A política de formação continuada de professores do ensino médio no RN: limites e possibilidades

El trabajo titulado La Política de Formación Continua de Profesores de Enseñanza Media en RN: límites y posibilidades tiene como objetivo analizar la política de formación continua de profesores de Enseñanza Media implantada en Río Grande del Norte. Parte del supuesto de que las directrices de formación continuada se articulan conforme a los organismos internacionales que desde la década de 1990 extendieron por América Latina un modelo homogéneo de formación, que tiene como principales características la de constituir un servicio a través de la modalidad a distancia y teniendo a la escuela como principal locus. En Brasil, estas características se apoyan en la Ley de Directrices y Bases de Educación Nacional nº. 9.394/96. Este trabajo es parte de un estudio que se desarrolla desde 2004 por la base de investigación Políticas y Gestión de Educación llamada Factores que influyen en la productividad de la Escuela Media: un estudio en Río Grande del Norte. El estudio en cuestión se centra en la dimensión pedagógica de la referida investigación y analiza la política de formación continua del personal docente, y considera como dimensiones de análisis la formación continua promovida en el ámbito escolar, ofrecida por la SECD/RN en el marco de la autoformación. Para la realización del estudio se hizo una búsqueda bibliográfica y documental que permitió la comprensión del objeto de estudio. La investigación empírica se realizó mediante la aplicación de cuestionarios, con preguntas abiertas y cerradas, a los maestros de Enseñanza Media de RN, y a través de entrevistas, semi-estructuradas de naturaleza complementaria, a las coordinadoras estatales de programas dirigidos a la Enseñanza Media. El análisis de los datos obtenidos muestra que no hay en SECD/RN una programación específica para la formación continua de los docentes de ese nivel educativo. Los programas implantados son de carácter nacional, de índole focalizada y no prestan atención a la mayoría de los docentes. La formación continua desarrollada en el âmbito escolar es prácticamente inexistente, y se limita a reuniones y algunos seminarios, sin mucha repercusión en la práctica docente. En cuanto a la autoformación son pocos los profesores que tratan de mejorar su práctica pedagógica con cursos de capacitación. Por lo tanto, se percibe una laguna en la formación de esos profesores y la necesidad de implementar acciones generales de formación continua que favorezcan una mayor y mejor articulación entre la formación inicial y continua, entre la teoría y la práctica, desde una perspectiva transformadora, en el sentido de superar modelos tradicionales de formación que no han tenido repercusión en la práctica docente

Em busca de novas territorialidades pedagógicas para a identidade da Educação Física no Ensino Médio integrado: uma perspectiva pós-crítica

Cet étude s agit du domaine de l Éducation Physique comme composante curriculaire dans le contexte de l Ensino médio integrado (l enseignement secondaire professionnel intégré) dans le IFRN, Campus Natal Zona Norte (Régio Nord). Son objectif principal est sur le plan éducatif des actions de l enseingant au procès des convivialités avec la culture corporale à partir des expériences, désires, besoins et volontés des apprenants dans la perspective de l imersion dans le monde de la créativité, de la recherche, de la connaissance et de la transformation de l identité pédagogique de la composante curriculaire. Dans ce sens, l étude a eu comme objectif l élaboration d une propisition pédagogique, fondamentée sur la Théorie Post-critique de l éducation qui contribue pour la configuration de l identité de l Éducation Physique dans les cours téchniques intégrés de niveau secondaire. La recherche s est configuré dans une intervention pédagogique fondamenté sur les préssuppositions methodologique d une expérience empirique du genre recherche-action apliqué dans l univers scolaire des cours thécniques intégrés de l enseignement secondaire de l IFRN, Campus Natal Zona Norte. Les sujets qui ont participé de la recherche, sont les apprenants des groupes de la première année du cours de Commerce et Éléctronique de la soirée (13h à 18h), inscrit à partir de l année 2012. Les instruments utilisés pour la recherche ont été deux questionaires et une cahier de bord. Les résultats obtenus sont disposés dans des graphiques qui représentent les paroles des sujets après le procès d intervantion et les analyses réalisées sous l étude-recherche, qui ont été faites por l analyse de contenu, de l image principale de la population recherchée. On considère que les résultats de la recherche ont été plausibles à la mesure que au-delà du support et de la participation dans la recherche, les réponses obtenues ont démontré que le procès d intervantion pédagogique a été pertinent pour les apprenants des cours téchniques intégrés de niveau secondaire de Commerce et Électronique de l IFRN, Campus Natal Zona Norte. Le sense essentielle de cette thèse s est concentrée dans la dimension interculturelle pour l Éducation Physique dans le secondaire intégré, comme un travail fondamenté à partir des temoignage des apprenants et par la conception post-critique du curriculum qui refuse les explications évidentes et instituées comme des véritées finales dans l objectif de réguler et controler les sujets de l éducation. L option faite par cet abordage de thèse a été pour rompre avec l établi à partir de la proposition d un dialògue, avec les apprenants, à la recherche de nouveaux territoires pédagogiques pour l Education Physique à l enseignement intégré de l IFRN, Campus Natal Zona Norte. Des territoires qui occupent des espaces dans la culture scolaire, dans une dynamique dialogique avec les apprenants, qui se défine politique et pédagogiquement pour la diversité culturelle du mouvement, qui aborde le concept de mouvement dans la proximité des actions corporales cotidiennes et qui propose de nouvelles possibilités et de recréations pour les pratiques de la culture corporale. La perspective post-critique ouvre des possibilités pour de nouvelles langages en fortifiant les narratives de ce qui ont toujours entendu et cependant ont silencié ses voix et ainsi, la thèse a confirmé que, l étude présent et la recherche supporté par la théorie post-critique du curriculum ont possibilité une nouvelles configuration pour l identité pédagogique de l Éducation Physique dans la condition de composant curriculaire des cours téchniques intégrés de niveau secondaire de l IFRN au Campus Natal Zona Norte

Conhecimentos sobre o corpo: uma possibilidade de intervenção pedagógica nas aulas de educação física no ensino médio

The following study aims at the main conceptions around the body and the learning through physical education classes at school. Therefore, this research mainly presents a proposal of pedagogical intervention on physical education for Ensino Médio, centered on the knowledge about the body as well as how to evaluate the impacts of such interventions on the students‟ learning process. In order to surround our field of investigation, this work elaborates the following study questions: a) What have students learned about the body in physical education classes in Ensino Médio at IFRN? b) What methodological possibilities can contribute on the experience of meaningful learning processes in physical education in Ensino Médio related to the knowledge of body aspects? Regarding to the methodology used, this ethnographic research used several instruments for data collecting like dairies, diagnostic activities, self-assessment evaluations, portfolio, filming, photographs and posts on the social network facebook. The materialization of the pedagogical intervention and all of its implications allow us to consider that the physical education classes in Ensino Médio at IFRN, campus Parnamirim have supported meaningful experiences of learning. Also they motivate relevant discussions applicable to the students‟ everyday lives once they are supported by discussions related to the influence of media about the body of teenagers, the irregular use of steroids, massaging as a possibility of body relaxation. Also, we point out that the students had the chance to experience body activities which crossed the limits of physical education classes‟ hegemony at school, such as indoor soccer, dodgeball, volleyball, basketball and handball. Thus, the students could experience body activities beyond the limits of most common sports, which started several discussions about the juvenile universe and culture. Beside the professional and personal importance of this work, we list the scientific relevance for the production of knowledge on the educational field once the number of Works about the knowledge of the body are still only a few. This study is mainly about alternative body practices. Therefore, we consider that the knowledge about the body can and must be studied not only through alternative practices, but also in different approaches which can be attributed to body running phenomenon. Finally, we believe that the discussions hereby motivated about the matter are far from being enough, so we deliver our intention in deepening this study on forthcoming researches about the knowledge of the body in the field of physical education in Ensino Médio

Práticas pedagógicas das escolas de ensino médio que contribuem para a escolha do aluno pelo curso de Engenharia de Produção da UFRN

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior

A Informática como recurso didático para a aprendizagem de Física no ensino médio

The accomplishment of this work was motivated by our concerns, while teacher of Physics discipline, in the medium teaching and in the higher education, where we have been observing a lot of difficulties in the students' acting, to the they try to give pursuit out to their studies of the classroom, because of the lack of appropriate equipments, or even, of a laboratory where they can put in practice the studied contents. The work aims at to build and to test an educational software that it serves as tool auxiliadora in Physics learning in the Medium Teaching, in the area of electricity, with emphasis in the study of the electrodynamic in resistors. The developed software comes as an alternative to the learning problems, putting the computer science as auxiliary tool, because, besides being an alternative in the middle of the technological expansion, endowed with several resources, it stimulates the significant learning, according to David Ausubel's perspective. A software containing a program destined to the applicability of physics contents in the branch of the electricity is presented as an auxiliary tool, where the student can, not just, to review the contents presented at room, as well as for in practice, through a virtual laboratory, some of these contents, besides testing their knowledge through a bank of discursive subjects. The evaluation of the developed software was made submitting him/it to the professionals' of physics area appreciation. Equally, through continuous evaluations, they were made comparisons among the students' of five different groups acting, in the same school, that you/they were used of the program as tool of his auxiliary learning, and the acting of those that didn't use it

A prática de correção textual por professoras de língua portuguesa do ensino médio

Cette recherche analyse les pratiques de correction de textes de l'enseignement du 1, 2 et 3 ème niveau. Nous avons parti de discutions avec les professeurs de Langue Portugaise des troisièmes annèes d‟une école appartenant au enseignement publique, située à la ville d‟Assu RN. L'étude a les postulats théoriques de Cruz (2007), Dellagnelo (1998), Oliveira (2005), Pécora (1999), Ruiz (2001), Serafini (1989), et d‟autres. La méthodologie est de nature qualitative et d‟interpretation, dont le matériel a été constitué à partir des rapports des enseignants professionnels, ainsi que les 92 textes recueillies entre juillet et août 2008. Les dés montrent que la correction se configure comme un travail pratique, qui vise à aider les étudiants à améliorer leur écriture. Les professeurs font la correction d‟une forme mélangée, c'est-à-dire dans le texte apparaissent les corrections orthographiques, lexicales, etc., mais la prédominance de la correction est par rapport aux idées, pour le contenu du texte. Dans ce sens, les professeurs se rendent compte du valeur et de la hiérarchisation des idées discutées par les élèves, les reconnaître comme l'organisation de la sémantique et la séquence du texte. Tous les autres aspects (structurelles, grammaticaux) sont importants, cependant, en général, dans la pratique de correction des études, l‟exposition les idées occupent une place importante. Les marques de correction apparaissent sous la forme de petits billets, qui apprécie également toutes les étapes de l'écriture de texte

O papel da leitura nas aulas de inglês: uma análise segundo a percepção dos professores do ensino médio de escolas públicas estaduais de Natal

This dissertation aims at investigating the teachers beliefs about the role of the reading ability in English at public state high schools in Natal and identifying the social value of the process of learning English for students of a foreign language. From the understanding of studies on reading, both in the field of Cognitive Psychology, as in Gibson & Levin (1975), as in the area of Psycholinguistics, as in Goodman (1970) and Del Re (2006), We researched the teachers perceptions about the skills and competencies that should permeate their educational practices, through their knowledge about theories of language acquisition as Cognitivism (Piaget, 1961) and Social Interactionism (Vygotsky, 1979) and the official documents (PCNEM, 1999; PCN+, 2002 ) that are the parameters for teaching a foreign language. We took into consideration other factors that influence the choice of the goals and the objectives to be worked out, such as: intensity of teachers workload, number of classes and students per class for each teacher, materials and technologies available, among other factors that will play an important role in the choice of the appropriate methodologies. To conduct a case study, two questionnaires were used in the construction of direct interviews with fourteen English teachers in twenty schools. According to data on the teachers beliefs we could find that for them the reading ability does not seem to have an special treatment in the teaching of a foreign language due to factors that undermine this process and therefore make teachers do not realize the real objectives of teaching English at public state high schools in Natal. As a consequence, the current process of education complicates the formation of autonomous learners capable of fighting for a social transformation

Avaliando a aprendizagem de língua inglesa em uma escola de ensino médio a partir de contribuições discentes

This study discusses the evaluation of the English language‟s learning developed in a public high school from Lajes-RN in 2011 starting from a qualitative evaluation proposal (SAUL 1988; CANAN, 1996; DEMO, 2008) aiming the production of knowledge about the evaluation process developed in the classes of English language involving the contributions from students. To diagnose and characterize the evaluation process of English language of the researched school, identifying the representations that students attributed to the evaluation, we have implemented the evaluation instruments suggested by students to perform the evaluation of language learning and allowed a reflection about the student‟s participation in the construction of the evaluation process of the English language, subject discussed by Sant‟anna (2002) and other theorists (CANAN, 1996; BRAZIL, 2002; PEREIRA, 2009). To conduct the research work, we use the qualitative approach with ethnographic basis, substantiate in authors like Bogdan, Biklen (1994), Mazzotti; Gewandsznajder (1998), Strauss, Corbin (2008) among others. The methodology was the action research (ANDRÉ, 1995; NUNAN, 2007; LANKSHEAR; KNOBEL, 2008) described as research of empirical basis which associates an action with a resolution of a collective problem, because in it, its researchers and employees are engaged in a cooperatively way (THIOLLENT, 1985). When we treat about the evaluation of English language‟s learning (ALMEIDA FILHO, 1993; SCARAMUCCI, 2009) practiced before and after the contributions made by the students of the second year of the refereed school, the study considers that high school students have a more critical and reflective conscience with regard to their evaluations, not just opining on the assessment of learning English but also about the assessment of other subjects from their scholar curriculum and so this research presents possibilities for performing the act of evaluation which consider the participation of students in decisions regarding this process, because we cogitate that when the teachers share the decisions with their students, teachers can add quality to the evaluation process

O ritual simbólico do Ctrl+C (copiar ) e Ctrl+V (colar) no ensino médio

Nowadays, technology has a direct influence on the relationship student and teacher have with language. The internet is a powerful tool in helping work with the language and, through it, the knowledge comes to the student easily and intensely. Furthermore, this facility has enhanced and made visible what has been called, within the University community, "plagiarism generation." This work assumes that this generation has, in their written texts, symbolic movements similar to those of "copy and paste" applied to research work carried out by high school students. Taking this as starting point, this dissertation aims to analyze how high school students of the 1st year from a school in Natal (RN) construct texts, under the movements known as "Ctrl + c" and "Ctrl + v", with reference to the text of the "other". More specific issues are behind the general objective, namely: 1. how the student appropriates the source-text when he copies and pastes? 2. What are the categories of analysis that allow us to look analytically and theoretically for the "ctrl + c / ctrl + v" practice made by the student? 2. how the studies developed in the fields of "Genetic Criticism" (Grésillon, 1987), the "school manuscripts" (Calil, 2004) and "paraphrase" (Fuchs, 1982) may help in working with writing in the classroom standing as a possible way to minimize the copy and paste effects in the students texts? Thus, we observe the categories of analysis that allow us to look, theoretically and analytically, for the symbolic ritual of the "ctrl + c" (copy) and "ctrl + v" (paste) in high school. Our study shows that the student text is a "hybrid body" whose writing is a drawing entanglement because of the presence of the foreign text, verbatim, and the presence of linguistic elements to paraphrase the original text.This textual embodiment has, behind it, certain operations, namely: replacing, moving, adding and deleting statements. Given the specificity of the data and the research objectives, this study aligns with qualitative research methods (SILVERMAN, 2009) and falls within the knowledge field of Applied Linguistics, which is characterized especially by investigating problems, phenomena in which language in a real situation is taken as central (BRUMFIT, 1995).Theoretically, our work follows the approach of studies on the paraphrase (Fuchs, 1982, 1994a, 1994b; DAUNAY, 1997, 1999, 2002a, 2002b), the studies developed in the field of Genetic Criticism (Grésillon, 1987, 1994, 1992, 2008 ) and those developed by Eduardo Calil (2004) on "school manuscripts"

Vozes sociais em diálogo: uma análise bakhtiniana dos diários de leituras produzidos por alunos do ensino médio

The work aims to analyze high school students utterances, in reading diary discursive genre, starting from the language concept proposed by the Bakhtin Circle. The genre in question has peculiar characteristics which justify its choice for this work, especially with regard to subjectivity marks, that reveal, through the ideological clash, positions on various issues. From the utterances selected for the corpus, categories were created, during the research, according to the guidelines of Guba and Lincoln (2006), Mazzotti and Gewandsznajder (1998) and Amorim (2002), for whom the research in human sciences cannot be based on pre-established categories. We consider diary as a discursive genre (BAKHTIN, 2010a), which carries the characteristics of composition, style and content. Other concepts of the Circle, concerning to utterance, dialogical relations, social voices, responsiveness and exotopy also formed the basis for the study. Moreover, during the analysis of the utterances that compose the corpus of research, we used the concepts of discursive polemics (BAKHTIN, 2010b) and Framework (2010a). At the end of the research, we realized that the assessment situation of students, the fact that they are in an institution whose policy follows national documents, based on diversity and plurality, and live together in a classroom space where there are differences of social class, age, and finally, different realities, were not sufficient factors for this diversity be well accepted in their positions. Thus, their utterances bring voices that demonstrated a difficulty in accepting others that are different from themselves. In view of this, we conclude that teachers need to be prepared to handle these discourses, creating strategies for mediating these dissonant voices, with which must make contact every day at school

A aula de português no ensino médio: o ensino que se deseja, o ensino que se faz

Settled within the realm of a problematization towards teaching and learning the Portuguese language, this study aims to investigate the way how the Portuguese Language discipline is dealt with in Secondary School. We propose specifically to analyze the orientations of the official documents concerning the educator practice, examining the way the PCNEM proposal is approached in the didactic book, identifying the treatment given to language questions, analyzing the way the teacher uses the didactic book and verifying the relations between the official approach and the pedagogical practice. The analysis takes into account the several discourses concerning school literacy, considering the various political-educational instances which institutionalize the teaching of the mother tongue - where we locate the teaching that is wanted . In what teachers and students say in their activities and concerning them - the realm of the teaching that is performed - we presuppose that there are signs of the principles - or conceptions - that orientate what they understand by language, teaching and learning. Such evidences are considered within the interrelation of the enunciative places where this literacy is promoted: the public policies concerning education - focusing the language questions - the academic researches about those questions, the educator formation and capacitation and the very school practices in the complexity of their discoursive inter-subjectivity. The principles - or conceptions - are pursued in what is said (or not) about what is done (or not) in the classroom when dealing with the Portuguese Language. The corpus is made up of oral and written texts produced in Portuguese classes in the Secondary School at a public school in the city of Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. Situated in the realm of Applied Linguistics, the research is conducted in a qualitative and interpretative perspective, following the ethnography of communication procedures and the contributions of the Functional Linguistics. In the observations, language conceptions were discerned, among others, besides beliefs and representations where the theoretical and practical aspects, professional roles, expectations and uncertainties were diluted.

Vozes em diálogo na escola : uma análise de posicionamentos sobre a disciplina língua portuguesa no ensino médio integrado à educação profissional do IFRN

Esta investigación toma como tema la asignatura Lengua Portuguesa en el contexto de la enseñanza media integrada a la educación profesional, implementado en el año de 2005, en el Instituto Federal de Educação, ciência y tecnología del Rio Grande do Norte. En el ámbito general, objetiva analizar las voces reveladas en posicionamientos sobre la asignatura Lengua Portuguesa en este contexto. En este estudio, el uso del adjetivo integrado es comprendido como revelador de una formación escolar no basada en investigaciones dicotómicas, sobre todo en aquellas que evidencian una separación entre el conocimiento y el ejercicio profesional. Se buscó aporte teórico en los debates del área de educación, sobre formación integrada, en la visión de contemporaneidad de Bauman y en la concepción de lenguaje de M. Bakhtin. El corpus se compone de material empírico de la naturaleza cuantitativa y cualitativa, obtenido por medio de aplicación de cuestionarios con alumnos y profesionales, además del análisis documental de los PCNEM y de las OCEM, a lo que se refiere a asignatura Lengua Portuguesa. El direccionamiento metodológico es guiado por el paradigma cualitativo inserido en una perspectiva socio-histórica y eligió como categoría de análisis el concepto de voces sociales. Los resultados indican que la asignatura Lengua Portuguesa, en la perspectiva de integración con el mundo del trabajo, adquiere, en mayor o menor grado, en lo observado en los documentos oficiales y en los posicionamientos de alumnos y profesionales de la enseñanza media integrada a la educación profesional del IFRN, un perfil cuya esencia, lejos de asumir características de una enseñanza instrumental reductora, requiere una concepción de lenguaje que esté en sintonía con el mundo del trabajo de la sociedad contemporánea, una sociedad cada vez más abierta a la pluralidad de opiniones y a la ambivalencia de sentidos

Letramento literário na escola: o poema na aula de língua portuguesa no ensino médio

Esta investigación está incluida en las discusiones sobre las relaciones entre literatura y enseñanza, recortando el lugar de las escritas poéticas en las clases de Lengua Portuguesa en la Enseñanza Media. En términos epistemológicos, nuestra reflexión problematiza, entre otras cuestiones, el desplazamiento que ocurre cuando las manifestaciones literarias se apartan de sus soportes originales y se adentran a las escenas de la clase de lengua materna, transformándose en objeto de enseñanza y contenido didáctico. En el ámbito de las prácticas escolarizadas de la lectura literaria en la Enseñanza Media, nuestra reflexión tiene como objeto la didactización del género textual poema. En esa etapa de la enseñanza, el poema como componente curricular aún no está definido. Eso es ocasionado, de modo general, por dos razones: por la naturaleza específica del género y por los procedimientos didácticopedagógicos utilizados cuando se hace la lectura del poema en clase. En relación al modelo consagrado de la enseñanza de literatura en la Enseñanza Media, apoyado en la descripción de la historia de la literatura brasileña a través de esquemas cronológicos de movimientos estético-culturales, pretendemos hacer un desplazamiento en lo que respecta a ese abordaje y situar el letramiento literario a partir de las formas líricas recurrentes en la producción literaria en Brasil, en la perspectiva de la enseñanza de la lengua mediada por el estudio del texto. Para tanto, utilizaremos como aporte teórico las siguientes áreas del conocimiento: la teoría literaria, la lingüística aplicada y la pedagogía de la enseñanza de lengua materna

Caracterização do ciclo sono/vigília de professores do ensino médio em natal/rn

In the school environment is fundamental the knowledge about the sleep-wake cycle (SWC), because we find children and adolescents with excessive sleepiness and learning difficulties. Furthermore, teachers with high demand and with different work schedule, which may contribute to changes in SWC. The aim of this study was to describe the SWC of high school teachers in Natal/RN. Habits and knowledge about sleep, chronotype, SWC, daytime sleepiness, sleep quality and job satisfaction were described in 98 high school teachers from public and private school. These parameters were compared according to the characteristics of work, family structure and gender. Data collection was performed with the use of questionnaires in two stages: 1) "health and sleep" (general characterization of sleep habits), Horne & Ostberg questionnaire (characterization of chronotype), Epworth Sleepiness Scale and the Index of Pittsburg Sleep Quality, 2) The sleep diary for 14 days. From the results, we observe that the teachers woke up and went to bed earlier in the week and showed a reduction of time in bed around 42min comparing to weekend. This reduction in time in bed during the week was accompanied by an increase in nap duration on weekend. In addition the teachers woke up earlier on Saturdays than on Sundays, probably due to housework and leisure. The teachers' knowledge about sleep was low in relation to individual differences and effect of alcoholic beverages on sleep, and high in the consequences of sleep deprivation. The differences found in comparisons on the characteristics of work, family structure and gender were punctual, except concerning the work schedule. The teacher who started work in the morning and finished in the night, woke up earlier, went to bed later and had less time in bed, when compared to teachers who work only in two shifts. In addition, teachers with late chronotypes who begin the work in the morning had a greater irregularity in the wake up time compared to teachers with earlier and intermediate chronotypes. Half of teachers have excessive sleepiness, which was positive correlated with work dissatisfaction. In general, teachers showed IPSQ averages equivalent to poor sleep quality and the women showed worst averages. From the results, it is suggested that the SWC of teachers varies according to work schedule, leading to irregularity and partial sleep deprivation in the week, although these responses vary according to chronotype. These changes are accompanied by excessive daytime sleepiness and poor sleep quality. However, it is necessary to expand the sample to clarify the influence of variables related to work, family structure and gender together

A água nossa de cada dia : percepção, uso e predisposições comportamentais de alunos do ensino médio de Natal, Rio Grande do Norte

Embora a escassez de água seja reconhecida como um dos principais problemas mundiais a ser enfrentado pela humanidade, padrões comportamentais ecologicamente insustentáveis ainda persistem. Assim, o objetivo deste estudo foi analisar determinantes do comportamento pró-ambiental relativo à água, bem como os significados que lhe são atribuídos por alunos do ensino médio do Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica do Rio Grande do Norte, em Natal. Compuseram a amostra de conveniência 315 estudantes, 146 mulheres e 169 homens, que responderam a um questionário sobre uso e percepção da água, contendo também indicadores de pró-ambientalismo, cuidado ambiental, desenvolvimento sustentável, perspectiva temporal, externalidades e coletivismo, além de inquérito sócio-demográfico. Para os participantes, água é sinônimo de vida, muito embora a relação que mantém com ela parece dúbia e, muito mais funcional que ecológica; consideram-na um recurso finito, um patrimônio indispensável à vida, contudo não foi observada coerência entre as concepções manifestadas e os comportamentos auto-relatados de uso da água. Os resultados encontrados apontaram preditores importantes do comportamento pró-ambiental relativo à água: sexo do respondente, Escala Novo Paradigma Ecológico e deixar forma de contato para participar de campanhas futuras. Seja para aprofundamento teórico em novos estudos, seja para auxiliar na elaboração de programas de educação ambiental, que poderiam contribuir para inibir os efeitos de uma cultura de consumo e de uma visão utilitarista da água, ampliando esforços individuais e coletivos para a preservação de bens comuns, como a água. Palavras-chave: psicologia ambiental; sustentabilidade; água; comportamento próambiental. x xi Abstract Although water scarcity is recognized as one of the main world-wide problems to be faced by human kind, ecologically unsustainable patterns of behavior still persist. Thus, the objective of this study was to analyze pro-environmental behavior related to water, as well as meanings associated to it by high school students of Federal Center of Technological Education of Rio Grande do Norte, in Natal. The convenience sample was composed by 315 students, 146 women and 169 men, who answered a questionnaire about use and perception of water, containing indicators of proenvironmentalism, environmental care, sustainable development, time perspective, externalities and collectivism, besides socio-demographic items. According to participants, water is synonymous of life, even though the relationship they present with it is ambiguous, much more functional than ecological; they consider it a finite resource, an indispensable life patrimony, however there was no coherence between such conceptions and the self-reported behaviors of water use. Results indicated three important predictors of pro-environmental behavior: sex of respondent, New Ecological Paradigm Scale and telephone/address left for eventual contact to participate in future environmental campaigns. They may be used in additional studies for theoretical development, or to assist in the planning of programs of environmental education, aimed at the inhibition of the effects of a culture of consumption and of an utilitarian perception of water, extending individual and collective efforts towards the preservation of common resources as water