Afeto-cognição em aulas de Ciências da Natureza: interações discursivas com e sobre objetos em uma turma dos anos iniciais do ensino fundamental

Abstract

This research aims to understand how the objects that children took to Science classes bring together affection-cognition in instructional processes in a group of Elementary School. We analyzed discursive interactions, emotions, affection and the languages in use for developing scientific concepts. The data analysis was oriented by Ethnography in Education, Microethnographic Discourse Analysis and the Historical-Cultural Theory, through the ACCL synthesis analysis unit: Affect-social situated cognition-cultures-languages in use. We used the database of a longitudinal research project that accompanied Portuguese Language and Science classes of a class from the 1st to the 3rd year of Elementary School (from 2012 to 2014). The archived data consists of video recordings of classes, field notes, descriptive tables, artifacts the children produced, and the academic production of researchers who worked with the same database. We carried out micro and macroscopic analyses. At a macro level, we identified and analyzed the objects participants took to the classroom, and two scientific concepts that were developed over time: experimentation and observation. The macroscopic level analyses focused on the history and of the relationships built over time involving objects and the participant’s processes of building the concepts of experimentation and observation. The microscopic analysis was based on the ACCL synthesis analysis unit. We identified, delimited and analyzed two events involving the arrival of two different objects in science classes (a bottle of citric acid and a caterpillar). The micro analysis (at the level of face-to-face interactions), focused on the relationships between affection-cognition during Science activities for the development of scientific concepts. The results indicate that the objects were situated socially, culturally and cognitively in the history of the group and science classes. Moreover, bringing them into the classroom generated important consequences for instructional activity and child development. The discursive interactions with or about objects allowed the construction of scientific concepts of experimentation and observation. We observed that the role of the teacher in valuing and mediating the interaction with or on objects was essential for the processes of instructiondevelopment to happen. We argue, finally, that the research contributes with reflections to the field of Education and Education in Sciences that highlight the specificities of childhood and autonomy of the child, child development and the development of scientific concepts, recognizing science as a social practice that is culturally, socially and politically constructed.