As questões ambientais nos livros didáticos de diferentes disciplinas da quinta-série do ensino fundamental

Abstract

The National Curriculum Parameters and Law 9.795 issued in 1999, which institutes a national policy covering environmental education, define that the environmental education should not be a school discipline but should be incorporated by all the existing ones. Aiming to check the way in which the orientation of the transversality is subsidized so that it can be concretized in the schools, this work uses the didactic books of different educational disciplines to understand how the multidisciplinar set of a same class approaches the environmental issues. The didactic books represent a huge investment on behalf of the Federal Government, who in turn analyzes, approves and purchases them for further forwarding to schools. As from this context the objective of the present survey is to understand how the knowledge, ethic and esthetic values as well as the political participation, covering the environmental issues, are approached in the didactic books of different school disciplines, resulting in contribution for an objective and critical usage of the school book as an environmental educational instrument. The survey was directed by the critical conception of the environmental education as it is understood that, when designing a fundamental role to the political dimension and educative práxis, it becomes more coherent with the search for transformation of the social-environmental reality. The methodology used was a qualitative textual analysis. As corpus of the analysis, didactic books were adopted; these books were purchased by SEE/SP covering each educational disciplines for the fifth year of the low school for the year of 2005. As analysis units, texts and chapters of the books that covered or should cover the environmental issues were used, and then these were unbuilt under the direction of a schedule, prepared based on elements that we consider essential for the educative work oriented to the environment, that includes handling of knowledge dimensions, of the ethic and esthetic values and political participation, which were subdivided in 21 parameters additionally specific. The analysis classifications were built a priori and based on existing trends in the educational field, as related to incorporation of the environmental thematic, as follows: silent, conservative, pragmatic and critical. Totally, 52 analysis units were selected distributed among the mathematics books, Portuguese language, sciences, history and geography. In general, most of them contemplated the environmental issue, however in a limited manner as the silent trend predominated in the three dimensions. In several parameters we were able to identify the presence of other trends, however, without a regularity in the approach, and this is assumed that there is no theoretical referential that subsidize the environmental discussions in the didactic books and that there is no concrete objective, on behalf of the state and of the didactic books, to transform the conditions of the social oppression and environmental degradation. The contradiction of the Brazilian state during this year is not founded only by the acquisition of material that does not company with the PCNs and Law 9.795, but for not considering them in formulation of other educational policies such as the PNLD, that does not cover the transversal themes in its assessment process. Thus, in its current materiality, the potential of the educational books, while a critical environmental educational instrument, is limited to the insertion of the theme in classrooms, and which should be deepened and enhanced by the school teachers.