Relações entre ciência, tecnologia e sociedade em livros didáticos integrados de ciências humanas e da natureza para os anos iniciais do ensino fundamental

Abstract

The striking presence of textbooks in the public schools of basic education, their massive use and their relevance to teaching practices, opened space for the study of integrated didactic manuals of human sciences and nature, focusing on interrelationships science-technology-society. In this perspective, the objective of this research was to analyze the possible approaches related to the STS interrelations in integrated textbooks of the humanities and nature of the PNLD 2016, of the 4th year of Elementary School. It was assumed that the didactic collections of science reflect different understandings about science and its relations with technology and society and these relations are not always explicit and are critically problematized in these materials. The methodological approach was qualitative in nature and we opted for the use of content analysis techniques based on Bardin (2011). The analysis categories were elaborated from the theoretical references adopted in this research. The results indicated that the STS relations receive an inexpressive space in the didactic works analyzed and the way they were approached reflects a vision of socially neutral science and technology. In these materials, an approach from science and technology unrelated the appreciation of its repercussions on the social and natural environment prevailed. Essential dimensions, such as the values and social interests that condition their development, the controversies involved, the interdependence relations between science and technology have been omitted. With regard to the proposed activities, conventional reading, checking and content assignments were favored in the books investigated, which do not stimulate student protagonism in the classroom, nor do they promote the learning of social participation in subjects related to science and technology. This type of approach can be explained by the absence of a public policy for the production of didactic material that values and demands in its evaluation process the insertion of the STS relations. Therefore, it is suggested the critical and expanded incorporation of the STS interrelationships in didactic manuals of the initial years. The theoretical model for the analysis of textbooks proposed in this paper emerges in a propositional way to be used as a roadmap for the production and/or reformulation of didactic materials. Such model presents parameters to guide the reflection, problematization and recognition of different aspects to be contemplated in STS discussions. In addition, as a result of this research, the teachers of the initial years are offered a pedagogical book containing theoretical and methodological guidelines, a STS script for analysis of didactic works and proposition of activities under the STS approach, with the purpose of assisting the evaluation of science textbooks and subsidize the construction of pedagogical practices of STS orientation. It reiterates the need for investment in continuing teacher training, in which the interaction, reflection and support of teachers educators are favored in the achievement of a more critical teaching in relation to the social dimensions of scientific and technological development.