Ensino de química e documentos oficiais: etnografia da realidade em uma escola paraibana.

Abstract

Education in Brazil is regulated by the Law of Guidelines and Basis of Education – Law 9.394/96. Based on this law, various documents were produced by the Ministry of Education aiming at orienting educational practices in brazilian schools. Among them, are the National Curriculum Parameters – PCN, PCNEM and PCN+, the National Curriculum Guidelines for Secondary School – OCNEM, inter alia. However, as is of common knowledge, there is always a difference between what is delineated in the theoretical frame and what is observed in practice. In the face of it, the present work was developed, which consists of a sequence of observations performed in a public secondary school belonging to the state educational system. The research field selected was Escola Normal Estadual Cassiano Ribeiro Coutinho, located at city of Sapé – PB. In this school, observations, consultation to school´s regiment, interviews with the chemistry teacher and the school´s manager were undertaken, dealing with Pedagogical Political Project, evaluation methods and experimental activities, and also a detailed evaluation of the chemistry textbook utilized in the school. Finally, the whole achieved material was confronted with the official documents mentioned before, with the aim of delineating a profile for this school and whether this profile is compatible with brazillian legal recomendations.