Tensions and Contradictions in the Construction of Motives: A Study of the Discursive Dynamics of Socioscientific Issues

• Grant number: 24/23786-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: June 01, 2025
• End date: May 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education - Educational Teaching and Learning
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Giordan Santos
• Grantee: Nixon Bastos Costa
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Educação (FE). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research project aims to conduct a comparative study of the discursive movement that constitutes problematization in the development of problems in the classroom. We will employ specific categories of analysis, such as communicative approach, purposes, and the relationship between theme, content, and problem. The use of socioscientific issues in science teaching occurs through the negotiation of motives between students and teachers. The construction of these motives involves the contestation of meanings, a constitutive part of problematization. We will analyze the Didactic Sequence (DS) "Chemical elements in nature and society: the socio-environmental disaster of the Rio Doce," which was implemented twice in schools from different regions by teachers in distinct years. Discursive movements will be classified to understand how these interactions contribute to the construction of socioscientific problems, and the role of internal contradictions within the problem in generating new motives will be examined. All lessons were recorded in audiovisual format, forming part of the database of the Laboratory for Research in Chemistry Teaching and Educational Technologies (LAPEQ). The DS was developed based on the Topological Teaching Method (TTM) (GIORDAN, 2013), which supports the organization of classroom teaching. This model is grounded in Wertsch's mediated action theory, whose unit of analysis is "agents-acting-with-cultural-tools." Given the potential of socioscientific problems, we seek to understand when a theme becomes a problem, how a tension evolves into a contradiction, and what the relationship is between problematization and the development of the problem.