A introdução das temáticas ambientais no currículo chileno entre os anos 1996-2002

Abstract

This research analyzes the process of introducing environmental issues in the Chilean curriculum of the Basic Education Second Stage, between 1996 and 2002. The transformation of the discipline Ciencias Naturales (Natural Sciences) into Estudio y Comprensión de la Naturaleza (Studying and Understanding Nature) was considered the beginning of the elaboration of a new curriculum (1996). This research is focused on the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade of basic education, directed at students from 10 to 13 years old. I argue that incorporating the environmental education discourse is inserted into a broader process of appropriating international discourses, and the new objectives of the country returning to democracy, with a new modernization policy. To this extent, we investigated curricular decrees number 40, 240, 232, the Objetivos Fundamentales (Fundamental Objectives), Contenidos Mínimos Obligatorios (Obligatory Minimum Contents), and Planes y Programas de estudio (Study Plans and Programs) of the mentioned years, journals, web pages, and several other documents. They enabled us to understand the circulation of discourses related to environmental and modernization issues in the country returning to democracy. To support the investigations, some persons connected to this process were interviewed in Chile, such as Cristian Cox, Jacqueline Gysling, and Jaime Cornejo. Likewise, organizations that influenced this process, such as ?Casa de la Paz? (Peace House) and the Revista de Historia Natural (Natural History Journal) were also researched. We used the theoretical contributions of the Policy Cycle by Stephen Ball related to the process of policy production, focusing on the investigation of Contexts of Influence and Text Production. We also used the contributions of Ivor Goodson related to the social construction of school disciplines and the importance of the political, economic, and social contexts, and the dynamics generated for developing certain policies. I conclude that integrating objectives were developed in the new discipline, while at the same time the demand for pedagogical renovation was incorporated, seeking to focus the teaching process on students? learning, and privileging their concerns and previous knowledge, thus, making the discipline more active and exploratory. To this extent, I argue that the incorporation of environmental issues shows evidence of the teaching modernization project, legitimized by international discourses; it also demonstrates a local treatment of these issues ? a cross-cutting and interdisciplinary development supported by different disciplinary communities.