Otherness representations: studies with images in textbooks

• Grant number: 12/12174-0
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Duration: October 01, 2012 - September 30, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Communications - Visual Communication
• Principal Investigator: Luciana Coutinho Pagliarini de Souza
• Grantee: Luciana Coutinho Pagliarini de Souza
• Host Institution: Pró-Reitoria Acadêmica. Universidade de Sorocaba (UNISO). Sorocaba , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Maria Ogécia Drigo

Abstract

The context of this research comes from intersections of Communication and Education. In what concerns communication, we emphasize the presence of images as visual representations, - which anarchically invade the contemporary context and by the ecological nature of its construction - establish social and natural correspondences, which favor interactions. These interactions can be seen in the educational environment and involve various media, as well as textbooks. Here we have the Education character of communication we want to emphasize in this research. In order to propose an interpretive methodology for images while visual representations and concrete manifestations of culture we make use of Maffesoli (1995, 2005, 2006), Hall (2005), Arendt (2005) and Durand (2004) to characterize the contemporary context; the alterity is treated with Kristeva and Said and the semiotic analysis of the visual representations with Peirce, Santaella and Dondis. A stratified sample takes 20% of all books (20 books) reviewed among the Guides Textbooks - PNDL 2011 - for the final grades of Ensino Fundamental for school subjects: Portuguese Language, Science, Mathematics, History, Geography and Foreign Language. The relevance of this research is reflected by the concern with the construction of environments propitious to coexistence, which provide the experience with the other or with the different, the stranger, the foreigner - in the educational institutions, trough this educational books. (AU)