When songs about genetics. Social representations and their impact in science learning.

Abstract

The present work has its foundations on the necessity of adequating the teaching of school Genetics to the cultural diversity of the present-day classrooms. Thus, the social representations present in the music, adolescents usually listen to were researched. Assuming that songs are themselves massive communication acts and that these socially constructed representations are shared by most adolescents, the investigation was orientated to the way in which the songs influence the way of thinking, communicating and behaving of social actors. In addition to this, it was put into consideration the possibility of lyrics becoming an obstacle for the accurate learning of school Genetics. The corpus of analysis includes 334 songs, both lyrics and melodies, of a variety of musical genres. The results show a strong tendency of the scientific concepts to be re signified in the different cultural context in which they are used, both considering the discursive framework and the musical genre of each song. The present work states that understanding the meaning, popular knowledge print on scientific concepts through song, can be used as a starting point as well as a source of resources for the planning of provoking, thematic and pedagogical activities aimed to produce critical thinking and learning of school Genetics.