Letramento científico nos anos iniciais do ensino fundamental: uma análise das abordagens de professores do Município de Curitiba/PR

Abstract

In the last decades, the discussion about a necessary renewal of Science Education at all levels of Basic Education has been present in several publications that seek to reflect on a critical education, transforming and having in scientific knowledge the foundation for the problematization of social reality. The way to relate to everyday knowledge and to those coming from Science, through a process of scientific literacy, requires a teaching that contemplates its construction since the early years of Elementary Education. As a result of this concern, the aim of the present study is to understand how the science teachers appropriate the practices that involve scientific literacy. The research was carried out in two stages: firstly, a theoretical survey was made on the teaching of science from the point of view of scientific literacy and teacher training. In a second moment, a field research was developed with teachers who work in the initial years of Elementary Education of the Municipal Network of Education of Curitiba. Questionnaires were applied and semi-structured interviews were conducted with the purpose of understanding how science teaching occurs in these years of schooling. In order to analyze the information obtained, content analysis procedures were used (BARDIN, 2009), with the definition, after data collection, in four categories: (1) Characterization of research subjects, (2) Scientific literacy and textbooks, (3) Understandings of scientific literacy and the municipal curriculum, and (4) Understandings and practices related to the scientific literacy of teachers of the Curitiba Municipal Network. Through the indicators present in these categories, it was noticed that the participants of the research use different approaches of teaching, depending on the focus and the direction in the classroom. Most of the teachers stated that they follow the scientific concepts that are present in the Municipal Curriculum of Nature Sciences and the construction of their planning is supported, mainly, by the use of the textbook. The results also indicate the factors that influence the teaching-learning process in Sciences, among which are some of the obstacles that impede the planning and execution of classes by imposing limits on teaching practice, such as the disarticulation of contents present in the Municipal Curriculum and in the textbooks, the non-participation of these teachers in the continuing education courses offered by the municipal network, among others. Based on the theoretical foundation, it is possible to combine an approach of scientific contents taking into account the three notions of scientific literacy proposed by Shen (1975): practical, civic and cultural, as a way to overcome the barriers faced by teachers in the development of science teaching.