O currículo dos cursos de pedagogia das universidades públicas federais e a formação para alfabetização científica e tecnológica nos anos iniciais

Abstract

Currently, Science Education (SE) occupies a prominent position in society, as it plays a key role in the training of citizens, since the early school years. Its fundamental objective is to promote Scientific and Technological Literacy (STL) from the earliest ages. The present study aims to analyze how official documents (Laws, Decrees, Resolutions and Curricula) guide and promote teacher training within the scope of the Pedagogy degree courses, notably in the area of Natural Sciences, considering that it is up to these professionals to promote STL in early childhood education and school years. Therefore, the study sought to produce and analyze data on the initial training of educators (pedagogues) for the promotion of scientific education in childhood. It is expected that this study can contribute to the constant rethinking of the initial and continuing teacher training and the promotion of public policies that promote the quality of education in schools. It is a qualitative document research, which analyzed, in addition to the official documents related to the training of pedagogy graduated teachers, the Course Pedagogical Projects (CPPs) of 126 Pedagogy Degree Courses, offered by federal public universities. The presented data were collected from official sources of the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC), as well as from the websites of the universities that currently maintain the offer of these courses. Of all the 68 identified federal public universities, 61 offer the Pedagogy degree course, with the following characteristics:(1) distributed throughout all regions of Brazil; (2) usually offered in the presential learning format, but occasionally also in the distance learning format and (3) the university slots are mostly available during night time, either exclusively or in combination with daytime. Initially, the objectives of the pedagogy courses were analyzed, noting that the 126 PPCs prioritize training focused on teaching and management, with little emphasis on research, culture and dissemination of scientific and technological knowledge in the educational field, even with the desired profile of graduates. In general, it was observed that in the current curriculum proposals, the epistemological discussions, the specific contents and the methodological didactics areas of school content are largely overlooked in the country, as they occupy the smallest amount of curricular space in terms of workload. Upon examining the 283 compulsory Relative Curricular Components (RCCs) specific to the field of Nature Sciences, it was observed that their main emphasis is on the theoretical and methodological foundations of the field, indicating the emphasis on 'how to teach' science. In optional RCCs, the emphasis is also on the teaching of sciences, but it is observed the presence of more extensive themes, such as "technologies", "citizenship" and "epistemology". To sum up, the focus is on 'how to teach' instead of 'what to teach', which is a frequent issue with pedagogy degree courses in Brazil. The study emphasizes the importance of achieving a balance between methodology, theoretical foundations and specific knowledge; a situation that will require a higher workload to be dedicated to the areas of school content, since they will enable many elements necessary for the much needed and desired scientific literacy of citizens.