Teacher conceptions in the area of Nature Sciences about the construction of interdisciplinarity in Polytechnic Intermediate Education: the contribution of faculty expertise to reality in two schools in Northern Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

High School education in Rio Grande do Sul underwent reformulations with the proposal for Polytechnic Intermediate Education suggested by the State Education Office. Overall, this proposal arose from the demand for improvements in elementary education, where High School education is concerned, and was implemented along the years of 2012, 2013 and 2014. Among the desired improvements was the need to overcome content education through interdisciplinarity and an integrated curriculum. Taking such changes into consideration – which implied the creation of knowledge areas, curricular restructuring, changes to the means of evaluation and the planning and teaching methodology presumptions – this article aims to report the path and results from research that proposed to investigate the manner in which interdisciplinarity began being constructed by educators in the area of Nature Sciences from faculty expertise. The methodology employed was of ethnographic research, that allowed to gather a wealth of data and opinions from the individuals investigated, namely nine teachers from the Nature Sciences area that encompasses the subjects of chemistry, physics and biology, from two intermediate education public schools in Northern Rio Grande do Sul. Data interpretation was carried out under the perspective of Discursive Textual Analysis and allowed for the identification of both the hurdles that made interdisciplinary construction and action unfeasible, such as lack of time for planning, and possible alternatives to overcome such hurdles, among which faculty expertise. From the discussion of those results, it can be observed that the proposal for Polytechnic High School provided space for the construction of the interdisciplinary praxis as well as for reflecting on and awareness building of its need, making it feasible from theoretic-methodological (re)options on the part of the faculty in the bias of their expertise as such.