analysis of nutrition-related contents in textbooks for fundamental education in Brazil / Análise de conteúdos de nutrição em livros didáticos do ensino fundamental

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2009

RESUMO

The Brazilian National Curriculum Guidelines for Fundamental Education establish health as one of the main focuses in the development of citizenship. Indeed, the National Curriculum Parameters (PCNs) emphasize that the pedagogical proposals should help the students understand and take care of their own bodies, valuing and adopting healthy habits as the basis for quality of life. Food intake, together with life style, is not only a well-known health promoting factor, but is also responsible for preventing and controlling several diseases. Accordingly, nutritional education has an important influence in the students capacity of acquiring healthy eating habits. This dissertation analyzes the concepts of nutrition and food displayed in Science textbook for Fundamental Education, since these are significant sources of information in the Brazilian educational scenario. Textbook were initially investigated with the purpose of obtaining a perspective on the researches which are carried out in Brazil. This investigation, which primarily focused on academic papers, found exclusively masters dissertations. Another stage of the same research analyzed the Science textbook intended for the final years of fundamental education, in order to verify whether the contents relating to food and nutrition were sufficient for the students to read and understand nutritional charts and to acquire a critical position in relation to food advertisings. This was accomplished through the use of a tool applied to assess the level on which the textbook under analysis were able to provide the students with information enough to read and understand the nutritional information presented in food packages. Another tool was used to compare the knowledge presented in the related Science textbook to the knowledge of reference, found in the basic bibliography adopted by the Biological Sciences Bachelors Course of University of São Paulo. It was noted that the information presented in the textbook show different levels of detachment from the knowledge of reference. These levels, of distinct nature, may be identified through the recognition of different didactic and pedagogical components. The discussion focuses on the degree of such disconnection and the extent to which it is acceptable for the contents of textbooks to be consistent with the theoretical references, mainly during the initial education courses.

ASSUNTO(S)

alimentação nutritional education food intake ensino de ciências educação nutricional livros didáticos textbooks science education

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

Documentos Relacionados