Dispositivo da tecnocientificidade: a iniciação científica ao alcance de todos

Abstract

This research aims at problematizing Scientific Initiation (SI), which has been earlier and earlier directed to the Early Grades of Elementary School. The research material is mainly composed of documents designed by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, handbooks for teacher education in Science and Scientific Initiation for Early Grades designed by the Ministry of Education and Culture, the book Metodologia Científica ao alcance de todos, by Celicina Azevedo, and an issue of Revista Nova Escola. By adopting assumptions by Michel Foucault, John Dewey, Ian Hacking, Stephen Ball and Thomas Kuhn, as well as later Wittgensteinian ideas, among others, this Thesis has analyzed the movement from Scientific Initiation as practiced in the university to the Elementary School curriculum; the way that school subjects have been positioned in documents addressing school Scientific Initiation; and understandings that may be attributed to the movement from an emphasis on school science fairs to the SI salons in which Early Grade students participate. The investigation has evidenced that: a) Scientific Initiation, which has been introduced into the school curriculum earlier and earlier, is a part of what has been named as techno-scientificity device in this study; b) the techno-scientificity device acts by conducting conducts, regulating desires and directing interests, aiming at inserting the greatest possible number of individuals into techno-scientific careers. Such insertion would position the subjects in the market logic and would be located in the sphere of risk management; c) in the analyzed documents, teachers have been positioned as “learning advisors”, and students as “curious children”; d) it is possible to notice a displacement from an emphasis on school science fairs to Scientific Initiation salons sponsored by universities, as well as a performative feature that may be attributed to those venues; and e) the use of the Scientific Method has been taken in a naturalized way as inherent to research work performed in the classroom. It is possible to identify family resemblances, rather than equality, between the Scientific Method used at school and that adopted by scientists.