Quem tem medo de política? Percepções de licenciados de história acerca da politicidade de sua formação

Abstract

This research, entitled Who is afraid of politics? Perceptions of History pre-service teaching undergraduate students regarding the politicity of their education, aimed to analyze the perceptions of students of History undergraduate teaching courses, enrolled in the last year and recent graduates, regarding the directivity of education and the relationships between teaching and transformation or maintenance of the status quo. Taking as a reference Paulo Freire’s understanding that educating is a political act, it was sought to explain contradictions, practices, theoreticalmethodological emphases and ideas of the formative contexts of the research subjects in order to, with this, identify and understand the participants’ views on the politicity inherent to their undergraduate paths. This study arose from the broader need to shed light on knowledge and produce new ones, which help social transformation and the construction of a different, more egalitarian and humanized society, with education being a crucial factor in this commitment. In this sense, it is fundamental to apprehend how teacher training can contribute to reinforce the current social order or to subvert it, in favor of the oppressed. The investigation, with a qualitative approach, used a questionnaire applied in a virtual environment to record the responses of the preservice teaching undergraduate students. The guiding research question was written as follows: What are the perceptions of the History pre-service teaching undergraduate students regarding the politicity of their education? The data produced were distributed and analyzed in thematic axes based on the following categories: dialog, social justice and critical reading of reality. The main results revealed that, in general, students notice the intentions and interests underlying the educational practice they integrate, with different levels of criticality and political perspectives. The understanding of the subjects about the politicity of their education permeates the fear of exposure and dismissal of professors who make their political positions explicit; the vision of knowledge as a ready-made product to be delivered to students; and the prevailing capitalist ideology itself, which makes education a commercial relationship. However, it can also be said that there are many commendable attempts to overcome and transgress the homogenizing teaching-learning perspectives, and that most students value a plural education that respects their identities. This research is part of a set of investigations whose main concern is to criticize the myth of the neutrality of education. Specifically, this study can contribute with information about how future History teachers can approach or distance themselves from this idea, depending on the beliefs they have, their needs and the opportunities given to them to experience and have a dialog about the politicity of education, throughout their initial training.