Aspectos sócio-científicos em aulas de química

Abstract

This thesis is an investigation of four case studies in which teachers from Distrito Federal approached socio-scientific issues, SSI, in chemistry lessons at public and private High Schools, using the textbook Chemistry in Society. The SSI includes environmental, political, economic, ethical, social and cultural issues on science and technology. The aim of the investigation was to analyse the pedagogical process established in classroom, when SSI are approached, in order to identify advances, constraints and implications for the curriculum and for the professional development of science teachers, related to the perspective of scientific and technological literacy and of preparation for citizenship. In the first chapter, a bibliographic review is presented and the following topics are included: the meaning of scientific and technological literacy; the movement science- technology-society, STS; the Paulo Freires proposal pedagogy for freedom; the conception of humanistic education; and the interactive and dialogical process in classroom. In the second chapter, it is presented an analysis of the book Chemistry in Society, which was used by the teachers to introduce SSI. In the third chapter, the methods of research are presented. The data include teacher and students interviews; the results of a social economical cultural survey; videotape of the lessons; and researcher field notes. In chapter four, it is presented the qualitative analysis of the first case study, in which the teacher approached systematically SSI. Episodes were selected and submitted to discursive analysis with a microgenetic character. In chapter five, the contributions from the other three cases are presented. The teacher of the first case, generally, established I-R-F interactions with the students, alternating evaluative and elaborative feedbacks, most of the time without taking into account the students views. In some episodes, in which questions for discussing social themes were introduced, she was able to establish an interactive and dialogical process, considering the students conceptual horizon. The analysis shows that some SSI were approached with humanistic perspective. The other teachers were beginning teachers and had less experience than the first teacher. They approached the SSI only occasionally. The analysis shows that the use of the Chemistry in Society as a textbook and as a curricular guide, as well as the teacher previous experience were the main apparent reason for the differences observed in the approaches of SSI. The teachers that were less experienced had more difficulties in conducting the discussions in an interactive way and in following the didactic plan. Despite the fact the none of the teachers developed a teaching proposal according to the humanistic scientific education perspective; it was possible to identify many contributions for the scientific literacy of their students. In conclusion, the study showed that the SSI can be constitutive elements of science curriculum which contribute to the establishment of dialogical interactive processes and to the introduction of attitudes and human values.