Sociologia do ensino de sociologia: os debates acadêmicos sobre a constituição de uma disciplina escolar

Abstract

NEUHOLD, Roberta dos Reis. Sociology of the teaching of Sociology: the academic debates about the constitution of a school discipline. 2014. 334 p. Dissertation (Doctorate) – School of Education, University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, 2014. The formation of Sociology as a school discipline is an example of how different social forces concur to fabricate the curriculum. This research focused on one of these social forces – the academicscientific field – with the purpose of analyzing the participation of intellectuals and scientific societies in the making of the teaching of Sociology as an object of research in Social Science and Education. The investigation included documental research, followed by an effort of bibliographical review which provided theoretical and methodological substrate. Its main sources were the journal Sociologia, the graduate programs, the annals with seven editions of the Brazilian Congress of Sociology and the Directory of Research Groups in Brazil of the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPq) (National Council of Scientific and Technological Development). The materials were collected, treated and analyzed based on a qualitative approach, resulting in a map of the academic production, organized in two intellectual contexts: between 1939 and 1955, a moment when Sociology as a discipline was acknowledged by intellectuals as part of the process that institutionalized Sociology as a science and a profession; and between 1993 and 2013, when the issues related to the path of schooling of Sociologyset foot in the research agenda of graduate programs. In whole, the research identified over 200 articles, 50 theses and dissertations and 22 research groups. Conclusion was that between 1939 and 1955, the academic milieu problematized the universal and scientific functions of the teaching of Sociology, and at the same time there was an interest in methods to disseminate the knowledge of the Social Science. Despite such production, the teaching of Sociology did not manage to set up independent investigative projects. Most of the works played a political role in taking a position in the debate about where Sociology stands in the framework of sciences, to establish a scope of professional activity for the social scientists and present concerns about the didactics of Sociology in higher education. Thus, the assumption that the teaching of Sociology turned out as an “invisible” object of research was confirmed, or “illegitimate” in Bourdieu s words, in the academic-scientific field. Such invisibility is associated with the very hierarchy between, on one hand, research activities and the training of Sociology graduates, and, on the other hand and in subordinate position, teaching activities and the training of teachers. In the case of contemporary production, there is process underway to set up a scientific area, according to Antonio Novoa, from a perspective that is academic (production of graduate programs), scientific (organization of research groups and scientific events) and curricular (setting up disciplines, lines of research and graduate courses). However, this production is still restricted to some groups of researchers, with little evidence of related theoretical-methodological options and with no acknowledgement by social scientists and pedagogues from research areas already established. The dissertation is divided in three chapters, in addition to the “Introduction” and “Conclusion”. The first chapter – “Teaching of Sociology and the scientific societies” – proposes to think about how Sociology became a school discipline based on the experience of countries like Brazil, Portugal, the USA and France under the light of debates about the curriculum as a social construction. The second – “Intellectuals and the teaching of Sociology (1939-1955)” – and the third chapters – “Contemporary academic debates (1993-2013)” – make an assessment of the academic activities that circulated among specialized journals, scientific events and, recently, research groups and graduate programs.