History of Science in Chemistry Textbooks Approved in PNLEM/2018

Abstract

Research in Science Education has indicated that textbooks have a direct influence on the teaching and learning process, being one of the principal guides to the planning of classes by educators. Several authors, on the other hand, argue that the understanding of the History of Science contributes to the learning of scientific concepts. However, they also emphasize that the lack of appropriate bibliographic sources, coupled with the lack of specific formation in the area, are obstacles to the use of History of Science in the classroom. In this sense, the present work investigates how History of Science has been presented in chemistry textbooks to help teachers to incorporate it in their teaching and, in parallel, to point out problems and raise questions relevant to future adjustments. To this end, we analyzed the six collections of Chemistry textbooks (Teacher’s Manual) approved by the National High School Textbook Program (PNLEM / 2018). To analyze the data, we used the Content Analysis by Bardin, constituting itself as qualitative research. As a result, we found that there is a reasonable frequency of citations of History of Science in most of the textbooks analyzed.  However, the lack of articulation between historical facts and chemistry concepts turns it into isolated information, usually used as a complement to the content.