Disciplinas escolares para o Ensino Médio no Rio Grande do Sul: compreensões de professores da área de Ciências da Natureza da 14ª CRE

Abstract

This dissertation is part of the field of Science Education studies with a focus on the school curriculum. The process of reorganizing the High School curriculum in Rio Grande do Sul promoted an important reflective movement in the context of Basic Education schools, among which we highlight the insertion of new disciplines in the diversified part represented by the Training Itineraries, which have challenged teachers with regard to new curricular demands. The study is based on the question: what are the understandings about school subjects proposed for the area of Natural Sciences based on the reform of Brazilian High School Education? The general objective is to identify teachers’ understandings about school subjects in the area of Natural Sciences. A qualitative research was carried out in two stages with bibliographic and documentary collection methodology and based on a case study carried out in the context of twelve public schools that offer subjects in the Training Itinerary, three schools with a focal area in Natural Sciences, three schools with a complementary area and three schools without offering itineraries in the area of Natural Sciences, belonging to the 14th Regional Education Coordination, through the collection of information related to the curricular documents and interviews conducted with twenty-two teachers. The results were constructed based on content analysis. The research design allowed the organization of this dissertation into four chapters, which meet the specific objectives of the study. The first chapter seeks to investigate the historical process of formation and offering of the Natural Sciences area in Brazil and its relationship with school subjects. The results show that throughout the history of Brazilian education (from 1931 to the present day) the concept of discipline has undergone changes that can be characterized in three periods: the period we call State control, the period of formation of the area and the third period of expansion of the diversified part. The second chapter presents a literature review with the aim of understanding what academic research in the area of Natural Sciences presents about the disciplinary curriculum in Brazil. The understandings in the academic field are related and were organized into three emerging categories: Interdisciplinary and contextualization in the High School curriculum; Proposals for politics and reforms for High School; and Scientific knowledge and themes worked on in the disciplines of the area of Natural Sciences. The third chapter corresponds to a research from an epistemological perspective with the aim of identifying the development of Thinking Styles about school subjects in the academic context. We identified the development of three Thinking Styles: Technical-disciplinary, Critical-disciplinary and Discursive-disciplinary. The fourth chapter aims, through a case study, to analyze the understandings of teachers in the area of Natural Sciences about the subjects proposed for High School in the 14th Regional Education Coordination of Rio Grande do Sul. The analysis of teachers’ discourses based on the categories of Thinking Styles indicates constant changes in teachers’ understanding of school subjects. Natural Sciences teachers working at the 14th Regional Education Coordination Office are more likely to have Critical-disciplinary understandings of subjects, demonstrating that we are moving towards new ways of perceiving the construction of the curriculum for Natural Sciences in High School.