Materiais curriculares, práticas e aprendizagens: estudo no contexto das ciências do 1º Ciclo do Ensino Básico.

This study analyzes the extent to which primary school teachers are able to develop pedagogical practices with similar principles to those shown by the investigation as favorable to students’ learning, when such principles are present in curriculum material used by them. It also analyzes the influence of such practices in science learning of socially differentiated students. The study is based on psychological and sociological perspectives, with particular emphasis on Bernstein’s pedagogical discourse and employs a mixed methodology of investigation. Specific instruments were designed to analyze the curriculum materials, teachers’ practices, and students’ science learning. Results revealed that teachers differ, sometimes in opposite directions, in their competence to implement a pedagogical practice which translates the principles underlying curriculum materials, and that the effect of practice can overcome the effect of social class whenever the teacher’s pedagogical principles are close to those in the curriculum materials. These results are discussed in the paper and, based on previous investigation, some explanatory hypotheses are proposed