Teachers' Perceptions of Science Teaching in the Early Years of Elementary School in Youth and Adult Education (YAE)

Abstract

In recent years, Youth and Adult Education (YAE) has been constituted as one of the few opportunities for access and permanence in the schooling process for those who wish to return to school, but the diversity of the audience that makes up this modality of basic education becomes a challenge for teachers. Considering the importance of science teaching, this work aims to investigate the conceptions of science teaching present in the speeches of teachers, as well as the space allocated to this area of knowledge, in the initial years of basic education of YAE. Methodologically, this is qualitative research of descriptive and explanatory type, carried out in the context of a continuing education course for teachers who work in the initial years of YAE, where the data were considered by content analysis. The results obtained point out that, although teachers recognize the importance of science teaching, there is a prevalence of teaching Portuguese language content, which may be linked to the idea, socially constructed, that students in the literacy process, regardless of the stage of life in which they are, must first master the processes of reading and writing, to then appropriate the knowledge of other areas.