Currículo em escolas públicas de Pernambuco: reflexões sobre as mudanças nos séculos xix e xx.

Abstract

Language meanings, language teaching and learning in school practices are related to the historical and ideological contexts. In this sense, a study about the elaboration processes of curricular proposals in a historical outlook can offer clues about how the language teaching has been designed in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. This study aimed to investigate how language has been seen in the curriculum of Pernambuco in these centuries. The methodology consisted of content analysis (BARDIN , 2007) because we intended to know the underlying meanings of official documents. In spite of the changes in theoretical and methodological principles in the curriculum of Pernambuco over time, the results showed that most of them presented language as an expression of thought. In this sense, language practices in the classroom involved a decoding process of word, sentence or texts as a way to develop writing process. The most relevant changes in the curriculum occurred in late twentieth century, when the functionalism theory was incorporated to language studies.