Teachers' Discourses on Teaching Science by Inquiry

This book recounts the experience of a group of trainers and the processes of signification regarding the expression inquiry teaching adopted as the name of a training course, within which the research subjects established tensions and consensus, not only about this expression but also about the possibilities and limits of science education. The theoretical framework adopted is based on Bakhtin and his circle, as well as Bruner's distinction between paradigmatic thinking and narrative thinking and the way in which this author characterizes the modalities of human thought. In order to understand the meanings attributed to this term, we went through the enunciations of the research subjects in the group's collective spaces, in interviews conducted with them and in all the texts written to support the course. The meanings that the subjects construct of the world are related to their experiences, as well as being mediated by a wide variety of texts. For this reason, there were many stories and many tensions in the group. As a result of these tensions, a movement began in search of stabilizing meanings and consensus.