Biology Teacher and Social-environmental Conflicts: Continuing Education in Suape-PE

Abstract

In the state of Pernambuco there is the Complexo Industrial Portuário de Suape - CIPS, located in the municipalities of Cabo de Santo Agostinho and Ipojuca. This region is characterized by the occurrence of several socio-environmental conflicts arising from the installation of companies. This is the working environment for Biology teachers who are the professionals most dedicated to activities related to Environmental Education - EE. CIPS offers courses aimed at EE whose target audience are also teachers, which can be considered as continuing education. CIPS offers courses aimed at EA whose target audience are also teachers, which can be considered as continuing education. Whereupon, the guiding question emerges: How can the continuing education of Biology teachers who work in the surroundings of the Suape region, offered by CIPS itself, contribute to teaching practice with regard to addressing socio-environmental conflicts? We set as a general objective the understanding of how this continuing education can contribute to the teacher's activities directed to this approach. We conducted a semi-structured interview with analysis of possible materials related to their environmental educational practices. For the treatment of the data we proceeded to the Content Analysis of Bardin. The results of the research indicated that only one of the teachers carried out activities that approach of socio-environmental conflicts, but was not influenced by the continuing education. We realized that the courses did not address socio-environmental conflicts, distancing itself from the critical line of EA and resembling naive EA.