Curriculum theories in articles on Biology and Youth and Adult Education in Brazil

Abstract

Youth and Adult Education (YAE) is a modality of basic education that serves a public with different gaps in access and permanence in school. In this sense, this work aimed to analyze the explicit and implicit Curriculum Theories on the Biology component in YAE. For that, 32 articles from the last 15 years were analyzed. Theoretically grounded, the findings were grouped according to Traditional, Critical, and Post-Critical Curriculum Theories, a total of ten, eight, and 14 works, respectively. The Traditional ones are teacher-centered and retain an emphasis on concepts and assessments. Students' manifestations are clues for the configuration of Critical and Post-Critical curricula. In this curriculum construction, the students' experiences are validated. Emotions, expectations for life projects, culture, education for ethnic-racial relations, gender and sexualities, and ethno-knowledge are present. It is within this plurality that Biology Curricula in YAE need to engage.