Science Teaching in Brazil and Denmark: social factors and cultural integration

• Grant number: 24/00944-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: November 01, 2024
• End date: October 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education
• Principal Investigator: Graciella Watanabe
• Grantee: Graciella Watanabe
• Host Investigator: Adrienne Lorelei Traxler
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Naturais e Humanas (CCNH). Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC). Ministério da Educação (Brasil). Santo André , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Copenhagen, Denmark
• Associated research grant: 20/04867-2 - High energy physics and instrumentation with the LHC-CERN, AP.ESP

Abstract

Current studies have shown that individuals' academic journeys are marked by symbolic violence throughout their lives and characterized by social, cultural, and economic hierarchization. In the educational context, students make career choices based on the framework and experience accumulated in their school and cultural life, made possible, in particular, by access to economic wealth. The aim of this research is to integrate Bourdieusian theory and territorial studies to generate reflections mobilized by the results of qualitative and quantitative methods for teaching science. The goal is to create an inferential analytical matrix on Brazilian and Danish education through studies of cultural and social markers in basic education schools. Based on the study of inequality and the social contexts of students, the objective is to understand the symbolic and objectified conditions of access to scientific knowledge and how they can subsequently be determining factors in social and cultural segregation. For comparative purposes, the aim is to identify similarities and differences between the segregations observed in two culturally and economically distinct countries. It will also yield new insights into Pierre Bourdieu's concept of cultural integration and the effects of place in the context of contemporary education, based on the study of two large metropolises.