The purpose of the thesis is to investigate a specific case of curriculum change; that of organizing teacher training courses around learner outcomes in line with the Bologna process. The investigation is an example of a practitioner research case study and looks at how official Bologna policy messages are re-interpreted and recontextualised at the local micro level. A variety of methods are used to collect and analyse the data produced. A form of discourse analysis, as well as a survey of research literature, is used to identify policy discourses connected with the Bologna process. At the local micro level, local documentation as well as teacher talk in planning meetings are analysed to throw light on how the Bologna process was implemented. A number of discourses were found in policy documents; including the need to modernize higher education and to move towards a more student centred approach to learning. The thesis shows that these discourses were mediated locally by a regulative discourse portraying teachers as role models who have the task of passing on knowledge that is essential for the students to obtain before entering the profession. Instead of challenging the pedagogic identities for teachers and students, the introduction of learning outcomes acted to strengthen the fundamental vertical relations between teachers and students, cementing and confirming the level of control that teachers had over all aspects of the curriculum. Changes made in connection with the introduction of learning outcomes had a minimal influence on practice and were contested by some teacher educators. Teacher educators resisted and mediated the changes made by continuing to use their traditional practices. / <p>Akademisk avhandling som med tillstånd av utbildningsvetenskapliga fakulteten vid Göteborgs universitet för vinnande av doktorsexamen i pedagogiskt arbete framläggs till offentlig granskning Fredagen den 20 september, kl. 13.15 vid Högskolan i Borås.</p>

Cette recherche examine les transformations actuelles de l'enseignement universitaire, à partir d'une approche sociologique des curricula. Elle interroge l'action de recontextualisation des curricula et des savoirs dans sa double dimension sociale. D'une part, cette action est menée par une base sociale au sein d'une arène où différents groupes d'agents avec des fonctions spécialisées sont en relation: agents pédagogiques, évaluateurs nationaux et universitaires des formations, producteurs de politiques de l'enseignement supérieur. D'autre part, cette action de recontextualisation porte ses traces dans la structuration interne des curricula, à travers des opérations sociales de sélection et d'organisation des savoirs. Les constats s'appuient sur une analyse qualitative qui associe plusieurs types de matériaux, articulant pratiques et contenus: récits de pratique d'agents universitaires, documents officiels et rapports d'évaluation, programmes d'enseignement des masters professionnels en sciences humaines et sociales. L'analyse permet de mettre en lumière les caractéristiques et les enjeux épistémiques et sociaux de la "régionalisation" des savoirs, générée par la projection des curricula dans des activités professionnelles au sein des champs socio-économiques. Elle permet aussi d'éclairer les enjeux de la construction du débat sur le changement curriculaire: la manière dont le contrôle institutionnel pèse sur la définition des orientations du changement, mais aussi les possibilités d'une révision collective du problème de la transmission des savoirs. / This research examines the current changes in higher education, using a sociological approach to the curricula. The thesis questions the recontextualisation of curricula and of knowledge in its double social dimension. The first dimension refers to the social basis of the process. The recontextualisation takes place within an arena where a variety of groups with specialised functions are in relation: pedagogic agents, national and university experts, producers of higher education policies. The second dimension refers to the effects these actions have on the internal structuring of curricula, through social selection and organisation of knowledge. The findings are based on a qualitative analysis crossing data, by articulating practices and contents. Included are interviews with university agents, official documents and assessment reports in addition to programmes of study of "professional masters" in humanities and social sciences. The analysis reveals the epistemic and social stakes of the phenomenon of "regionalisation" of knowledge, generated by a projection of the curricula to socio-economic activities. It also sheds light on questions about the construction of the debate on curriculum change: what, precisely, is the role played by the institutional control in the definition of orientations for change, as well as what are the possibilities of a collective revision of the problem of the transmission of knowledge.

À travers le cas des sciences économiques et sociales, au niveau du secondaire, cette thèse interroge le processus de construction des contenus d'enseignement et leur évolution à partir d'une approche sociologique des curricula. L'action de production s'ancre dans des processus sociaux et cognitifs à la fois antérieurs et latéraux qui impactent la sélection, l'organisation et la hiérarchisation des savoirs au sein d'un programme scolaire. Cette action est menée par une base sociale : enseignants du secondaire organisés en association, associations patronales, groupe d'experts etc. Ces différents groupes d'acteurs, à la fois externes et internes au champ pédagogique, officiels et officiaux, entrent en relation dans l' « espace public » qui devient une arène sociale où se manifestent des conflits d'intérêts et des enjeux de pouvoir. Dans leur structuration interne les curricula scolaires officiels portent les traces de ces opérations sociales de négociations et décisions pour la sélection et l'organisation des savoirs. Les constats s'appuient sur une analyse qualitative qui associe plusieurs types de matériaux : récits de pratique des experts, rapports officiels, communiqués de presse, programmes scolaires. L'analyse met en lumière les transformations qui ont lieu à la fois dans les curricula de SES et dans leur processus de production. Les différentes formes de savoirs sont davantage projetées à partir des champs universitaires et professionnels. Quant au processus de production des programmes il fait l'objet, lui-même, d'une « épreuve de négociation » à travers laquelle les différents acteurs négocient la reconnaissance de forme d'expertise spécifique. / Through the case of Economic and Social Sciences, at the secondary level, this research examines the construction process of teaching contents and their evolution, using a sociological approach to the curricula. This action of construction is fixed in social and cognitive processes in both anterior and lateral that impacts the selection and hierarchical organization of knowledge within a formal curriculum. This action is conducted by a "social base": secondary school teachers organized in association, employer association, expert group, associations of higher education teachers, and producers of secondary education policies. These different groups, both inside and outside of educational field, official and unofficial, come in relation within the "public space". It becomes a social "arena" where manifest conflicts of interest and power issues. The internal structuring of formal curriculum brought out these social negotiations and political decisions for the selection and organization of knowledge. The findings are based on a qualitative analysis crossing data, included are interviews with experts produced formal curriculum, official documents and assessment reports in addition to programs of secondary level and Economic and Social Sciences. The analysis reveals the transformations that occur in both formal curriculum of Economic and Social Sciences and in their production process. The different forms of knowledge are more projected from academic and professional fields. As for the process of formal curriculum production is the subject itself of a "test negotiation" among social groups for the recognition of their expertise.

Postgraduate tutors have an important role to play in teaching and learning in higher education. There has been substantial research conducted in this area - much of it is orientated towards improving the quality of the methods of instruction and classroom practice. Far less research has been focused on the postgraduate tutors as producers of content. This research is based on an intervention that tasked five postgraduate tutors with planning two tutorials and designing an assessment task: activities that fell outside the scope of their usual work and roles. The aim of the research is to discover more about how postgraduate tutors, who typically have extensive and expert content knowledge, but very little pedagogical knowledge, develop pedagogical content knowledge. The study tracks the decision making process and the knowledge reservoirs that the participants emphasise in their planning and design in order learn about the teaching beliefs and priorities of these novice teachers. The analysis goes on to explore the criteria for legitimation that the postgraduate tutors establish and/ or entrench. The study finds that the participants are highly sensitive to the many kinds of constraints that circulate and that they in turn re-circulated. It goes on to suggest that postgraduate tutors are likely to reproduce the regulative rules that they find in operation and the cumulative messages of what is valued in terms of student and teacher performance in a given context.

The subject of this thesis is the communicative practice of strategic storytelling. The aim of the study is to analyse how storytelling is used and handled by organizations to reach comprehensive organizational goals. Within the all-embracing cultural context of modern Western society, here discussed through the concept of the new economy, strategic storytelling is explored in four areas: organizational discourses of strategic storytelling, narrativity as a resource to create and express values connected to the organization, storytelling as a practice of recontextualization and storytelling as an interactive tool. The data consists mainly of strategic stories but also of interviews, observations and documents collected from four Swedish organizations: two companies, a municipality and a congregation of the Church of Sweden. Applying a narratological, social semiotic and dialogical perspective the study investigates how narrativity is used by organizations as a resource to create identification and relations with and among stakeholders. The analyses in the study indicate that meaning is created in different layers. The structural resources of stories are used in various combinations to make organizations appear in specific ways in different situations. Furthermore, the picture of the organization is shaped not only by the stories themselves but also by the very fact that the organization is using storytelling. The potential of recontextualization that is characteristic of narratives is shown to be essential in offering possibilities of identification and a sense of community through storytelling. Furthermore, the fact that a story is told by an individual is shown to play a crucial role in creating a personalized picture of the organization. In strategic storytelling the interpersonal function seems to dominate over the ideational. This is a major finding of the analysis. More specifically, ideation is used as a tool to create interpersonal relations. The study also indicates that strategic storytelling comes with different possibilities and complications depending on what kind of organization is using it. Moreover, it is proposed that narrative as a form of communication fits perfectly within the broader cultural context of the new economy, characterized by commercialization, informalization, individualization and management practices founded on the strategic use of values.

With the increasing development of relations of consumption between discipline knowledge and students, educators face many pressures. One of these pressures is the emotional response of students to their learning experiences and the weight given to their evaluation of teaching by universities. This study emerged from the polarised nature of student responses to one particular area of study in landscape architecture, the integrative discourse of Landscape Planning. While some students found this subject highly rewarding, others found it highly confronting. Thus the main aims of this study are to describe how the students, teacher and institution construct this discourse and to propose a way to rethink these differences in student responses from a teacher's perspective. Firstly, the context of the study is outlined. The changing nature of higher education in Australian society frames the research problem of student-teacher struggles in Landscape Planning, a domain of knowledge in landscape architecture that is situated in a an enterprise university in Queensland. It describes some of the educational issues associated with Boyer's scholarship of integration, contemporary trans-disciplinary workplaces and legitimate knowledge chosen by the institution [Design], discipline [Landscape Architecture], teacher [Landscape Planning] and students [useful and relevant knowledge] as appropriate in a fourth year classroom setting. Secondly, the conceptual framework is described to establish the point of departure for the study. This study uses the work of Basil Bernstein, Harvey Sacks and Kenneth Burke to explore the changing nature of knowledge relations in Landscape Planning. Unconventionally perhaps, it begins by proposing a new concept called the 'decision space' formed from the conceptual spaces of multiple participants in an activity and developed from notions of creativity, conceptual boundaries and knowledge translation. It argues that it is in the 'decision space' that this inquiry is most likely to discover new knowledge about student-teacher struggles in Landscape Planning. It outlines an educational sociological view of the 'decision space' using Bernstein's concepts of the underlying pedagogic device, pedagogic discourse, pedagogic context, recontextualising field and most importantly the pedagogic code comprising two relative scales of classification and framing. It introduces an ethnomethodological view of knowledge boundaries that construct the 'decision space' using Sacks' concepts of context-boundedness and indexicality in people's talk. It also makes a link to a rhetorical view of knowledge choices in the 'decision space' using Burke's concepts of symbolic human action, motive and persuasion in people's speeches, art and texts. Thirdly, the study is divided methodologically into three parts: knowledge relations in official and curriculum texts, knowledge choices in student drawings and knowledge troubles in student talk. Knowledge relations in official texts are investigated using two relative scales of classification and framing for Landscape Planning and its adjacent pedagogic contexts including Advanced Construction and Practice 1 and 2 and Advanced Landscape Design 1 and 2. The official texts that described unit objectives and content in each context reveal that Landscape Planning is positioned in the landscape architecture course in Queensland as an intermediary discourse between the strongly classified and strongly framed discourse of Advanced Construction and Practice and the weakly classified and weakly framed discourse of Advanced Landscape Design. This seems to intensify the need for students in their professional year to access and adapt to new pedagogic rules, apparently not experienced previously. A further subjective reflection of my own week 1 unit information as curriculum text using classification and framing relations is included to explain what characterised the rationale, aim, objectives, teaching programme, assessment practice and assessment criteria in Landscape Planning. It suggests that the knowledge relations in my teaching practice mirror the weakly classified and strongly framed discourse of the official text for this unit, that is that students were expected to transcend knowledge boundaries but also be able to produce specific forms of communication in the unit. Knowledge choices in student drawings in Landscape Planning are described using a new sociological method of visual interpretation. It is comprised of four steps: (a) setting up a framing scale using the social semiotic approach of Kress and van Leeuwen (2005) (contact gaze, social distance, angle of viewpoint, modality, analytical structure and symbolic processes) combined with the pentadic approach of Burke (1969) (act, scene, agency, purpose); (b) setting up a classification scale using the concept of agent from the pentad of Burke (1969) combined with how the relationship between 'I' the producer and 'you' the viewer is constructed in each drawing, like a sequence in a conversation according to Sacks (1992a); (c) coding student drawings according to these two relative scales and (d) assessing any shifts along the scales from the start to the end of the semester. This approach shows that there is some potential in assessing student drawings as rhetorical 'texts' and identifying a range of student orientations to knowledge. The drawings are initially spread across the four philosophical orientations when students begin Landscape Planning and while some shift, others do not shift their orientation during the semester. By the end of the semester in 2003, eight out of ten student drawings were characterised by weak classification of knowledge boundaries and weak framing of the space for knowledge choices. In 2004, nine out of twenty-one drawings exhibited the same orientation by the end of the semester. Thus there is a changing pattern, complex though it may be, of student orientations to knowledge acquired through studying Landscape Planning prior to graduating as landscape architects. Knowledge troubles in student talk are identified using conversation markers in student utterances such as 'I don't know', 'I think', 'before' and 'now' and the categorisation of sequences of talk according to what is knowable and who knows about Landscape Planning. Student talk suggests that students have a diverse set of affective responses to Landscape Planning, with some students able to recognise the new rules of the pedagogic code but not able to produce appropriate texts as learning outcomes. This suggests a sense of discontinuity where students dispute what is expected of them in terms of transcending knowledge boundaries and what is to be produced in terms of specific forms of communication. The study went further to describe a language of legitimation of knowledge in Landscape Planning based on how students viewed its scope, scale, new concepts and other related contexts and who students viewed as influential in their selection of legitimate knowledge in Landscape Planning. It is the language of legitimation that constructs the 'decision space'. Thus in relation to the main aims of the study, I now know from unit texts that the knowledge relations in my curriculum design align closely with those of the official objectives and required content for Landscape Planning. I can see that this unit is uniquely positioned in terms of its hidden rules between landscape construction and landscape design. From student drawings, I acknowledge that students make a range of knowledge choices based on different philosophical orientations from a pragmatic to a mystical view of reality and that my curriculum design allows space for student choice and a shift in student orientations to knowledge. From student talk, I understand what students believe to be the points of contention in what to learn and who to learn from in Landscape Planning. These findings have led me to construct a new set of pedagogic code modalities to balance the diverse expectations of students and the contemporary requirements of institutions, disciplines and professions in the changing context of higher education. Further work is needed to test these ideas with other teachers as researchers in other pedagogic contexts.

This thesis purports to make two contributions to understandings of biotechnology. First, it presents a novel framework through which to view biotechnology as a complex series of fundamentally social and politically economic mediations rather than a decontextualised collection of technical and scientific phenomena. Second, the thesis presents a method for analysing contemporary discourses about biotechnology within this framework. The framework presented in the first content chapter of the thesis identifies what I see to be the four primary mediating "movements" that are central to seeing Biotechnology as Media: Alienation, Translation, Recontextualisation, and Absorption. The next chapter explicates these movements more fully using a combination of social practice and discourse theory. Using these four movements and the mediation framework as a guide, I then critically analyse a corpus of seventy two exemplary texts (approximately 700,000 words) about contemporary biotechnology. Mediation, in the sense I use it here, is not concerned with one particular media form or technology. Rather, it focuses on the process of mediation as the movement of meanings (Silverstone, 1999). I argue that seeing biotechnologies as mediations can provide a deeper and more critical understanding of how ways of seeing, being, acting, and describing (discourses) associated with contemporary biotechnology are moved from micro- and macro-biological and scientific contexts into the everyday lives of citizens and ecosystems. In particular, such a view highlights the forces and voices that currently determine the path and substance of political-economic movements in biotechnology and, consequently, how everyday perceptions of biotechnology are shaped or silenced in processes of mediation. A core assumption of the thesis is that processes of mediation are not neutral. Rather, they are always inherently interpretive, politically economic, and ethically significant. Any mediation involves "filtering" processes via which "content" is transformed into a form that is appropriate for a given medium by persons who have control over the medium, and by the nature of the medium itself. This applies as much in laboratory and scientific contexts as it does in the contexts of mass consumption, whether in newspapers, policy papers, movies (such as Gattaca), or consumer goods. The same is true in the mediation of biotechnology: there are technological and discursive restrictions on what and who can "contribute to" and "come out" of biotechnology and also what is construed as being a valuable and desirable outcome of biotechnology research and development. The three central analysis chapters of the thesis outline firstly how biotechnology can function as a time-based medium for the reproduction of already powerful discourses on, for example, the role of technology in human development and the consumer market as the moral medium between generators of new technologies and their "consumers". I identify exemplars of how the history of biotechnology and mediation (movement) is expressed in the corpus. This is followed by a more concentrated analysis of the ethical and social significance of the key "official" mediations presented in the corpus. I focus in particular on how the predominant policy evaluations of biotechnological mediations expressed in state, national, and international policy documents construct a "virtuous cycle" of product development that will ostensibly "deliver the benefits" of biotechnology to all citizens who, in the corpus, are framed predominantly as "consumers". The final chapter of the thesis reflects on the significance of biotechnology at the macro level of social practices and systems. Apart from its direct function as a technical medium for alienating hitherto inalienable aspects of life, such as configurations of DNA, and turning them into products for sale, I argue that, as a suite of mediating movements, biotechnology has the potential to effectively, and for the most part invisibly, mediate our more general understandings and experiences of ourselves, of other species, and of the world we live in. More specifically, I argue that biotechnological mediations actively, and often forcefully, promote a narrowing of the range of evaluative resources on offer to the general community, and indeed to biotechnologists themselves. Biotechnological mediations can therefore be described as part of a broader movement away from conditions of heteroglossia or dialogue (multi language, multi voice) toward conditions of monologia (one language, one voice). The thesis concludes with an important question: if we can identify these narrowing effects or mediations of biotechnology by using techniques such as Critical Discourse Analysis and by seeing biotechnology in a mediation framework, what can we do to interrupt them and generate movements that are more generative of heteroglossic and socially responsive ways of seeing, being, and acting? I offer a number of responses to the question in the conclusion.

Este estudo tem o objetivo de pesquisar a prática do(a) coordenador(a) pedagógico(a) na Rede Municipal de Ensino do Rio de Janeiro. Para entender a dinâmica de trabalho desses profissionais analisei os períodos em que a Rede Municipal de Ensino estava orientada pela Multieducação, pelo Ciclo de Formação no Ensino Fundamental e pelas transformações curriculares propostas a partir de 2009, quando se iniciou uma nova gestão na Secretaria Municipal de Educação (SME). Realizei um estudo do tipo etnográfico, dialogando com autores que propiciam melhor compreensão da complexa prática do(a) coordenador(a) pedagógico(a) nas escolas. Em seguida, observei as transformações das políticas curriculares da Rede Municipal de Ensino a partir do ciclo de políticas proposto por Stephen J. Ball e colaboradores. E, por fim, examinei a prática de coordenadores(as) pedagógicos(as) através do contexto cultural e da dinâmica do currículo nas respectivas escolas, compreendendo a função desse profissional como mediador(a) das políticas de currículo na Rede Municipal de Ensino do Rio de Janeiro. / This study aims to investigate the practice of the pedagogical coordinator as a mediator of curriculum policies in municipal schools of Rio de Janeiro. To understand the working dynamics of these professionals I analyzed the periods when the municipal schools were driven by the Multieducation, the Training Cycle in Fundamental Education and the proposed curriculum changes from 2009, when a new management in the Municipal Education started. I conducted an ethnographic type study, dialoguing with authors who provide a better understanding of the complex practice of the pedagogical coordinator in schools. Then I noticed the transformations of the curriculum policies of the municipal schools from the policy cycle approach proposed by Stephen J. Ball and colleagues. Finally, I examined the practice of pedagogical coordinators through the cultural context and the dynamics of the curriculum in their schools, understanding the function of this professional as a mediator of curriculum policies in the municipal schools of Rio de Janeiro.

Este estudo tem o objetivo de pesquisar a prática do(a) coordenador(a) pedagógico(a) na Rede Municipal de Ensino do Rio de Janeiro. Para entender a dinâmica de trabalho desses profissionais analisei os períodos em que a Rede Municipal de Ensino estava orientada pela Multieducação, pelo Ciclo de Formação no Ensino Fundamental e pelas transformações curriculares propostas a partir de 2009, quando se iniciou uma nova gestão na Secretaria Municipal de Educação (SME). Realizei um estudo do tipo etnográfico, dialogando com autores que propiciam melhor compreensão da complexa prática do(a) coordenador(a) pedagógico(a) nas escolas. Em seguida, observei as transformações das políticas curriculares da Rede Municipal de Ensino a partir do ciclo de políticas proposto por Stephen J. Ball e colaboradores. E, por fim, examinei a prática de coordenadores(as) pedagógicos(as) através do contexto cultural e da dinâmica do currículo nas respectivas escolas, compreendendo a função desse profissional como mediador(a) das políticas de currículo na Rede Municipal de Ensino do Rio de Janeiro. / This study aims to investigate the practice of the pedagogical coordinator as a mediator of curriculum policies in municipal schools of Rio de Janeiro. To understand the working dynamics of these professionals I analyzed the periods when the municipal schools were driven by the Multieducation, the Training Cycle in Fundamental Education and the proposed curriculum changes from 2009, when a new management in the Municipal Education started. I conducted an ethnographic type study, dialoguing with authors who provide a better understanding of the complex practice of the pedagogical coordinator in schools. Then I noticed the transformations of the curriculum policies of the municipal schools from the policy cycle approach proposed by Stephen J. Ball and colleagues. Finally, I examined the practice of pedagogical coordinators through the cultural context and the dynamics of the curriculum in their schools, understanding the function of this professional as a mediator of curriculum policies in the municipal schools of Rio de Janeiro.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / It was from the interaction among scientific, economic and technological development wich involved social implications that an important pedagogical movement appeared called Science Technology and Society. From this, the teaching of Sciences switched the phase where its contents were presented as something neutral, ready and unchanged, to be understood as process, as construction human being. In this perspective, it is fundamental to think about a scientific learning relate to the reality where student is inserted, respecting its particularitities and ways to read the world. These reflections coincide with estimated ones of the movement For an Field Education. This movement that becomes known from 1997, defends a school of the field as a place that produces knowledge from the direct relation with the culture that the citizens establish between itself and the way where they live. Therefore, this research searched to investigate where measured the context dimensions they are developed in the lessons of Sciences in field schools of hinterland of Sergipe. These considerations announce a qualitative methodology boarding in the present inquiry, that had as tools of data: interview and questionnaire that had been used next to the professors of Sciences in the Field schools of 5ª 8ª series of basic education. They were interrogate them how much practical pedagogical: how they are developed, if they approach contents with the problematic place, which strategies are used to supply some deficiencies in case that they present, that resources they are used to help in its lessons and the which contents they attribute a well-taken care of greater approaching, due to the fact to be more difficult to teach or to be learned for the pupils. One evidenced that the searched professors know the main problems faced for the pupils - misery, precarious conditions of life, type and conditions of work. However, the majority of them has a vision that it does not surpass of the common sense around this reality, does not reflect on what they see and they need to deal in the daily pertaining to school. Moreover, they had demonstrated that they possess a certain level of knowledge concerning the importance of the pupils of the field to be taught scientifically. Some know only the acceptable one to be professors of a public with as many necessities of emancipation. Others seem to evaluate the well-taken care of context of them with and proximity. In the same way, some had given more superficial reasons for this necessity of if Sciences teaching, of only personal reach. Already others had brought more global examples, involving sociocultural aspects and politicians in determined situations. This makes them to question how much to the initial formation received by these professors. The licenciatura courses are configured in order not to hold the necessities of the education of the field, being formed professional deficient to act in the biggest demand of schools / Foi a partir da interação entre desenvolvimento científico, econômico e tecnológico com as implicações sociais envolvidas que surgiu um importante movimento pedagógico denominado Ciência, Tecnologia e Sociedade. A partir disso, o ensino de Ciências passou da fase em que apresentava seus conteúdos como algo neutro, pronto e imutável, para ser entendido como processo, como construção humana. Nessa perspectiva, é fundamental pensar numa alfabetização científica ligada à realidade em que o educando está inserido, respeitando suas especificidades e modos de ler o mundo. Reflexões essas que coincidem com os pressupostos do movimento Por uma Educação do Campo. Surgido a partir de 1997, esse movimento defende uma escola do campo como um lugar em que se produz o conhecimento a partir da relação direta com a cultura que os sujeitos estabelecem entre si e com o meio onde vivem. Portanto, essa pesquisa buscou investigar em que medida as dimensões recontextualizadoras são desenvolvidas nas aulas de Ciências em escolas do campo do sertão sergipano. Essas considerações prenunciam uma abordagem metodológica qualitativa na presente investigação, que teve como ferramentas de dados: entrevista e questionário junto aos professores de Ciências de 5ª a 8ª séries do ensino fundamental dessas escolas. Objetivou-se interrogálos quanto às suas práticas pedagógicas: de que maneira elas são desenvolvidas, se abordam conteúdos com a problemática local, quais estratégias são utilizadas para suprir algumas deficiências caso apresentem, que recursos eles se valem para ajudar em suas aulas e a quais conteúdos eles atribuem um maior cuidado ao abordar, devido ao fato de serem mais difíceis para ensinar ou de serem aprendidos pelos alunos. Constatou-se que os professores pesquisados conhecem os principais problemas enfrentados pelos alunos miséria, condições precárias de vida, tipo e condições de trabalho. No entanto, a maioria tem uma visão que não supera a do senso comum em torno dessa realidade, não refletem sobre aquilo que vêem e precisam lidar no cotidiano escolar. Além disso, demonstraram possuir um certo nível de conhecimento acerca da importância de os alunos do campo serem alfabetizados cientificamente. Entretanto, alguns conhecem apenas o aceitável para ser professor de um público com tantas necessidades de emancipação. Outros parecem avaliar o contexto dos alunos com mais cuidado e proximidade. Da mesma forma, alguns deram razões mais superficiais para essa necessidade de se ensinar Ciências, de alcance apenas pessoal. Enquanto outros trouxeram exemplos mais globais, envolvendo aspctos socioculturais e políticos em determinadas situaçes. Isso nos faz questionar quanto à formação inicial recebida por esses professores, visto que os cursos de licenciatura configuram-se de modo a não comportar as necessidades da educação do campo, formando profissionais deficientes para atuar na maior demanda de escolas.