Chemistry teachers’ conceptions about STS teaching and the reflection in their practice

Abstract

The Chemistry curriculum of São Paulo state, implemented 10 years ago, presents the contextualization as one of the advocating axes. However, in the order for the teacher to understand the document and plan the teaching, it is necessary to express a contextualization vision that establishes the relationship between scientific knowledge and social and technological issues. On this contextualization perspectives, this article aims to present the conceptions of a group of teachers about STS teaching and the reflection of these in the selection of contents to address the theme fossil fuels. It is a qualitative research with participant character, whose results were analyzed by content analysis. Ten chemistry teachers of state education participated in the research, for a period of one year, at University of São Paulo. The results indicate that teachers can’t positions themselves coherently in the perspective of contextualization, agreeing both with statements that suggest contextualization as an example of facts, and contextualization as a transformation of social reality. As a consequence, it’s possible to perceive the difficult in thinking about STC relations when selecting contents, leading to a traditional teaching and with an exclusive focus on scientific knowledge.