Uma História da primeira Licenciatura em Física do Maranhão contada a partir de documentos e entrevistas

Abstract

Evidence of gaps in the systematization of information about teacher education in the Physics Licensure Program at the Universidade Federal do Maranhão (UFMA) motivated this investigation into the historical trajectory of the course. The study covered the period from 1968 to 2023 and was guided by the question: how does the historical path of UFMA’s Physics Licensure Program reveal the institutional and subjective processes that shaped the current course? The general objective was to reconstruct and interpret key moments in the trajectory of UFMA’s Physics Licensure Program, by articulating teaching memory, institutional documents, and theoretical references that make it possible to understand the individuation process of the course. Specifically, the research aimed to (1) analyze the institutional documents that guided the creation, implementation, and curricular reforms of the program, and (2) interpret, in light of cartography and the theory of individuation, interviews conducted with four professors who were also graduates of the program’s early cohorts and later became faculty members at the institution. The qualitative methodological approach articulated principles from the History of Science and Cartography, enabling the intersection of documentary sources (such as resolutions, reports, minutes, and pedagogical projects) and oral sources (interviews). The results indicated that, especially in the early decades, the course was structured under a predominantly bachelor-oriented curriculum model, focused on the training of specialists in specific areas of physics, while the pedagogical dimension of teacher education was largely overlooked. The interviews, however, revealed that the course became a territory of invention and resistance, where teachers and students transformed the precariousness of infrastructure and human resources into a space for creation. Curricular reforms, such as that of 1992, and the official recognition of the program by Decree No. 79.065/1977, represented turning points and moments of institutional maturity. It was concluded that the history of UFMA’s Physics Licensure Program reflects a continuous process of individuation, driven by the instituting forces of the subjects who built it. This study contributes to valuing the teaching memory, to the historical record of physics teacher education in Maranhão, and to strengthening a critical perspective on the formation processes of those who participated in the creation and consolidation of the program.