Corpos que habitam os livros didáticos de ciências dos anos iniciais: reflexões a partir dos estudos culturais

Abstract

The human body carries a variety of discourses that are disseminated daily by the speech, gestures, symbols and cultural artifacts of society. One of these artifacts is the didactic book, the pedagogical material most adopted in schools, because information about the body is produced and reproduced. This research sought to understand how the content "human body" is presented in science textbooks from the first years (1st to 5th year) used in schools of the public network of São Luís - MA from the following specific objectives: a) Describe what contents on the subject "human body" are presented in science textbooks; b) Identify ideas and representations on the theme "human body" presented in science textbooks; c) Characterize the types of speeches made by the authors when exposing the theme "human body" in science textbooks. The qualitative research and the documentary type analyzed the books approved by the National Program of Didactic Book (PNLD), having as theoretical presuppositions the Cultural Studies to problematise the results. The science textbooks were acquired in five public schools, totaling seventeen books analyzed. A floating reading of the material was carried out and a second thorough reading was carried out, analyzing the contents in order to recognize the ideas and representations of the human body present in the books. Then the categorization of the data collected in these books was carried out, where sections and images of the human body were cataloged. This investigative corpus was divided into two main categories: "Biological Body" and "Social and Cultural Body". In doing a second analysis of this material, within these categories, subcategories appeared: "Biological Body - Anatomic-Physiological Body"; "Body Health" and "Body Reproduction". The category Social and Cultural Body unfolded in: "Body Gender and Sexuality"; "Ethnic Body" and "Deficient Body". It was possible to verify that the authors center the discussions on the subject body from the naturalistic perspective, based on the scientific discourse. Therefore, the category of notoriety is the Biological Body. There is appreciation of the discourse of a clean, healthy, disease-free, athletic, heterosexual and reproductive body. The cultural aspects about the human body are presented, but with little emphasis. Issues relating to gender equality and the disruption of the idea of "sexual roles" are discussed by the authors of the books. Black and indigenous bodies, as well as disabled people, also gain prominence, although indigenous peoples and the handicapped are still stereotyped. Given this, it is necessary that knowledge about the human body for elementary school students should go beyond biological knowledge, contemplating a social and cultural knowledge, thus leading these students to have an intimacy with their own body and can know it for better care and position it in the society in which we live, respecting their differences and those of the people around them.