RCAAP Repository

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Our article analyses science-technology- society-environment (STSE) issues in the genetics-related chapters of Portuguese natural sciences and biology textbooks and considers how they contribute to students’ scientific literacy. We inspected manner of imparting of the decontextualized and socially neutral view of science and technology (S&T) as an obstacle for achieving scientific literacy. Our sample comprised four textbooks, two for the 9th and two the 12th grades. We identified and content-analytically analyzed 1019 STSE statements with regard to their compliance with previously proposed criteria. We quantitatively analyzed the statements’ frequencies. We noted an attempt to approach STSE issues, but we found important deficiencies in all the textbooks, as well as indicators of a distorted view of science. We discuss possible influences of the socio-cultural context in the selection of STSE contents, in the terms being applied, as well as in the S&T conceptions displayed by the textbooks.

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The classroom as a rigid place does not comply with the needs and demands of new generations, it is an obsolete model considering the pedagogical resources available and the evidence provided by scientific research of mechanisms that ensure a successful learning. The current research has aimed at understanding the way students see and interpret space and actions in the classroom, attempting to unveil their naturalisation to the grammar of schooling or their will to change some of its rules, based on the social representations theory as presented by Serge Moscovici in 1978. The study follows a qualitative and mostly naturalist approach, closely related to the social representations theory and has been developed with 25 5th grade students and a teacher of Arts in a school located in Oporto. The contents of both visual narratives produced by students and the narrative written by the teacher have been thoroughly analysed. By crossing such data it has become clear that there is a social representation which combines two main sets of symbolic elements: the physical material and the classroom as a place (or non-space) of relation.

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This communication is based on the purpose of trying to understand the perceptions and experiences of students with a high level of academic success, about the meaning of their education process. It is, therefore, an exploratory, descriptive and interpretive study within the qualitative paradigm intending to portray students’ vision and school experiences. This research discusses the challenges that schools are currently facing through the voice of the students. The data was collected in an urban high school in the center of Oporto, from twenty and one students (three groups of seven students – 9th, 10th and 12th grade), during the third term of 2014/2015 school year, using the focus group research technique. The collected and analyzed data in this study, although it may not be generalizable, allow us to conclude that, in the studied case, the process of schooling reveals serious shortcomings in its course and it is perceived alack of direction in school practices experienced by students. The students reveal a vision of a school grammar that should no longer exist, which marks negatively their school experience in the dimensions related to the lesson, to the assessment and to the teacher. Regarding the school as socializing locus, the view is more positive.

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The educative diversification and expansion of upper secondary education, coupled with the enlargement of compulsory schooling, has brought new challenges to curriculum development in schools. In spite of the growth of a consistent body of literature to support greater emphasis on the pupils’ voices in curricular practices, in Portugal, such emphasis only happened in the past year in an unprecedented macro level initiative, while at a micro level there are only few reports of experiences where such voices gain power in curricular decisions. This article reports a study of pupils’ voices at the entrance of upper secondary education with the main objective of describing their first impressions on the curricular structure and work of their courses, relating their perspectives with the different demands in the modalities of general/scientific-humanistic and vocational courses. Crossing data from six focus groups and a questionnaire, it was possible to verify that the pupils’ voices about the curricular structure and work of their courses echoes the persistent dichotomy between the curricular requirements of general/scientific-humanistic course and those of vocational courses, supporting the importance of implementing reforms that increase the coherence and flexibility of educational action in upper secondary education and give greater parity to the different educative pathways.

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The current study focused on the analysis of learning conceptions of 3rd cycle students in residential care. Literature indicates that learning conceptions are expressed and materialized in different learning situations, leading to the achievement of qualitatively different learning outcomes. The available data on the school situation of children and young people in care have been identifying various school fragilities. Fifty-five adolescents who lived in residential care institutions in Porto and Braga participated in this study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, with a script focused on the various questions about learning (Grácio, 2002). School performance of the participants was also collected, which proved to be mostly consistent with a situation of school failure. Results point to an identification of learning conceptions, mainly of the reproductive type. We also perceive that these young people conceptualise learning as a means to achieve a better future, in which one learns from others and from mistakes. Data reinforce the relevance of the active role of students in their learning and of the development of studies in the domain of education of young people in residential care.

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