works are already pointing to a sociocultural perspective of the body and presenting some theoretical references, we chose to analyze them from the theoretical contributions elaborated by Foucault and Le Breton and also by the field of Cultural Studies, considering the approach to the body beyond the biological bias, including a sociocultural and political perspective. In the third and last stage, a documental research was carried out in Textbooks (LDs) and in the Common National Curriculum Base (BNCC), using the Foucaultian concept of discourse as a theoreticalmethodological tool to problematize how the human body is presented in Science Teaching, in Elementary School. The results point out that there is a criticism, both to CE and to the school curriculum, regarding the teaching of the body restricted to its biological conception, suggesting to expand their studies to a sociocultural bias. The analysis of the BNCC and the LDs showed the predominance of biological discourses about the human body, but with indications of a sociocultural focus on studies of the body, related to sexuality and gender issues. The importance of this expansion of the study on the body in EC contributes to the school curriculum contemplating issues more focused on the social problems that students experience, contributing to human formation, because social standards and values operate on the body, and also, time and space mark.