Description

This article, the result of an investigation of the epistemological conceptions and characteristics of the pedagogical practices of teachers in the teaching of natural and social sciences in basic secondary education, is a vision of how teachers promote the teaching and learning of sciences, according to their professional and academic training. One of the characteristics of teacher training is the lack of qualification in their professional field, subject to obsolete practices that, in many cases, have demotivated teachers and students. To investigate this problem, it is necessary to mention its causes; the first of them was found in the praxis related to what the teacher thinks and assimilates as truth in his/her practice, which could be interference between what he/she intends and what he/she actually obtains, resulting in not using novel methods for being linked to processes that, in their formative stage, could have worked. Methodologically, this research is qualitative with a historical hermeneutical approach; the information was collected through techniques and instruments such as documentary review, surveys on epistemological conceptions, and characterization of pedagogical practices. Among the results, it was found that the concept used by teachers about science in this study is much more hermeneutic than positivist. Regarding the method of science, heterogeneity was observed in the answers, evidencing a rooting in traditionalism in the positivist conceptions of some of them, which is often related to their type of learning of science, decades ago. Regarding pedagogical practices, despite the fact that the majority of teachers handle a constructivist discourse, it was possible to identify that what is reflected in institutional documents such as curricula and didactic units, still presents elements of traditional educational practices.