The teaching of Geography in Brazil

Research projects:

Education of adult workers: teaching-learning methodologies, education itinerary, and training of teachers

Description: To deepen the understanding of the teaching-learning process for adult workers; definition of methodologies compatible with the reality of student workers; training teachers to use interdisciplinary methodologies; record of activities; construction of itineraries of professional training; organisation of economic activities with associative principles. Theoretical references: BAKHTIN, Mikhail, M. Marxismo e Filosofia da Linguagem: problemas fundamentais do método sociológico na ciência da linguagem. 5th ed. São Paulo: Hucitec, 1990. BÉLANGER, Paul and FEDERIGHI, Paolo. Analyse Transnationale des Politiques d’Éducation et de Formation des Adultes: la libération difficile des forces créatrices. Hamburg: Institut de l’UNESCO pour l’Éducation, 2000. BORDIEU, Pierre (coord.). A miséria do Mundo. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2003. Procedures: application of questionnaires and interviews to students and teachers; research workshops in different areas of knowledge; joint meetings with the categories involved in the project; national seminar on professional training; formation and organisation of a database of documents and materials. Conclusions: scientific reports.

Professor in charge: Nídia Nacib Pontuschka (nidia@usp.br)

 

Geography education and didactics: interdisciplinary practices

Description: The project aims to study educational practices from disciplinary and interdisciplinary actions. We perceive didactics not as an instrument, but as a process, i.e., actions that mediate learning. In this sense, learning activities based on interdisciplinary projects contribute to cognitive development and meaningful learning.

Professor in charge: Sonia Maria Vanzella Castellar (smvc@usp.br)

 

The school of possibility: curricular reorganisation in Public Schools

Description: The objective is curricular reorganisation, seeking the several spaces existing in the school and the continuing education of the teacher for the teaching-learning process.

Professor in charge: Sonia Maria Vanzella Castellar (smvc@usp.br)

 

The professional profile of geography teachers and appreciation of geography teaching in basic education

Description: The research addresses the essential interfaces and links between Geography teaching in basic education and areas of interest that characterise the teaching and research trends in Geography as a scientific-academic knowledge, which consolidates its growing importance as a complex knowledge. As a school course, Geography is here understood as a social practice indispensable for the free and independent formation of world representations and representations of relations in the world that circulate in society and culture. The research is of a qualitative quality and seeks to characterise and understand the demands that currently exist in relation to the education of teachers from the teachers’ own narratives about their everyday confrontation with learning problems that occur in their work and that highlight the need to radically question the theoretical and philosophical trends of technical science quality that have prevailed in the current debate about teacher education in Brazil. What the research indicates, to this moment, is contrary to what might appear, the need to enrich even more the theoretical and philosophical education of teachers. We adopted in the research the learning concept mediated by Reuven Feuerstein, the concept of dialogue according to Mikhail Bakhtin, and also the idea of complete thinking and reconnection of the produced knowledge and historically separated according to Edgar Morin. The concepts adopted form what we call theoretical boundaries for the education of Geography teachers.

Professor in charge: Maria Eliza Miranda (elizamir@usp.br)