Scientific literacy in the early years of elementary school: what the official documents tell us

Abstract

This work aimed to investigate the conceptions of Scientific Literacy in 5 official documents, seeking to reflect on the importance of this formation in the life of students as planetary citizens. Taking as a starting point the question: how is the term Scientific Literacy addressed in official education documents based on the pedagogical guidelines of the documents themselves?, a qualitative research was carried out based on the analysis of documents considered as guiding principles of the teacher training,. The analyzes carried out indicate ambiguities in the official texts in a current context of external and internal collections to the school, through large scale evaluations. In the same sense, sometimes the documents suggest the democratization of the teaching of the various disciplines in an interdisciplinary way, sometimes suggest the prioritization of Portuguese and Mathematics teaching for the first years of Elementary School. One of the documents about Natural Sciences in literacy at the right age shows itself as a good alternative work for continuing training in science education, conceptualizing scientific literacy and bringing suggestions for teaching practice. We suggest, therefore, a higher appreciation of Science Teaching through public policies that attend the courses of teacher training, since we defend that the sciences are precursors of a citizen, social, historical and human formation for the student.

Keywords

• alfabetização científica
• anos iniciais do ensino fundamental
• documentos educacionais oficiais