The Development of Science Education Research in Brazil and Contributions from the History and Philosophy of Science

Over the last 50 years a new research area, science education research, has arisen and undergone singular development worldwide. In the specific case of Brazil, research in science education first appeared systematically 40 years ago, as a consequence of an overall renovation in the field of science education. This evolution was also related to the political events taking place in the country. We will use the theoretical work of Rene Kaes on the development of groups and institutions as a basis for our discussion of the most important aspects that have helped the area of science education research develop into an institution and kept it operating as such. The growth of this area of research can be divided into three phases: The first was related to its beginning and early configurations; the second consisted of a process of consolidation of this institution; and the third consists of more recent developments, characterised by a multiplicity of research lines and corresponding challenges to be faced. In particular, we will analyse the special contributions to this study gleaned from the field known as the history and philosophy of science.

The informational turn in Philosophy: any novelty in the study of Mind?

The concept of information is analyzed starting from Adams' hypothesis in The Informational Turn in Philosophy, according to which there has been a far-reaching turn in Philosophy following the publication of Turing's article "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". Adams maintains that new guidelines are being indicated in philosophical research, having the concept of "information" as the basis for treatment of classical problems, such as the relationships between mind-body, perception-action, and the nature of knowledge, amongst others. Partially agreeing with Adams, we believe, however, that his hypothesis faces difficulties, the most fundamental of which concerns the different meanings given to the concept of information. We argue that even though the concept of information underlying the mechanicist proposal of Turing, according to which "to think is to compute", is indeed being employed in Philosophy, this is not because of its mechanistic nature, but mainly due to the representationist presupposition dominant in this area. From this point of view, the informational turn in philosophy would not provide any great novelty, given that since the earliest days philosophical approaches to the nature of mind have always been mainly representationist. The novelty would not lie specifically in the Turing thesis, but in reflections on the nature of information, especially ecological information, and its relation to action.

The Rechtslehre doctrine and Kant's philosophy of history

The text is divided in two phases. In the first phase, consisting of three parts, the main concepts of Kant's Doctrine of Right are considered in a comprehensive approach related to: the issue of the relations between natural right and positive right, problem closely connected to that of the relations between natural state and civil state, private right and public right; to the doctrine of property and its connection with political right. on treating the right in its several types, we intend to appoint the practical reasoning as a background of the Doctrine. In the second phase, concerning its last section, the consideration on the presence of the practical reasoning into the right is placed before some specificities of Kant's phylosophy of history, with the intent of establishing the possible relation between Rechtslehre and that philosophy.

A constituição do sujeito em contextos de privação de liberdade

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Escola cidadã: questão acerca da educação escolar em tempos de crise estrutural do capital

Pós-graduação em Educação Escolar - FCLAR

Considerações sobre os aspectos cinemáticos e dinâmicos do movimento

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Humanization of health care: a reflexive theoretical essay based on the philosophy of Emmanuel Lévinas

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Tempo(s) e alteridade: a escuta nas aulas de filosofia com crianças

Children perceive philosophy classes as space and time in which they can speak whatever they think and they like. ! at is a fact: philosophy classes for and with children open space to speak and to think. But there is a distance between speak and be heard out. Which kind of hearing is interesting in this type of class? Hearing assumes a real meeting between persons and this takes for granted that someone is also and essentially interested in the other’s thought . Such questions take us to have a problem with our concept of childhood. Recovering debates made by Walter Omar Kohan about childhood and temporality we try to connect the questions we indicate here and their meaning in the classes of philosophy for children keeping as our aim to the liberating possibility to children and teachers.

Uma análise das estratégias de manufatura adotadas por seis montadoras da indústria automobilística mundial

The Brazilian automotive industry has undergone profound changes during the 90’s decade, as a consequence of the market opening up through the liberation of automobile imports. The exposure of the Brazilian domestic market to competition with imported products of high quality and lower prices indicated the need for significant changes in those auto industries operating in this country, with the intention of making them competitive. To achieve these objectives management and production concepts were adopted, such as: the just-in-time philosophy; lean manufacturing; outsourcing; reengineering and increasing the rate of automation in both production and management systems. These changes helped to increase productivity and, in turn, reduced the level of employment in the sector, especially in activities where the required qualification levels were low. Despite this modernization, the Brazilian companies have committed themselves to meet the specific needs of the Brazilian market. The objective of this paper is to analyze and present manufacturing strategies from six manufacturers of automotive vehicles: Toyota in Japan, Fiat in Italy, Volkswagen in Brazil and Germany and General Motors in the U.S. and Brazil. The predominant method of research was from reviewing relevant literature, whereas the empirical data was analyzed qualitatively. The article seeks to identify the manufacturing strategies adopted by manufacturers located in the above countries, electing one automotive manufacturer to represent each country. The research demonstrated that the processes for production of automobiles in four plants located in, the U.S. (GM); Italy (Fiat); Japan (Toyota) and Germany (VW) are similar to those adopted in Brazilian industrial plants of the same companies (GM and VW), with differences of operations only in the business strategies adopted by each of them.

Pedagogical practices carried out during an in-service teachers education project: approaching history and philosophy of science to physics teaching

We report here part of a research project developed by the Science Education Research Group, titled: "Teachers’ Pedagogical Practices and formative processes in Science and Mathematics Education" which main goal is the development of coordinated research that can generate a set of subsidies for a reflection on the processes of teacher training in Sciences and Mathematics Education. One of the objectives was to develop continuing education activities with Physics teachers, using the History and Philosophy of Science as conductors of the discussions and focus of teaching experiences carried out by them in the classroom. From data collected through a survey among local Science, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics teachers in Bauru, a São Paulo State city, we developed a continuing education proposal titled “The History and Philosophy of Science in the Physics teachers’ pedagogical practice”, lasting 40 hours of lessons. We followed the performance of five teachers who participated in activities during the 2008 first semester and were teaching Physics at High School level. They designed proposals for short courses, taking into consideration aspects of History and Philosophy of Science and students’ alternative conceptions. Short courses were applied in real classrooms situations and accompanied by reflection meetings. This is a qualitative research, and treatment of data collected was based on content analysis, according to Bardin [1].