STS education in northeastern Brazil: what are the frontiers and research horizons?

Abstract

This study aims to map theses and dissertations developed between 2017 and 2023 in Postgraduate Science Teaching programs in the Northeast region of Brazil. With a qualitative approach, it fits into a state of knowledge study. The inclusion criteria for productions was the use of the terms “CTS/CTSA” and “Science, Technology and Society/Science, Technology and Society and Environment” when contained in titles, abstracts and/or keywords. The total corpus included 77 academic productions. As an analytical method, Bardin’s content analysis was used. Scientific productions were grouped into two a priori categories, namely: i) Course, year, educational product and advisor (a) and ii) Type of research, themes, locus and areas. In general, the mapping carried out allowed a panoramic view indicating that the field of research related to STS Education in the Brazilian Northeast scenario had a growth greater than approximately 50%, when compared to the previous period of academic production. The mapping carried out also made it possible to visualize some frontiers and horizons of investigation. Among them, it stands out that there is a gap in documentary research, aimed at investigating how new high school textbooks are addressing issues related to STS Education. Also topics in evidence for the historical context of Brazil, such as gender issues, Fake News, National Common Curricular Base, covid-19, artificial intelligence, mRNA vaccines, are possible research developments to be investigated.