Cadernos de Pesquisa: psychology and education in the school's teaching and learning process

Psychology and Education are two areas which historically maintain a close relationship on building elements for school teaching and learning processes. The present study presents data related to such a relationship, as displayed in the Brazilian journal Cadernos de Pesquisa – CP –, from 1980 to 2012. The aim was to highlight how the relationship between the two areas regarding content teaching was established in the more recent past and to verify if it is still effective in the CP publications. Results, obtained through Content Analysis of seventy articles, indicated that the prominent psychological theory in the 1980s and 1990s was Piaget’s; different Psychological trends underlie the discussions from 2000 to 2012; in the last decade, it has been possible to identify a decrease in the number of articles that articulate Psychology and Education within content learning and teaching processes. PSYCHOLOGY • EDUCATION • CADErNOS DE PESqUISA C A D E R N O S D E P E S Q U IS A : P S Y C H O L O G Y A N D E D U C A T IO N I N T H E S C H O O L ’S T E A C H IN G A N D L E A R N IN G P R O C E S S 10 7 2 C a d e r n o s d e P e s q u is a v .4 4 n .1 5 4 p .1 0 7 110 9 1 o u t. /d e z . 2 0 14 B ASED ON THE UNDERSTANDING THAT DIFFERENT AREAS SUCH AS pSyCHOlOGy, sociology, anthropology, among others, can support the area of education in the development of pedagogical practices that ensure learning educational content (instrumental learning) for all students, while respecting diversity, a study was developed to analyze the presence and contributions of some of those areas in the educational scientific production, over the past three decades, in Brazil. Three major journals were taken as the basis for the study: Educacao & Sociedade, Revista Brasileira de Educacao e Cadernos de Pesquisa.1 For each area and each of the magazines, subprojects were deployed aiming to deepen decision making and the necessary analyses. This article intends to present and discuss the data and results of these subprojects, more specifically related to the relationship between psychology and education in the publications of Cadernos de Pesquisa, from 1980 to 2012, understanding psychology as one of the scientific areas which historically provides theoretical elements to formulate educational actions in teaching.2 In Brazil, since the early 20th century, psychological science was seen as a foundation of pedagogical and scientific publications in education, constituting the field of educational psychology. In general, the recognition of psychological knowledge in Brazil as scientific has always been articulated with the field of education, so that educational psychology was at the basis of psychology as a science, in Brazil 1 Research financed by CNPq, in the Universal/2010. 2 Master’s dissertation defended at PPGE/ UFSCar, with a scholarship from Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel) – Capes. Ju lia n a B a rb o sa C o n so n i e R o se li R o d ig u e s d e M e llo C a d e r n o s d e P e s q u is a .4 4 n 15 4 p 10 7 1-10 9 1 o u t./d e z . 2 0 14 10 7 3 (ANTUNES, 2001). Yet, the presence of psychology in education was not uniform in terms of propositions. Over the decades, different psychological trends have been part of educational research and conceptions, supporting issues on teaching and learning of content at school, presenting more than one theoretical model influencing education (CARVALHO, 2002; LIMA, E., 1990; PLACCO, 2002). Throughout history, some conceptions have brought progress, while others have contributed to the establishment of an individualist vision of the student (ANGELUCCI et al., 2004), or even helped to raise biased views about the actor who learns (PATTO, 2000). However, all psychological theories about teaching and learning were predominantly influenced by the socioeconomic context of the moment (PATTO, 2000), since the theories seek to interpret and to intervene in specific sociohistorical contexts. Based on such assumptions, a case-study of the journal Cadernos de Pesquisa was used to analyze the contributions of psychology to education, regarding teaching and learning processes, from 1980 to 2012, a period of political opening and resumption of democracy in the country. Cadernos de Pesquisa was considered representative of the relationship between psychology and education in the Brazilian scenario, since it was founded in 1971, in a close relationship between the two areas, as already pointed out by Gouveia (1971), Poppovic (1971) and Esposito (1992), which can be confirmed especially in the 80th issue, dated February 1992. Different authors carried out, on the twentieth anniversary of the magazine, a thematic analysis of the publications in the period. Pre-school education, primary education, secondary education, assessment and educational research, classic educational topics, occupied a prominent place in the commemorative issue; but there was also an article with an analysis of the production regarding the relationship between education and work, as well as issues of race and gender, with special mention of one of them about how Cadernos de Pesquisa assisted in the consolidation of gender research in Brazil. From the next issue on, the journal assumed, in the editorial of the printed versions and in the guidelines for authors, the description of the orientation adopted up to today. Such description was initially shown in parentheses, which were soon removed, and currently it claims that the journal: Promotes the exchange of information and debate on issues of theoretical and methodological character, addresses the relationships between education and the problems and social perspectives of the country, public policy guidelines in the area, educational assessment and ethnic and racial themes on gender and family, promoting the publication of studies in Brazil and the interdisciplinary perspective. (CADERNOS DE PESQUISA, 2014) C A D E R N O S D E P E S Q U IS A : P S Y C H O L O G Y A N D E D U C A T IO N I N T H E S C H O O L ’S T E A C H IN G A N D L E A R N IN G P R O C E S S 10 74 C a d e r n o s d e P e s q u is a v .4 4 n .1 5 4 p .1 0 7 110 9 1 o u t. /d e z . 2 0 14 However, in the research in question, it was considered important to study the production of Cadernos de Pesquisa to verify the impact brought about by the identity shift to the presence of psychology in the dialogue with education. A well respected magazine on national evaluations, and well recognized by researchers in education and related fields, Cadernos de Pesquisa serves here as a parameter to analyze the central theme of school education. THE METHODOLOGY USED FOr THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE rESEArCH The research followed the stages proposed by Bardin (2004) for organization and content analysis. For this author, content analysis is organized in three distinct phases: pre-analysis; exploration of the material; treatment of results (inference and interpretation)