Concepções de vida entre professores e suas implicações para o diálogo intercultural no ensino de Biologia

Abstract

The central objective of this dissertation is to analyze teachers' life conceptions and their influence on biology teaching, in a manner sensitive to intercultural dialogue. This work adopts the Multipaper format, in which each investigation resulted in an article, totaling two articles. The first aimed to present the results of a qualitative systematic literature review, aiming to interpret academic evidence in the field of science education that discusses teachers' life conceptions in this field, as well as their consequent relationship with the intercultural dialogue between students' scientific and prior knowledge. After conducting bibliographic research in online databases and in the proceedings of scientific conferences, the qualitative study synthesized the analysis of the findings based on the methodological design proposed by Bardin. Despite the small number of works found in the field, it was possible to categorize the following conceptions of life found in the literature: (1) the impossibility of defining life; (2) life as a list of properties; (3) life as the presence of a specific substance; (4) life and autopoiesis; (5) life and biosemiotics/sign interpretation; (6) life as autonomous and evolutionarily organized populations; (7) life as divine creation; and (8) life as replicator selection. The second article reports on a qualitative, empirical study that aimed to explore high school teachers' conceptions of life and their influence on biology teaching. In this context, a semi-structured interview was conducted with a teacher from the state school system in the municipality of Santa Bárbara to understand his conceptions of life and how they relate to intercultural dialogue in his teaching practice. Content analysis, also based on Bardin, allowed us to identify the following categories: (1) life as the capacity for reproduction/replicator selection; (2) life as a constitutional definition or guarantee; (3) life as metabolic activity; (4) life as human existence; and (5) life as divine creation. The conclusion is that few works in the literature discuss the proposed theme, and that teachers have their own conceptions of life, influenced by factors such as the historical moment, philosophical currents, ethical and moral principles, and their academic knowledge. Furthermore, it is understood that intercultural dialogue is a fundamental approach to promoting a contextualized teaching and learning process with contextual meanings, capable of contributing to students' civic empowerment and decision-making.