Indicadores da disposição para a transformação social em atividades de química: análise de dissertações e teses focadas na argumentação e no pensamento crítico

Abstract

In the context of science education, there is a growing demand for approaches aimed at forming critical and conscious citizens. In this scenario, scientific argumentation in schools and the development of critical thinking emerge as essential pillars for improving these skills. We start from the assumption that teaching activities whose objectives are based on the relationship between scientific argumentation in schools and critical thinking enable the development of a disposition for social transformation in socioscientific contexts. The general objective was to analyze dissertations and theses from 2013 to 2023 in the field of Chemistry Education, which relies on scientific argumentation in schools and critical thinking, aiming to identify indicators that characterize the disposition for social transformation. To theoretically support our approach, we used the frameworks of Jiménez-Aleixandre and Puig (2022) and the assumptions proposed by Silva, Marbà-Tallada, and Marquez Bargalló (2024). Characterized as qualitative, descriptive, and bibliographic, the research utilized a Systematic Literature Review to select dissertations and theses, and for data organization and analysis, we employed Bardin’s Content Analysis (2016). We investigated how the teaching activities were planned, whether the established objectives were achieved and whether the results reported by the researchers indicated any signs that students mobilized a disposition for social transformation. The main results highlighted thematic categories at the semantic level through analytical description. From the theoretical discussion of these categories, four indicators of the development of the disposition for social transformation emerged: (1) the analysis and discussion of sociocultural issues; (2) the consideration of different points of view; (3) the identification of the problem and analysis of causes and consequences; (4) he proposition of possible solutions to the problems. It is hoped that the identification of these indicators will contribute to the development of a tool to evaluate and adjust teaching activities focused on scientific argumentation and/or critical thinking in schools, ensuring that they contribute to the formation of critical and socially engaged citizens.