Young people, historical consciousness and assessment of learning: the case of the National High School Examinations in Brazil: 2009/2015
Abstract
This study reports on the qualitative analysis of the contents of the tests of the area ofHuman Sciences and their Technologies, of the ENEM (National High School Examina-
tion in Brazil) in the period between 2009 and 2015, the moment in which there was a
reformulation in this exam that selects young students for admission in all Brazilian uni-
versities. We adopted a qualitative research design mixed with the principles of content
analysis in bibliographical and documentary research. The analyzes indicate the propo-
sition of the organization of historical knowledge from two axes: contextualization and
interdisciplinarity, as well as the predominance of the conception of historical learning
based on the development of competences. Regarding the conception of learning based
on the theory of historical consciousness, the focus was on the idea of contextualization
and how the documents articulated it through competences (Stein’s idea of situated lear-
ning, 1995). Historical cognition then did not reveal itself framed within the science of
history understood as the expression of substantive and second-order concepts. Moreo-
ver, the contextualization category, as understood in the documents, is limited to orien-
ting the teaching and learning of history towards the relationship with daily life, in the
perspective of “pratiquismo”, without taking into account that historical learning should
also attend to (i) the attribution of meanings and meanings by the subjects to the past, the
present and the future and (ii) to the practicalities of one’s life understood as praxis (in
the manner Paulo Freire and Jörn Rüsen advocated.
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