Firstly, we present below the general structure of the coauthorship network: its main authors, main research themes, research area, periods of publication and countries. In the next subsection we present an analysis of citation function in different clusters. VosViewer assigned a number to each cluster according to its number of authors, which is then used to identify the clusters (“C” + number). Missing numbers in the sequence represent cluster that did not meet the research criteria and were excluded from analysis.
Table 1
Number of authors and papers, and main authors in coauthorship networks in Freirean science education research
Cluster | Authors (n) | Papers (n) | Main authors | Main themes |
C1 | 25 | 24 | Gehlen, Simoni Tormohlen; Muenchen, Cristiane; Delizoicov, Demetrio; Auler, Decio | Curricular (re)configuration; Freire-STS relationships; teacher education; Social Technology; ethical-critical education |
C3 | 21 | 6 | Freire, Laisa Maria; Iared, Valeria Ghisloti | Teacher education; STEM and environmental education; aesthetic and philosophy |
C4 | 20 | 18 | Morales-Doyle, Daniel; Gutstein, Eric Rico; Varelas, Maria; | Equity; social justice |
C5 | 19 | 15 | Marques, Carlos Alberto; Goncalves, Fabio Peres | Chemistry teaching; teacher education; problem-posing of experiments in education; dialogue; contextualization; ICT |
C12 | 13 | 3 | Marchezini, Victor; Olivato, Debora; Trajber, Rachel | Environmental education; climate change; environmental risk education |
C14 | 12 | 4 | Bencze, Larry; Hodson, D; Pedretti, Erminia; Barnett, J; Decoito, I; | Science literacy (STS, SSI, SAQ, Science-in-context); teacher knowledge |
C20 | 11 | 7 | Diez-Palomar, Javier; | Mathematics education; dialogue; family-peers education; adult education |
C23 | 10 | 8 | Lopes, Celi Espasandin; Dambrosio, Beatriz Silva | Mathematics education; statistics; creative insubordination |
C30 | 8 | 4 | Sutil, Noemi | Physics teacher education; university-school relationship; STS |
C40 | 7 | 5 | Misiaszek, Greg; Rodrigues, Cae; | Ecopedagogy; education for sustainability; chemistry |
C50 | 6 | 4 | Arteaga Valdes, Eloy; Del Sol Martinez, Jorge Luis; | Mathematics education; teaching and learning |
C57 | 6 | 3 | Lima, Nathan Willig; Moura, Cristiano B.; Nascimento, Matheus Monteiro | Public understanding of Science; COVID; South epistemologies |
C75 | 5 | 3 | Yeh, Cathery | Mathematics education |
C78 | 5 | 5 | Dambrosio, Ubiratan | Democratic mathematics education; ethnomathematics |
C86 | 5 | 4 | Joseph, Nicole M.; | Black and feminist mathematics education |
C87 | 5 | 5 | Tolbert, Sara; Aceves, Alejandra Frausto; Torres-Olave, Betzabe | Love and hope in science education; indigenous communities teaching |
C93 | 4 | 4 | Linsingen, Irlan Von; Cassiani, Suzani | STS; decolonial education |
C148 | 4 | 3 | Baptista, Geilsa Costa Santos; Silva, Josenaide Alves | Cultural diversity; teachers’ professional development |
C150 | 4 | 4 | Hall-Wieckert, Maren; Lim, Vivian Y.; Rubel, Laurie H | Spatial justice; mathematics education; tools and strategies for teaching |
C226 | 3 | 3 | Ostermann, Fernanda | Critical theory; curriculum; teacher education |
C246 | 3 | 3 | Nasir, Nailah Suad; Vakil, Sepehr | STEM; social justice; equity |
C280 | 3 | 4 | Mukhopadhyay, Swapna; Greer, George Brian | Humanistic mathematics education; ethnomathematics; power relations |
C303 | 3 | 3 | Stinson, David W.; Wager, Anita A.; | Mathematics education; social justice; equity; teachers’ professional development |
C327 | 2 | 4 | Brantlinger, Andrew | Critical mathematics education; teacher education |
C407 | 2 | 3 | Dewsbury, Bryan M.; | STEM; curricular design |
C478 | 2 | 3 | Santos, Wildson Luiz Pereira dos | STS; humanistic education; education for citizenship; chemistry teaching |
C499 | 2 | 5 | Barton, Angela Calabrese | Science education in urban contexts; homeless education |
Table 1 shows the number of authors in each cluster, the themes addressed by the clusters and their main authors, i.e., those with the highest number of publications. Clusters with high output have more than one main author, around of whom several small authors are arranged presenting a radial pattern of relationships (as shown in the discussion of individual clusters below). In C1, for example, the main authors have several interactions with diverse coauthors and few interactions connecting to other important authors (that have their own radial connections). This pattern may elicit the presence of different research groups within each cluster.
Most papers (77) are related to natural sciences in general, without demarcating a specific subject (Fig. 2a). Mathematics is addressed in 57 papers, followed by Chemistry (16), Environmental Education (13), Physics (12) and Biology (6).
In a total of 210 subjects, Brazil (46%) and USA (31%) amount to 77% of authors followed by UK, Spain and Canada (4% each) (Fig. 2b). Latin America contributes to 53% of authorships and Europe about 9%. Authors affiliated to institutions in the USA are present in 16 clusters, Brazilian are present in 13, and United Kingdom is related to four. Colombian institutions are present in three clusters. These data show the importance of Paulo Freire to his home country and the impact of his work in the US.
Ten clusters are formed around authors affiliated to USA institutions only. USA authors are also in other six clusters in networks with several clusters (United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Chile, France, New Zealand, Argentine, Spain, Brazil) (Fig. 3). Seven clusters are made up only of authors in Brazilian institutions and six others integrate Brazilian and international-based authors.
From the 15 countries involved in the coauthorship network, eight are in the top 20 countries with the highest scientific output (SCIMAGO 2023). The seven remaining countries are all in Latin America (except for Brazil, which is the top 20, and for Portugal and New Zealand). According to Finardi and Buratti (2021), scientific collaboration between countries is largely derived from geographical, cultural or historical proximity. The authors state that highly prolific countries (as the ones in the aforementioned top 20) tends to establish several small collaborations with other nations due to the extent of their own output. Countries with fewer publications, however, create stronger collaborations with other proximal nations. Therefore, the high output could explain the large number of collaborations involving USA, China, Canada, UK, Spain and even Brazil. This also highlights the importance of Latin American publications regarding Freire in science education: as their overall scientific output is not as big as that of Global North their presence and collaboration is even more meaningful.
We can notice strong collaboration (by the thickness of lines in Fig. 2) in Canada-France (cluster 14), Argentina-Chile-USA (cluster 3), and Brazil-Australia (cluster 3) relationships. France and Canada have historical and cultural proximity, sharing language and colonial history. Although Argentina and Chile have similar colonial roots, which corroborates Finardi and Buratti (2021), their collaboration with USA might be explained by other social reasons (as personal contacts). This seems to be the nature of Brazil and Australia collaboration. Brazil, Colombia and Chile have the biggest number of international collaborations in Latin America. These patterns corroborate Paulo Serra (2019), who finds that Latin American countries lean towards more collaboration with Northern nations than with other Southern countries — South to South collaboration remains peripheral.
Table 2
Number of papers published by coauthorship clusters in Freirean science education by time period
Period | Clusters | Total |
1 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 12 | 14 | 20 | 23 | 30 | 40 | 50 | 57 | 75 | 78 | 86 | 87 | 93 | 148 | 150 | 226 | 246 | 280 | 303 | 327 | 407 | 478 | 499 |
1997–1999 | | | 2 | | | | | 1 | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | | | | | | | | 2 | 7 |
2000–2005 | 1 | | 1 | | | 3 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1 | 2 | 8 |
2006–2011 | 3 | | 1 | 4 | | | 3 | 1 | | | | | | 1 | | | 1 | | | | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | | 2 | | 20 |
2012–2017 | 11 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 1 | | | 3 | 2 | | | | | | 1 | 1 | | | 3 | | 1 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | | | 45 |
2018–2023 | 9 | 3 | 9 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | | | | 2 | | 1 | 78 |
Total | 24 | 6 | 18 | 15 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 8 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 157 |
Half of coauthorship clusters emerged by 2010, of which three in 1997 (C4, C23, C78) and one in 1998 (C499) (Table 2). This shows that only four of the analyzed clusters are not active in the last five years.
Twelve clusters (C4, C23, C78, C499, C14, C1, C93, C5, C246, C478, C20, C30) have been active for at least 10 years (C30) and as long as 27 years (C4). Except for C748, whose last paper was published in 2011, these 12 clusters seem to compose consolidated networks of researchers with varying degree of adhesion to Freirean benchmarks.
From the 15 clusters remaining, three last published around 2015 (C280, C303, C327), which may indicate the researchers moved away from Freirean benchmarks or ceased the interactions. Other 12 clusters (C87, C3, C12, C40, C86, C150, C407, C50, C75, C148, C57, C226) are active in the last five years (2018–2023) and may be emerging networks in the field.
Regarding the ratio number of papers by year, some consolidate clusters (C30, C93, C23, C478, C499, C246, C78, C14) have the lowest rate, below 0,4 papers by year. Although they are lasting clusters, they are not very prolific. The lowest publication rate of an emerging cluster is 0,44 and half of the emergent groups have more than 0,8 papers published by year. In what concerns the four most prolific consolidate clusters, two of them (C4, C20) publishes 0,6 papers by year and the other two (C1, C5) around 1 paper by year.
These data show the growing interest in Paulo Freire’s ideas to discuss science education by the number of papers published in recent years. However, it is needed a more careful analysis of how Freire’s works are used in the text, which will be done in the following section.
Table 3
Distribution of unities of meanings according to clusters and functions of citations
Cluster | Acknowl-edgement | Corrobo-ration | Critique | Weakness | Neutral Comparation | Convergence | Difference | Use in arguments | Use in practice | Use in analysis | Overall influence |
C1 | 29 | 14 | | 1 | | 7 | | 6 | 21 | 12 | significant |
C4 | 13 | 3 | 2 | | | 3 | 4 | 8 | 5 | 5 | significant |
C5 | 21 | 6 | | | | | 1 | 7 | 26 | 17 | significant |
C14 | | | | | | 2 | | 2 | | | significant |
C30 | | 3 | | | | 1 | | 2 | 1 | 1 | significant |
C40 | 8 | 3 | | | 2 | 1 | 7 | 18 | 7 | | significant |
C87 | 23 | 5 | | | 1 | | 1 | 14 | 4 | | significant |
C407 | 1 | | | | | | | 6 | 1 | | significant |
C3 | 1 | | | | | | | | | | perfunctory |
C12 | 3 | | | | | | | | 1 | | perfunctory |
C20 | 5 | 3 | | | | | | 4 | 3 | | perfunctory |
C23 | 2 | 2 | | | | | | 4 | | | perfunctory |
C50 | 4 | | | | | | | | | | perfunctory |
C57 | 5 | | | | | | | 2 | 1 | | perfunctory |
C75 | 4 | | | | | | | 5 | | | perfunctory |
C78 | 2 | | | | | | | | | | perfunctory |
C86 | 1 | | | | | | | 1 | | | perfunctory |
C93 | 6 | | | | 1 | | | | | | perfunctory |
C148 | 3 | 1 | | | | | | | | | perfunctory |
C150 | 1 | | | | | | | | | | perfunctory |
C226 | 5 | | | | | 1 | | | | | perfunctory |
C246 | 2 | | | | | | | | | | Perfunctory |
Regarding the citation of Paulo Freire’s works, nine clusters (C1, C14, C30, C4, C40, C407, C5, C87, C478) make significant citations; nine clusters make, exclusively, perfunctory citations (C12, C148, C150, C226, C3, C50, C78, C86, C93), and five make primely perfunctory citations (C75, C57, C246, C23, C20) (Table 3). Other three clusters (C280, C303, C327) did not have publications after 2018. C499 has one paper in 2018 that lists a Freire work in references, but does not cite it in the text. One paper in C4 and one in C86 were unavailable for download.
An overall analysis of clusters that make perfunctory references to Freire is made below. Later, a deeper analysis is made for clusters that references Freire’s texts significantly.
Perfunctory references to Freire in science education
The major characteristics of the clusters that make perfunctory references to Freire is the use of citations as Background-acknowledgement, without making substantive and explicit integration with their research. Due to the length of the text, we will not analyze in depth the papers and clusters that make perfunctory references to Freire, just an overview analysis.
Figure 4 shows coauthorship relationships in clusters that make perfunctory references to Freire. Freirean concepts often addressed by those papers are: opposition to banking education and teaching as transmission of knowledge, highlighting students as constructors of knowledge (C148, C226, C50, C93); the need for dialogical relationships in education, as in intercultural dialogue (C148, C3, C23, C57, C86); education as praxis for transformation of reality; battle against social injustices and inequalities (C12, C78, C226); education based on local reality and perception of students (C20, C86,C57), and; reflection as a tool for realizing limits and perceptions and possibilities for change (C148, C3, C86).
Some cluster made interesting appropriations of Freirean ideas. Cluster 3 addresses the need to reflect on knowledge production because it shows the limits of perceptions and opens room for seeing others as subjects. Cluster 86 uses narratives of Black girl students as a way to personalize the curriculum and subject matter in inclusive pedagogy. Cluster 23 also uses biographical narratives as a process in line with unfinishedness. Cluster 93 points out the need to reflect on how scientific knowledge has contributed to racism, sexism and homophobia. Cluster 75 addresses mathematical knowledge as power, privilege, capital and individualism.
The fact that those papers present perfunctory citations does not mean that Freire’s ideas were not influential in their works. In many cases above, it seems Freire has inspired the creation of different ideas and approaches by the authors, which are so intertwined with their own theories and approaches that it is hard to delimit the borders exactly. Freire himself argued for the need of his ideas to be appropriated and reformulated for different contexts and times.
Significant references to Freire in science education
Only eight clusters make significant citations (C1, C14, C30, C4, C40, C407, C5, C87). Although papers in these cluster use Freire citations as Background acknowledgement or corroboration, they also use Freire’s ideas as a means for constructing teaching activities, transforming curricula, analyzing classroom phenomena and comparing information.
Cluster 1 — teacher education for (re)configuration of science curricula. This cluster has 24 papers, of which nine (A1 to A9) are published after 2018. Its focus is in the use of Freire’s ideas to frame teacher education activities for transforming school curricula. Main authors include Simoni Tormöhlen Gehlen, Cristiane Muenchen, Demétrio Delizoicov and Décio Auler (Fig. 5). Delizoicov plays important role in bridging cluster 1 to cluster 5, presented below, also serving as an important reference for both clusters (with other researchers) by transposing Freirean ideas to the context of formal science education.
Thematic investigation (as introduced earlier) was proposed by Freire for informal education (2005b). Freirean Thematic Approach (FTA) was first introduced in Delizoicov’s PhD dissertation (Delizoicov 1991) as a transposition of TI to formal science education adding a fifth step, organization of classroom activities. Researchers (Garrido and Sangiogo 2020; Muenchen and Delizoicov 2014) point out the role of Delizoicov and collaborators’ books (Delizoicov and Angotti 2021; Delizoicov, Angotti, and Pernambuco 2002) to disseminate FTA, as well as to systematize the Three Pedagogical Moment (3PM). The 3PM was conceived to be a heuristic for organizing classroom lessons inspired by TI aiming to bridge scientific school knowledge to social contradictions (i.e., generative themes) in the lives of students, consisting of:
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Preliminary problem-posing: when teachers pose questions about phenomena related to the generative theme selected in TI, aiming at eliciting contradictory explanations and explicative limits of students’ pre-conceptions. By problem-posing the situation that students live and with which they are familiar, teachers may provoke students to realize the need for systematized (scientific) knowledge to better understand and transform it;
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Knowledge organization: when teachers design and carry out diverse strategies for introducing scientific knowledge as a way to know more about the problem;
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Knowledge application: when teachers systematically address how the knowledge construct in the previous moment can be used to understand the initial problem, but also how it can explain other phenomena. This can show the inter-relationships between the initial problem and other elements of reality, making the transition between local, regional and global issues.
The frameworks of FTA and 3PM plays an important role in Freirean science education in Brazil and can be seen in the structure of research in cluster 1 and 5. It is worth noting that the 3PM has undergone several re-readings and advances since its proposal in relation to the systematization of the concepts and content necessary for understanding the generative theme, such as Antonio Fernando Gouvêa da Silva's (2004) Thematic Network and counter-theme. Thematic Network is a graphical device for relating and contrasting discourses and speeches enunciated by the school community (the basis for the generative theme) and by educators (the source of the counter-theme, the antithesis of the generative theme). Nevertheless, Silva (2004) developed FTA theoretically and methodologically adapting it for its implementation at entire education systems of a city, what he named Curricular Praxis via Generating Theme.
As cluster 1 has many papers analyzed, we grouped the Freirean concepts they corroborate in one paragraph. The same was done to the concepts they use to analyze their research results.
Papers in cluster 1 addressed corroboration to Freire’s ideas in their results, pointing out the contributions to the education of teachers and students. Teachers participating in Freirean educational processes corroborates: the need for action-reflection-action regarding Freirean teacher education processes; thematic network relates science knowledge to local reality in democratic and liberating manner by means of dialogue and critical awareness; teacher autonomy was revealed by critical stance on students’ reality perception, student-teacher dialogue, and contextualization; the importance of problem-posing by the teacher for taking students from pre-conceptions to systematized knowledge; the need for adaptation of teaching strategies according to students difficulties; science contents in curricular programs arose from the generative theme and problematization during teaching activities; teaching occurs on the basis of the social demands of subjects and their explicative limit of reality (otherwise, it is cultural invasion (Freire 2005b)). Students participating in Freirean educational processes corroborates: children’s drawing can complement thematic network, corroborating limit-situations in community perceptions; dialogical and problem-posing activities contributes for decision-taking by children; relate the constructed social technology to the overcoming of limits in their lives, in dialogical interaction with the teacher, corroborating the awareness of one’s own unfinishedness; themes extracted from reality of students are more meaningful and attract more participation in classes and decision making; the relationship between Freire and STS enabled the emergence of critical conscience by problematizing socially relevant themes of reality in search for untested feasibility and liberating actions.
Papers in cluster 5 uses Freirean concepts to analyze the results of their research, such as teacher’s conceptions and views and the effectiveness of teacher education processes. Texts highlight the importance of dialogue about reality (reality as mediator) for achieving liberating education, where dialogue is not only asking students about their reality and offering examples; it is a systematized problematization of reality and the knowledge about it aiming at its transformation. Dialogue is important to avoid preconceptions about what students are able to learn (naïve cognitivism), disregarding their perceptions of reality, in curriculum design. Dialogue about the social contradictions of students is needed for developing culture of participation. Some papers address gnoseological obstacle and related issues in teacher education. The fear of liberty is present in teachers’ conceptions: the fear to take the responsibility to change, to see yourself as a subject of history. Collaborative thematic reduction (4th stage in TI) and action-reflection-action in teacher education programs can help developing autonomy and critical thinking in educators.
Below we address how individual papers have appropriated Freirean benchmarks into science education.
Pacheco and Muenchen (2022) report the design of Physics curriculum for a preparatory course for college admission based on FTA and STS approach. However, paper does not explain how the themes were selected. The authors converge Freire and STS, especially related to curricular (re)configuration and overcoming the “culture of silence”. Freire (2005b) addresses culture of silence as the fact that the oppressed is kept lethargic and ignorant, unable to say and write the world, due to political domination and paternalism. Pacheco and Muenchen (2022) presented three main benchmarks of convergence Freire-STS: problem-posing of science and technology activity, defense of broad social participation in science and technology, and science and technology education by themes of reality. While STS and Freire converges in the problematization of reality (Freire) and science and technology (STS), Freire systematizes pedagogical features (such as TI). TI allied to STS approach can find the socially relevant themes for curriculum design.
Schneider and Muenchen (2019) made a review of papers presented in two largest Brazilian congress about rural education (Seminário Internacional de Educação do Campo) and research in science education (Encontro Nacional de Pesquisa em Educação em Ciências). Authors investigated thematic approach in the context of rural education, finding two meanings for the term: themes as situations that enables integrated approach of content from different disciplines; socially relevant generative themes thar represent social contradiction. Authors conclude that themes from reality can structure curriculum for rural education that addresses local social contradictions.
Jefferson Santos and Simoni Gehlen (2021) relate Freire’s and Dussel’s philosophies. Both considers the ethical stance of acknowledging “others” as equals, in the sense of having the right to be respected for different perceptions. Together with Patrician praxeology, the authors propose an instrument to ease the dialogue between world-views of different subjects in the TI. The authors argue that the criteria proposed by Silva (2004) are important for selecting meaningful speeches, but there is room for advancement by including value analyses in the roll of selection criteria. Also, they argue that research has reported difficulty in identifying social contradiction from the world-views of collective subjects. Therefore, they propose a process/heuristics for including values in the selection of meaningful speeches and identification of generative themes, the Dialectical-Axiological Instrument (IDA, in Portuguese), on the basis of Freirean Thematic Approach, Dusselian philosophy and Patrician praxeology. The Instrument enables analyses of phenomenological, hermeneutical and dialectical dimensions of social contradictions (and related meaningful speeches), being used in activities organized by FTA and developed in a school science club.
Archanjo Junior and Gehlen (2021, 2022) discuss the possibilities of Social Technologies (based on Dagnino 2021; Roso 2017) in Freirean-inspired teacher education programs. Social Technologies can be understood as a set of techniques or transformative methodologies developed or applied in interaction with the population and appropriated by them, which represent solutions for social inclusion and improvement of living conditions. The authors (Archanjo Junior and Gehlen 2021) propose the development of Social Technology together with TI for curricular (re)configuration. They converge Social Technology and Freirean benchmarks: both process aims at autonomy relying on collaborative and dialogical processes. These frameworks consider that transformation of reality is an ontological characteristic of humans, related to their unfinishedness. Therefore, they intend to promote empowerment and participation of subjects in designing and governance of science and technology for social change. TI can help in identifying the social contradiction relevant to the community and Social Technology can guide the people in designing technological solutions based on cooperation and solidarity. Interaction between researchers, school and local community in the thematic reduction can transform local issues into the school syllabus, contributing to the formation of social actors who can construct an autonomous society. Autonomy is defined by the authors according to Freire’s works as: offering opportunities for relationships without external authoritarianism. It is found that teacher education process based on TI and Social Technologies enabled the development of teachers’ autonomy (in designing school syllabus according to the social problems meaningful for them and the community) and children’s autonomy (developing knowledge and skills suitable for transforming social contradictions).
Archanjo Junior and Gehlen (2022) investigate the relationships between critical environmental education and Social Technology in the context of teacher education program based on FTA. Authors state that the democratic values that permeate social technologies are close to the conception of critical environmental education, such as participation, autonomy, self-management, and socio-environmental sustainability. They also acknowledged that FTA and TI are fundamentals for curricular (re)configuration, enabling the discussion of socio-environmental issues. Nevertheless, Social Technologies allows the community to self-organize to address local socio-environmental problems. Other Freirean concepts recollected are: emancipating education, critical education, social contradictions as the root of generative themes, and dialogue and critical thinking as the base for TI.
Two papers (Almeida and Gehlen 2019; Archanjo Junior and Gehlen 2022) address convergences between Freire’s ideas and Critical Environmental Education. Both frameworks aim at social change, that can be achieved by approaching socioenvironmental issues in school by dialoguing, problem-posing and developing conscientization. They point out that TI can aid selecting socio-environmental issues for curricular design. Addressing; thematic investigation may aid in selecting socioenvironmental issues in curricular changes;
Barbosa, Solino and Gehlen (2022) address how it is possible to include children as active subjects in curricular (re)configuration, considering the importance of world-views and perceptions of reality in the TI. They propose child play as a strategy for developing TI and 3PM with children. Children’s drawings corroborated limit-situations identified by adults, going beyond by signalizing hope for better situations, contributing for thematic reduction (selection of scientific knowledge to design school curriculum). Authors acknowledge the importance of problem-posing and dialogue in curricular (re)configuration, including the community in the selection of school content. Meaningful speeches (A. F. G. da Silva 2004) was used in the thematic investigation with adults and to construct the thematic network. A complementary network based on children’s drawing was proposed to corroborate and expand adult’s network.
For Schwan and dos Santos (2020), curricular (re)configuration is the design of school syllabus on the basis of generative themes identified by TI. TI and FTA enables the problematization of scientific-technological issues and dynamics in the generative themes, contributing for educating teachers on activities able to promote participation of students in decision-making process on science and technology. Authors uses Freirean concepts to say that the pretense neutrality of science and technology maintains the decision regarding them in the hands of an elite, disregarding the interest of large groups of society who assume a fatalist stance considering they can do little or nothing to change the situation.
Almeida and Gehlen (2019) report the creation of thematic network by TI in the context of formal adult education. The generative themes in the community were sewage treatment and sand extraction, that demanded interdisciplinary approach. According to the authors, TI finds local themes, but they need to be related to global issues. Authors also acknowledge that articulations Freire-STS are discussed in literature, especially via thematic approach based on thematic investigation for curriculum designing. However, thematic approach is often reduced to a teaching method, instead of a process for curricular (re)configuration anchored in dialogue between students and teachers about their reality. Also, researchers point out the contribution of STS matrix (created by Strieder and Kawamura 2017) for analyzing TI processes in the identification of generative themes. The STS matrix is a synthesis of how Brazilian scientific publication had addressed, up to 2010, STS approach in science education, regarding their pedagogical objective, and comprehensions on scientific rationality, technological development and societal participation. Science and technology myths (neutrality, superiority in decision processes, and scientific-technological optimism) (as coined by Auler and Delizoicov 2001) reinforce linear STS relation (more science = more technology = more social welfare) and hampers Freirean objectives, such as social participation in designing the political agenda of science and technology.
Bomfim and Gehlen (2018) report a continuing education process of teachers working in formal adult education. Authors aim at overcoming gnoseological obstacles identified in teachers’ conceptions. Gnoseological obstacles, according to Alves and Silva (2015), are limits in teachers conceptions that hinders them from implementing critical science curriculum, such as:
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fear of liberty: fear of emancipating themselves and taking autonomy and responsibility for their liberating practice, the fear of the void left when the values and methods of oppressors are abandoned;
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pretense of truth: the claim of universality and undeniable truth of scientific knowledge is the sole criterium for designing school syllabi, opposing the notion of knowledge as a historical and societal construction;
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epistemological arrogance: when teachers consider students have no knowledge and can be imbued with concepts transmitted by the teachers, and;
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negation of epistemological discontinuity as knowledge genesis: ignoring the multitude of conflicts and tensions throughout the development of theories, presenting them as consensual and coherent since their beginning.
Gnoseological obstacles are limit-situations in teachers practice, which can be addressed by problem-posing (reflection about practice) and dialogue in teacher education process guided by Freirean thematic approach (2018). Bomfim and Gehlen discuss how TI enabled teachers to reflect on their practice in classroom and in curricular design, problem-posing their gnoseological obstacles.
Cluster 5 — problem-posing chemistry teacher education. This cluster has 15 papers, six of them (A49 to A54) published after 2018. Main authors include Carlos A. Marques and Fabio P. Gonçalves (Fig. 5). It focuses in Freirean ideas as a mean for analyzing educational phenomena and designing educational activities. Papers also relies on Freirean-inspired approaches for formal science education, such as FTA, TI and 3PM (Delizoicov 1991; Delizoicov et al. 2002; A. F. G. da Silva 2004). Problem-posing is a main trait of this cluster, understood as (52) reflection that someone exerts upon the results of an act or the act itself, in order to better acting, together with others, upon transformation of reality.
Guaita and Gonçalves (2022) investigate knowledge of future chemistry teachers on the relationship between experimental activities and DICT and investigates how teachers in undergraduate courses for natural sciences teachers comprehend and promote experimental activities mediated by DICT (Guaita and Gonçalves 2020). Both papers (as well as Da Silveira, Piaia, and Gonçalves 2020) consider real (present) consciousness and potential consciousness as indicators of knowledge transformation concerning DICT-mediated experiments. Both papers cite Freire to acknowledge that non-reflexive use of DICT in education may yield banking education, as well as the involvement of limit-situation and untested feasibilities in the process of consciousness transformation, development of autonomy and transformative praxis of reality. Guaita and Gonçalves (2022) also acknowledges dialogue as a Freirean concept that has been appropriated in Freirean science education. Regarding the use of Freirean ideas to design educational processes, authors (Guaita and Gonçalves 2022) argue for experimental activities that takes students from limiting naïve curiosity (related to “depositing” knowledge, performing defined scripts) to critical epistemological curiosity. This change on curiosities is a continuous process, in time and in substance: there is not one big rupture between naïve and epistemological curiosities, but subsequent processes of transformation (Guaita and Gonçalves 2022, 2020). Problem-posing is a key tool for promoting this change in curiosity and consciousness (Guaita and Gonçalves 2022, 2020) and it occurs when someone reflects on the content generated by one act or on the act itself in search for better acting, collectively, in reality. Analyzing levels of consciousness helps researcher to evaluate teacher education processes (Guaita and Gonçalves 2022). The results indicate that real (present) consciousness and potential consciousness of future chemistry teachers about DICT-mediated experiments, as well as knowledge related to untested feasibility, indicate (as already mentioned Freire) the presence and coexistence of old and new knowledges without defined borders (Guaita and Gonçalves 2022, 2020).
The objective of Da Silveira et al. (2020) is to investigate knowledge of future chemistry teachers on the limits and possibilities of planning and developing Freirean Thematic Approach in a chemistry teaching internship subject matter. Authors acknowledges the importance of FTA and 3PM for formal science education and highlights the incipience of these approaches in school practices. The paper presents the challenge of systematizing a theoretical-methodological approach for teachers to research their own practice. This teacher education process was guided by Freirean problem-posing dialogue and research of practice, considering the movement between two approaches: future teachers account their knowledge in the writing of virtual diaries about their internship activities, whose problematization conduced to the second moment, the appropriation of new knowledge. The theme that based the internship was selected by the first step in TI, the preliminary survey. However, future teachers found questionnaires insufficient for investigating students’ perception on their reality and had difficulty in selecting the most meaningful situation in students’ speeches. Authors argued for the need for decoding dialogues to problematize those perceptions, which may be veiled by naïve consciousness — decoding dialogues are problem-posing dialogues on the perception of the community about their reality. Future teachers demonstrated tensions and limits in considering the need for disciplinarity (respecting the knowledge and historical structure of school subjects) and interdisciplinarity (the demand of reality for multiple school subjects to construct totalizing comprehensions). In acknowledging the unfinishedness of subjects, teacher education becomes a permanent process of reflecting and researching teaching practices as a dialogue between professional researcher (educator of educators) and future teachers. The results corroborate Freire’s ideas, such as: humility of teacher to acknowledge they do not know everything and that they may find some questions hard to answer; critical consciousness demands apprehension of scientific knowledge and taking into account students world-views does not mean keeping them in naïve consciousness.
Garrido e Sangiogo (2020) presents a theoretical-methodological proposition for Thematic Investigation based on Freirean Thematic Approach (Delizoicov et al. 2002) and Curricular Praxis via Generative Theme (CPGT) (A. F. G. da Silva 2004) in the process of curricular (re)configuration of a fishermen village. On the basis of Juliana Torres’s (2012) PhD dissertation, the two approaches are differentiated: FTA is centered in science education whereas CPGT addresses decoloniality and marginalized social groups. Authors acknowledge the importance of TI, as developed by Freire, in informal education and the need for subsequent transformation for formal education that promoted the emergence of FTA for curricular (re)configuration in science education and the 3PM (study of reality, knowledge organization, and application of knowledge) for organizing classroom lessons. The articulation of FTA and CPGT resulted in a TI process in a fishermen village, identifying socio-environmental issues related to community isolation, need for basic sanitation and low level of education. Regarding the articulations, Garrido and Sangiogo (2020) consolidate the theoretical-methodological propositions in five steps:
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1st step, consisting of preliminary survey of reality on the basis of secondary sources, interviews and questionnaires, as well as analyses of these data, selection of data that represent social contradictions (coding tools);
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2nd step addresses the decoding of those tools with community (students, teachers, parents etc) to identify explicative limits and meaningful speeches;
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3rd step is about constructing the thematic network, the representation of relations between micro- and macro-dimension of reality, promoting the thematic reduction and the emergence of generative themes. Therefore, teaching programs are created, with the selection of adequate contents (and their relations) to address the generative theme;
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4th step is the development of classroom lessons based on the 3PM by means of theoretical and practical lessons anchored in dialogue and problem-posing;
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5th step is named Thematic Action of Meaningful Practice, when political actions are designed by educators and students to search for possible solutions to overcome the limit-situations represented in the generative theme. The Thematic Action aims at developing a collective action plan, considering participation of social movements, school community and nearby inhabitants, government and other interested actors.
Lambach, Marques and Silva (2018) investigated a teacher education process for formal adult education, proposing criteria for assessing it. The paper acknowledges that Freirean movements for curricular (re)configuration influenced the rise of permanent teacher education, promoted as a demand from human unfinishedness, from the need of humans for being-more. Authors use Freirean and Freirean-inspired approaches, such as TI, FTA, 3PM and meaningful speeches, for designing a teacher education process, proposing a previous step for the thematic investigation: the survey of teachers’ conception on science education. The paper used Freirean concepts to analyze teacher conceptions about education (banking or liberating model), as well as Freirean-inspired criteria for assessing teacher education process: teachers’ conception about science education; preliminary investigation of reality developed by teachers; selection of speeches, theme and counter-theme; enunciation of problems and related school contents; and organization of classroom activities. Teachers’ speeches denoted banking model of education, such as “show to the student”, “make the student aware”; other speeches denoted dialogical and problem-posing education, like education for apprehending and deciphering the reality of students, enabling them to overcome it. Investigating the presence of dialogue between teacher and student during the Study of Local Reality, Lambach et al. (2018) noted the difficulty of teachers to identify social contradictions and to synthetize students’ world-views in the formulation of a counter-theme (related to untested feasibility). Authors conclude that the Study of Reality is the most important step in FTA, since its result (the identification of social contradictions) is repercussed in all subsequent steps. Since dialogue is at the core of the Study of Reality, that is the main process of FTA and especial attention must be dispensed in achieving it. However, according to authors, only dialogue cannot promote the movement from banking to liberating education, because it does not guarantee that teachers grasp the contradictions in the reality of students and in their own teaching practice. Hence, problem-posing action needs to be coupled to dialogue.
Cluster 4 — equity and social justice. This cluster has 20 authors and 18 papers, of which nine are published after 2018. Main authors include Daniel Morales-Doyle, Eric Rico Gutstein, and Maria Varelas (Fig. 6). Equity research in science education focuses on making teaching and learning more just. When guided by critical pedagogy, equity research aims at driving education even further, questioning how education can help to make the world more equitable and just (Morales-Doyle 2023).
The text by Morales-Doyle (2023), part of the special issue celebrating Freire’s centenary in Cultural Studies of Science Education, is an essay that critically reflects on the role of science education in contemporary times: cautioning against discourses that overstate it and defying anti-scientific stances. It acknowledges the importance of Paulo Freire for realizing that education plays a large role in sustaining or transforming unjust social structures. Authors emphasize that other authors and researchers (such as Carter G. Woodson and Septima Clark) helped bridge the gap between Freire and the Black freedom struggle in the US. False and critical hope are addressed: false hope in technological solutions to social problems; critical hope borne from transdisciplinary and humanizing education. Authors lists the 3PM as the process for the Freirean interdisciplinary project in São Paulo. In a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) program on technology, authors argues that students should be put to act as philosophers of technology in questioning whose interests and to what purpose a technology functions, remembering that Freire considered we should neither deify nor demonize technology.
Morales-Doyle (2023) corroborates that transdisciplinary science education is nimbler and more useful for tackling contemporary issues, such as climate crisis, and promoting social justice education. Curriculum designed by thematic approaches (such as Freirean ones) can enable transdisciplinary activities and questioning the role of scientific ways of knowing in social justice education. The author also repercussed criticism to Freire’s sexist language and oversight of racial discrimination in his writings, but also highlighted that even Freire had stated the need to reinvent critical pedagogy, critiquing, rejecting and filtering what it is deemed unworthy. He also differentiated phenomenon-driven and (Freirean) thematic approach in curricular design. Both defend that scientific knowledge should be contextualized, put in relation to real world situations, engaging students and their community. But phenomenon-driven approach tends to prioritize scientific knowledge, while problem-posing pedagogy values political action. Adepts of phenomenon-driven approach criticized Freirean thematic approach in curricular design for being potentially unfocused and incoherent for students, but Morales-Doyle (2023) highlights that it is the generative theme (a known situation to the students) that organizes the curriculum demanding specific disciplinary contents.
The author uses Freirean concepts to analyze the potential of science education for critical hope using three papers as counternarratives (Bernal-Munera 2023; Hennessy Elliott, Alcantara, Brito, and Dua 2023; Salinas, Fernández, Johnson, and Bastías 2023). Critical consciousness is defined as the questioning and studying of the origins of unjust social relations, and as the belief in the power of subjects to collectively change those relations. On the basis of this definition, authors discuss how scientific knowledge and institutions were used to create the notion of race and justify racial oppression, and the responsibility of biology education to deconstruct the concept of race and challenge racial injustice. An investigated teacher positioned herself as a learner, highlighting the dialogical nature of education. The idea of reading a difficult text (such as Freirean works) as reading the world: difficult texts as mediators in the student-teachers dialogue.
Varelas, Segura, Bernal-Munera and Mitchener (2023) acknowledge the importance of reflection on practice in teacher education for dealing with contradictions that shape (in)equity, and whose negotiation is foundational to critical pedagogy, according to Freire. Justice-centered education is the coordination of endemic dialectical relationships, poles of contradictions that cannot exist without one another, such as freedom and authority, transformation and reproduction, canonical science and community science. Those dialectical relationships are very hard to negotiate and may lead to inaction if a teacher does not reflect on them by identifying and naming such relationships, and mapping their action along the continuum of the poles. This reflection on practice may help teachers of color to realize how they can have solidarity with students while being agents of oppressive structures (i.e., school, scientific knowledge, etc.).
Morales-Doyle and Frausto (2021) aim at conceptually defining Young People Science (YPS), and its relation to Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) and citizen science, as well as designing a curriculum framework that supports YPS projects in school science classrooms. One difference between YPAR and YPS is that the latter explicitly teaches “young people to critique and appreciate science by looking for both insights and blind spots” aiming to develop the Freirean concept of epistemological curiosity (critical stance on how we know and what it means for our action) (Morales-Doyle and Frausto 2021, p. 5). YPAR is called the research branch of critical pedagogy. Authors criticize that the contributions of intellectuals from Black freedom struggle and civil rights movements to critical pedagogy are often overlooked, even in Freire’s works.
Morales-Doyle and Frausto (2021) corroborate Freire in stating that student-created scientific knowledge is a powerful tool to promote engagement of community to pressure public official and support agency of young people to write the world. They use Freirean concepts in assessment practices that, in problem-posing education, should not only be a measure of how much students apprehended of disciplinary content. It should be a reflection of the ability and agency of subjects to act on reality to transform it.
The objective of the next paper (Morales-Doyle, Varelas, Segura, and Bernal-Munera 2021) is to examine teachers’ conception: on the work of teaching science; and how these conceptions of their work relates to the structures of an inequitable society and their students’ agency. Authors present the convergence of Stuart Hall’s theory of ideology (on how fragmented commonsense understandings of individuals are rearticulated, in society, to well-ellaborated and internally consistent systems of thought) with conscientization in Paulo Freire (developing political clarity). They acknowledge that political clarity (critical consciousness) is an important professional skill for teachers, especially for those who work with marginalized communities.
Authors (Morales-Doyle et al. 2021) also compares Freire to Kockelman’s theory of agency. Agency and structures are in dialectical relationship: agency constructs structures; structures stifle or enhance agency. Agency, for Kockelman, have two broad clusters with three agency types each:
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Representational agency: thematize (naming an issue); characterize (identifying properties of an issue); and reason (noting relationships between and across properties);
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Residential agency: control (determining when and where to act); compose (determining the content and form of action); and commit (determining the why or to what end to act).
Morales-Doyle et al. (2021) link representational agency with Freirean action of reading the world and residential agency as writing the world. Therefore, they use Freirean concepts of reading and writing the world to analyze how pre-service teachers interpreted written curricula: as a form of reducing agency (by determining the teaching contents) but also opening opportunities for teachers to establish relationships between disciplinary content and students’ lives:
Teachers’ representational agency involves identifying or naming what counts as a biology topic, a physics concept, or a chemist’s point of view. Science teachers’ residential agency involves deciding whether their role is to encourage students to embrace their respective disciplines as universal ways of knowing or to provide opportunities for students to take up the tools of their content areas to intervene in the world (Morales-Doyle et al. 2021, p. 25).
Morales-Doyle (2020) explores how a chemistry curriculum that focused on science, history, and politics of drug development was meaningful for students, contextualized opportunities for science learning, and supported the development of critical sociopolitical understandings. The author makes the convergence of justice-centered science pedagogy, rooted in (Freirean) critical pedagogy, and “socio-transformative constructivism” (as in Rodriguez 2015) to address inequity in science education. Justice-based pedagogy guides the design of critical curriculum, whereas socio-transformative constructivism identifies opportunities to deepen student learning. This combination corroborates Freire’s assertion that teaching and learning are interconnected, and having in mind that there is no universal theory.
Morales-Doyle (2020) states that problem-posing education is different from problem-based learning, because in problem-posing the problem emerges from the dialogue with students and community members, and it is addressed in its political context and issues of oppression and exploitation. While in problem-based learning special attention is dedicated to define the problem, problem-posing accepts the unfinished nature of problems (Morales-Doyle 2023). The author (Morales-Doyle 2020), then, uses problem-posing education in social justice science issues (SJSI), i.e., socio-scientific issues (SSI) that are also Freirean generative themes: locally relevant to students and their communities, and that enable the critique of oppression. Author reports a justice-centered educational process which had drugs development as a SJSI, as it is placed within a local context (where youth of color are racially profiled) and within the larger context of “war on drugs”. Students were then questioned for who gets blamed for street drugs abuse, who gets praised by pharmaceutical drugs success, and if it matters who is held responsible. Researcher concluded that the activity was relatively successful for teaching canonical chemistry, designing curriculum that challenges political discourses that criminalize youth of color, and allowing students to take on roles as transformative intellectuals.
Ashby and Mensah (2020) investigate how teachers and students engage with chemistry critical curriculum in a suburban, private school, discussing what is such a curriculum, what subjects can achieve in working together through this curriculum, and how students and teacher-researcher interpret chemistry education. Authors aimed at provoking, challenging and broadening the perspectives of dominant cultural majority in the school, where most of students and faculty were White, of Western European descent, Christian, and first language English speakers. Authors acknowledge that critical pedagogies rely on critical analysis of one’s own biases in reading the world, confronting what is commonplace seeking to promote social justice. For the authors, critical consciousness may contribute to empathy with the struggles of the others (oppressed, marginalized) and to social action for transformation of the world. Critical consciousness requires the realization of one’s position in the power structure of society and how this structure is historically constructed and maintained by forces of dominant culture. Both students and teacher-researcher demonstrated discomfort in addressing their own privilege that gave them special access to participate in the practice of science and reap the rewards of the products of science. Consistent journaling was used as a tool for teacher reflection on their practice and, together with students, confront chemistry curriculum.
Morales-Doyle and Gutstein (2019) studied how preservice teachers construct ideas about science teaching and learning in the context of partnerships with a community-based organization that addresses racial and environmental issues in urban context. Authors discussed how the model that guided the development of the Chicago STEM high schools are not so much about STEM education as they are strategic components of a market-based school choice model; STEM curriculum is defined by corporate interest in the potentials of local communities, i.e., the community education (and its identity) is defined by market interest. Author use Freirean concepts to argue that there is clear racial stratification in Chicago STEM high schools, regarding post-graduate relationships, work force and education objective. The schools attend objectives of city architects and their conception of the roles certain peoples can play – the schools do not prepare students to read and write the world, but to adapt to corporate plans. Researchers oppose the call for rigor, relevance and academic challenging curriculum in Chicago STEM high schools to curriculum in problem-posing education, based on the concerns of students and their communities identified by generative themes. In problem-posing education, scientific knowledge and community wisdom are used to understand those themes. The IBM model for STEM high school, used by many cities in the US, frames problems as “neutral puzzles” in the context of corporate workplaces; problem-posing education understands problems as political and emergent from historical contexts.
Morales-Doyle and Gutstein (2019) reports the process of reopening Walter H. Dyett High School in Bronzeville by community pressure and redesigning the school on the basis of what the community, researchers and experts (in dialogue) had envisioned, what reminded them of the policies implemented by Paulo Freire in São Paulo from 1989–1991. By reflecting upon the fight of a Chicago community against corporate, privatized education and for a “sustainable community school”, authors use Freirean concepts to share hope on the creation of education based on principles of self-determination, and incorporation of popular knowledge and community wisdom.
Finally, Varelas, Morales-Doyle, Raza, Segura, Canales and Mitchener (2018) explore how preservice teachers’ construct ideas about science teaching and learning in the context of partnerships with community-based organizations that focus on issues such as environmental racism connecting science to larger social issues in marginalized communities in Chicago. Authors acknowledge that justice-centered pedagogy is rooted on socially transformative science curriculum (authors referenced Mutegi 2011) and Freirean scientific literacy (apported in Dos Santos 2009) developing academically challenging science curriculum that addresses aforementioned SJSI. Transformative hope recognizes the obstacles for agency and grows despite the oppressive structures.
Researchers use Freirean concepts to analyze “false generosity” in the actions of two corporations in a community in the speech of investigated subjects. A coal plant, an environmentally pollutant, and a grocery store are compared regarding their efforts to contribute in the local community. Authors also highlight that pre-service teachers are also in a cultural border crossing, having to transit from their varying positions of power in their culture (the science culture, at least) into the culture of oppressed communities.
Cluster 40 — ecopedagogy and justice-based environmental sustainability. This cluster has five papers, all published after 2018 (Misiaszek 2020b, 2020a; Misiaszek and Rodrigues 2023; J. G. dos Santos and Rodrigues 2018; Whiting, Konstantakos, Misiaszek, Simpson, and Carmona 2018). Main author is Greg Misiaszek (Fig. 6) and important references (other than Freire) are Moacir Gadotti and Carlos Alberto Torres.
Among the five papers analyzed, three addressed questions around ecopedagogy: utopic education models aimed at ending all socioenvironmental injustice and violence by problem-posing underlying assumptions on what counts as legitimate knowledge and who holds it. Ecopedagogy considers that human consciences enable men and women to become aware of their historicity and their capability to change the world according their action, also being responsible for socio-environmental injustice that comes as result of such actions (Whiting et al. 2018). Misiaszek (2020b) sums up the Freirean dimensions of ecopedagogies:
Ecopedagogies are complex and plural in framing and foci; however, the following key aspects will be unpacked: problem-posing teaching methods, democratically authentic dialogue, praxis-based teaching, conflict-based teaching, and teaching spaces as research spaces (Misiaszek 2020b, p. 617).
In Misiaszek (2020b), ecopedagogy is defined and used as a tool for questioning the concept of “development”, putting the aforementioned dimensions in practice. Ecopedagogies are rooted in dialogue (the union of subjects in the cognition of a knowable object of reality that mediates them) between students and teachers for determining the current situation, feasible utopic futures and problem-posing the barriers (limit-situations) between the two of them. Hence, limit-situations are seen as pedagogical practices useful for ecopedagogues. It is a pedagogy for teaching students how to deconstruct socio-environmental issues by questioning the benefits and oppressions locally and globally, creating authentic thinkers. This authenticity rises from self-reflecting on environmental beliefs, reconstructing them in dialogue with others. Dialogue and problem-posing brings conflicts, which are inherent to democratic spaces and essential for Freirean conscientization. Therefore, authors emphasize the need for reinventing, in Freirean terms, current environmental pedagogical models.
Misiaszek (2020a) discusses the differences between Freirean-based popular education (rooted in problem-posing) and populist pedagogies (based on post-truthism). Populism is defined as models “purposely sustains/intensifies socio-environmental oppressions through ‘teaching’ false-truths to increase othering and/or planetary unsustainability.” Problem-posing is the rigorous and methodological inquiry grounded in basic rules and self-preference rules. Post-truthism is built up form opinions and falsities, without basic rules, perverting facts to fit specific ideologies. Freirean popular education problematizes the politics and power struggle underlying legitimatized truths; it uses available knowledge and self-reflection on its limits for analyzing socio-environmental issues in their context. Populist pedagogies, on the other hand, do not aim at understanding world problems, but to twist knowledge to fit their ideological ends — the naturalization of neoliberalism and capitalist society and the subjectification of natural laws. While popular pedagogies see the unfinishedness and incompleteness of knowledge as possibility to advance it, populist models interpret it as an excuse to label knowledge as political and dismiss it in favor of their opinions. Post-truthism oppresses those who are blamed for the de-development and those who belite in the falsity, worsening socio-environmental problems. Authors then reveals the problem of how to promote authentic dialogue in post-truthism era, when subjects search for information to support their world-views and social media algorithms are designed to feed what people want. Self-reflection on one’s own ideas and patterns of information search can counter those problems. Author proposes centering constructive conflicts in popular education for reinventing post-truthism as ecopedagogy.
Whiting et al. (2018) use Stoicism and Freirean-inspired environmental pedagogy to examine the three pillars of the United Nations’ (UN) Global Education First Initiative (GEFI). Authors discussed commonalities and differences between both theoretical benchmarks, advocating how Freire can advance Stoic philosophy with the discussion of socio-environmental injustice and how modern focus of Stoicism in cosmopolitanism and virtue education can strength the theoretical backbone of ecopedagogies. Authors argue that Freire and Stoic philosophers converges in considering humans as unfinished beings, as well as in the holistic view of Earth. For Stoics and Freirean advocates (Gadotti and Torres 2009, for example), Earth is a whole, a system in evolution that coordinates the function of its constituents. Whiting et al. (2018) acknowledge that Freirean ideas have been used to address the rights of planet Earth (intrinsic value of environmental elements) and environmental citizenship (humans responsibility in maintaining or ending socio-environmental oppressions), in many ways inspired by non-Western world-views, such as indigenous epistemologies. Stoics and Freirean pedagogy believe that education can help subjects to change society for global citizenship and environmental wellbeing through dialogue and critical participation. Authors acknowledge that the Stoic’s distinction between virtues and values may help problem-posing current discourse on environmental sustainability and sustained growth. Also, Freirean pedagogy is seen as a utopian-based framework related to praxis, i.e., “educative and political acts that allow one to dream of and strive for utopias” (Whiting et al. 2018, p. 5).
Misiaszek and Rodrigues (2023) corroborate Freire’s argument that liberatory education must problem-pose hegemonic notions of development, progress, modernization and success in teaching for justice-based environmental sustainability in higher education. Justice-based is derived from Freirean argument that only humans can be aware of their history by reflecting on it and act intentionally upon the world generating injustices or correcting them. The authors propose six questions for unpacking this teaching: 1) What is sustainability? 2) What is development? 3) What are the politics of, and upon, higher education that effect teaching of/for JBES? 4) What should be the responsibilities of teaching for justice-based sustainability praxis in higher education? 5) What are the dominant epistemological groundings of higher education teaching that align with or oppose justice-based sustainability? 6) What are the anthropocentric influences on higher education teaching for justice-based sustainability? Critically answering to those questions can help determine the limit-situations in higher education and visualize transformative actions.
Santos and Rodrigues (2018) report an analysis of high school chemistry books used in Brazil. Authors select water as a generative theme due to its ubiquity in science education research, analyzing how the issue is addressed in two handbooks. Also, they state that generative themes are a way to make “different” classes, i.e., meaningful, pleasing, focusing on the real context of the students (J. G. dos Santos and Rodrigues 2018). Authors acknowledge that content program of environment education should be defined on the basis of local and concrete reality of students, as Freire proposed. Also, the political nature of education is recognized as the driving force for humanization (human as becoming) and transformation of reality. In some textbooks, texts and images are used for promoting dialogue about situations lived by the students, problem-posing water as a theme. Other books present experimentation to promote curiosity, which Santos and Cae (2018) argue that, according to Freire, it can contribute to promote curiosity as the unveiling of something, as active inquiring, as well as critical thinking.
Cluster 87 — love and hope in science education. This cluster has four papers, of which three are published after 2018 (A154-A156). Main authors include Sara Tolbert, Alejandra Aceves, and Betzabé Torres Olave (Fig. 6). Alongside Freire, main references include bell hooks, Simone Weil and Franz Fanon.
Torres Olave, Tolbert and Frausto Aceves (2023) presents the special issue “Reflecting on Freire: a praxis of radical love and critical hope for science education” celebrating Freire’s centenary (1921–2021), “acknowledging and contemplating the critical implications of his work for science education”. Editors responsible for the special issue asked for papers imagining a Freirean vision and praxis for science education driven by hope, love and solidarity, considering the importance of others in becoming — contributions of other individuals, disciplines, institutions and communities, in and outside science education. This ontology of differences, based on the dialogue with others, demands educational practices that overcomes elitism, that can manifest in multiple ways in science education: when the teacher considers teaching as transferring knowledge to students, teachers are regarded as curriculum implementers (but not curriculum designers), researchers do not engage in politics of the field, and when issues of class, gender and race within the field are naturalized. Therefore, attention and humility are import features for the practices of becoming, i.e., of knowing and changing the world and one-self. Authors in the special issue appropriated Freire’s works in different ways, from different contexts, to develop “notions of justice-oriented and liberatory science education not as recipes to be followed”.
Frausto Aceves, Torres Olave and Tolbert (2022) present narratives of the authors individual becomings, tracing their first encounters with Freire’s works. In these experiences, authors encountered limit-situations (“something that was wrong, that we could feel in our bodies, in our hearts, in the sense of un-belonging”) that demanded a sentipensar, a thinking-with-feeling about current situations and hope of better futures — the becoming. Becoming is understood, in Freirean terms, as a process of “cutting the umbilical cord” and un/learning (unlearning conditioned assumptions, learning new world-views). Authors related the needed to create pockets of resistance to work against hegemonic schooling and “false generosity” in science education, when material contradictions are not addressed but maintained.
Torres Olave and Bravo González (2021) converge Gadamer and Freire regarding dialogue as an epistemological position that allows self-understanding and revision of one’s own horizons, acknowledging the existence of tensions and power imbalances. The authors says there are three dimensions of dialogue: ideational (knowledge apprehension), epistemological (fusing and extending horizons) and relational (power imbalance and love). Power struggle is inherent to societies and the only way for addressing them in dialogue is by friendship, an act of love. The authors corroborate Freire in the importance of love and hope in school and academic fields, dominated by epistemological hierarchy, obsession with productivity and control — love cannot be of the kind of abusive relationships (of imposing hegemonic word-views), hope can guide us to find interstices within spaces to move in such a limiting context of capitalist machinery. Torres Olave and Bravo González (2021) discuss the role of dialogue in two layers: first, in relation to two self-organize communities of science teachers in which authors participated and, second, the process of the authors coming together during their PhDs to analyze these communities. The self-organized communities were a project coordinated by university researchers in Valparaíso, which invited science teachers to reflect, create self-knowledge, and act to transform the educational practices in dialogue with teacher educator (educator of educators). Educators in the communities considered it as place to being heard, exchanging experiences, and dialoguing about their practices. Grouping university researchers and school teachers helped facing banking models present in education and in research — an “extractivist” mode of research, that separates those who investigate (extract data, creates knowledge) and those who are investigated (who do not create knowledge, but can consume it). The distancing from these communities (during their PhDs) allowed the authors to “observe closely” from “epistemological distance”, finding new meanings in the communities.
Cluster 30 — physics teacher education. This cluster has four papers, two being published after 2018 (A86-A87), whose main author is Noemi Sutil (Fig. 7). A86 discuss the relationships between STSE and Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC, National Common Curricular Base), federal document that introduces new forms of organizing time, school contents, disciplines and objectives of compulsory education in Brazil — even though with several criticism as pointed out by Galian and Silva (2019). Prado and Sutil (2022) investigate these relationships regarding science education in middle school, highlighting contributions to teacher education and practice. Costa Junior, Sutil and Alvez (2019) develops analyses of sound landscapes (concept by Raymond Murray Schafer) in Physics teacher education on the basis of cultural industry (Theodor Adorno) and dialogical action theory (Paulo Freire).
Costa Junior et al. (2019) use problem-posing as a Freirean concept for developing critical thinking and creativity in sound education, used as a tool for denunciating the aspect of cultural industry in music. The authors also see convergence between problem-posing and the concept of cultural critics by Adorno. Acquiring auditory discernment may help future Physics educators to critically think and teach about sounds, developing dialogical and problem-posing education. Dialogue helps subjects to analyze their choices instead of following marketing trends, battling against the effects of cultural industry. Hence, authors define sound landscapes as “theorization of a problematization”, in which a subject investigates the elements of a phenomenon, in this case, music and sounds in society.
Prado and Sutil (2022) uses Freire as theoretical reference for analyzing teacher education objectives, regarding: reflection about practice, teaching conceptions, and professional autonomy. The authors also expressed the convergence between Freire and Habermas in problem-posing and cooperation, expressing denunciation and announcement in teacher education. BNCC presents educational objectives and curricular structures that relates to STSE assumptions, such as science and technology as historical human constructions and the need for social participation in decision about scientific-technological themes. Regarding teacher education, BNCC advocates students and teacher education integrated by problem-posing and collaboration. Finally, the paper presented the need to create communities of teachers that actively and critically investigates their practices, considering “being more” (the unfinishedness) of teaching profession.
Cluster 407 — Freire and STEM curriculum design. It has three papers and two are published after 2018 (A143-144). Main author is Bryan Dewsbury (Fig. 7), who uses Freire’s ideas to develop methods and processes, and for argumentation in general.
According to Dewsbury (2020), Freirean pedagogy inspired the creation of Deep Teaching, defined “as the constant, critical reflection practitioners apply to their awareness of self and student, as well as the degree to which this reflection informs the practice of an equitable pedagogy”, as a way to overcome banking education. Deep Teaching considers four areas of multicultural teaching and learning: knowledge of self, knowledge of students, content of curriculum and teaching approach. For the author, understanding the self and students are the most important, according to Freirean benchmarks claiming the need to reconciliate emotion and intellect for overcoming the subject-object/master-servant relationship in the teacher-student relationship. In later works, Freire opposed to the indoctrination for the separation of emotion from intellect. In this sense, Dewsbury (2020) argues that teachers need to abandon the fear of losing control of classroom if they are to transcend intellectualism and create emotional links with students.
For Loberti and Dewsbury (2018), inclusive and multicultural education asks “who do we want students to be”, rather than the contents or skills we want them to apprehend/develop — Freire’s ideas focus the relationships and, then, are suitable for this approach. Therefore, the authors define learning outcomes (skills and abilities) based on Fink’s taxonomy and, together with predetermined topics used for introductory biology, the school syllabus was created. A survey on students’ academic and social profile was taken in order to develop empathy. In this sense, self-reflection activities were carried out with instructors regarding their implicit biases and privileges. The issue, authors claim, is not the possession of privilege itself by instructors, but the obliviousness by individuals who possess it — this myopia can manifest in science education when instructors make assumptions about students and their abilities.
Cluster 14 – Freire and science literacy. It has four papers, from which only one is published after 2018 (Bencze et al. 2020). Main authors include Larry Bencze, Derek Hodson, Erminia Pedretti, J. Barnett, and Isha Decoito (Fig. 7). Paper addresses science literacy, specially related to socio-scientific issues (SSI) and Socially Acute Questions (SAQ). The analyzed paper (Bencze et al. 2020) presents some convergence between Freire and SAQ, as well as the use of Freirean concepts.
Freire influences in the formulation of Socially Acute Questions (SAQ) framework (check Simonneaux 2014), which led the analyzed paper (Bencze et al. 2020) to highlight the contribution of “hot” questions due to their potential for engagement in addressing problems of power, decision making, critical thinking and activism. Freire and SAQ also converge in the need for transforming science and technology practices for attending human values, such as sustainable knowledge and responsible action (against the subservience of science and technology for economic growth and wealth accumulation).
The political role of education is used in other moments of the texts, arguing that the pedagogy of freedom teaches students how to engage in the battle against unjust social structures rather than only enduring the oppression by disengagement. Authors also emphasize that Freire’s defense of people engaging in roles at the community level is still a viable alternative for facing current societal issues, promoting students’ engagement in personal and collective actions to address such problems. Wildson L. P. Dos Santos and Eduardo F. Mortimer (2002) received considerable attention in references when referring to humanizing education and its political role.
Wildson Dos Santos was a prominent researcher in the STS education in Brazil, using Freirean benchmarks to instill the discussion of political and humanistic dimensions in the movement. He sadly passed away in 2016, but his research continues to be discussed in science education, being referenced in C4 and C14. Cluster 478 has Dos Santos as main author, which will be briefly presented below, due to the importance of his works for the field (even though the papers are published before 2018, the selection criterium previously defined).
Cluster 478 – Freirean STS approach. This cluster has three papers, all published before 2018. Dos Santos is the main author in all of them and Eduardo Mortimer coauthors one (Fig. 7). Papers address the contributions of Freire to the STS approach in science literacy.
Dos Santos (2011) acknowledge the difference between a reduced vision of STS (for reproduction of hegemonic STS relationships) and a broader view of STS (a critical stance, considering power struggles in scientific and technological practices and aiming at constructing new models of development). According to the author, a critical view of STS developed in Brazil embodies Freirean ideas. Dos Santos (2011) highlights how Freirean philosophy emerged from the political turmoil in Brazil, marked by the oppression. Thinking about a CTS proposal from a Freirean perspective, authors seek an education that is not restricted to the use and non-use of technological devices or their good and bad use. Furthermore, he proposes an education capable of thinking about human possibilities and their values, ultimately an education centered on the existential condition of the people.
Dos Santos and Mortimer (2000) point out that there is debate on the adequate criteria for selecting themes for curricular design. However, the authors agree with the Freirean notion that the themes must emerge from the local reality of the people and, then, be related to national and global themes. Authors defend the development of national literacy policies based on STS approaches believing it can greatly contribute to scientific and technological literacy, as literacy is, as Paulo Freire proposed, an act of political awareness.
Dos Santos (2009) describes what should be a Freirean humanistic science education perspective. He acknowledged that Freire’s works are deemed revolutionary because it engages students in political discussion, which is not the case for all humanistic approaches. The author states that, for Freire, knowledge is meant to emancipate, liberate and transform reality; while Capitalism views knowledge as something to be accumulated and exchanged. It is also acknowledged the importance of Freire’s last works for the development of Ecopedagogy (see cluster C40). The researcher highlighted the importance of Delizoicov’s works for the appropriation of Freirean ideas into physics education, and of “Chemistry and Society Teaching Project” (Dos Santos et al. 2006) for doing the same in chemistry.
Dos Santos (2009) uses Freirean concepts to reflect on the objectives of humanistic science education. The author defends that humanistic education is not merely preparing citizens for the technological society, if not an education with a sociopolitical function that fight for transforming the inequitable social reality of the globalized world. That is what the author names as radical view on science and technology literacy, i.e., the need for a science education that transform the oppressive context in a market-driven technological society, that not only shows the presence of science and technology in everyday life, but also the contradictions of their presence in reality (unequal distribution of access and risks).
According to Dos Santos (2009), Freire and Gérard Fourez share a clear political view on science education, when they consider education as a means for sharing knowledge and, perhaps mainly, for sharing power. For Dos Santos, Urban science education (check C2 in Supplementary Material), Science Education as/for Sociopolitical Action (Roth and Desautels 2002 apud Dos Santos 2009) are other convergent frameworks in the introduction of political issues into science education.
Dos Santos (2009, p. 368) presents three points of convergence between Freire and Thomas Aikenhead concerning humanistic science education:
[1] Induction, socialization, or enculturation into students’ local, national, and global communities that are increasingly shaped by science and technology. […] [2] Moral reasoning integrated with values, human concerns, and scientific reasoning. […]. [3] Learning is interacting with the everyday world and includes intellectual achievement, personal change, forming new self-identities, recognizing sociopolitical power, and perhaps practical or social action.
Dos Santos (2009, p. 368) also repercussed the various critiques made to Freire’s writings, regarding “issues related to religion, literacy approaches, teachers’ positions, and application of his approach to other contexts.” However, the author recognized that these criticisms did not wane the value of Freire’s thoughts.
The researcher (Dos Santos 2009) reinforces the differences between Freirean-inspired humanistic science education and other science and technology literacy approaches. The main distinction is that Freire is not only interested in education for the effective usage of scientific concepts and technological apparatus, if not in critically discussing how the practice and products of science and technology are unequally distributed around the world, and how this can be a tool of oppression. Dos Santos (2009) points out that this difference is also present in STS movement, whose main interest is analyzing the impacts of science and technology in society, and Freirean-inspired STS approach aiming at transforming society.
Freire’s “method for literacy”, as it got to be known, is based on three stages: 1) reading the world (investigating the culture of the group of students); 2) sharing the world (the identified cultural aspects are discussed, i.e., encoded and decoded, by the students); 3) constructing and reconstructing the world (actions are discussed to engage students in the transformation of their existential situation). Those stages are translated into science education as (Dos Santos 2009): 1) discussion of socially relevant themes by socioscientific issues (SSI); 2) establishment of a dialogical process in classroom, and; 3) engagement of students in sociopolitical actions.
The author (Dos Santos 2009, p. 373) recommended SSI for humanistic science education “with the prospect of discussing the oppressive condition of modern society.” Technology education is highlighted as the discussion on the economic context of technology production and the discussion of its associated values.
Dos Santos (2009) stated that SSI should also be selected from the close reality of students or familiar contradictions around the world, from which scientific contents can be studied. In such cases, SSI could be seen as the “generative word”. The introduction of SSI in dialogical education should foster sociopolitical actions, discussing how students and the whole community can act to transform the oppressive conditions in society. Therefore, SSI discussions is a condition for fulfilling Freirean propositions of dialogue and problem-posing of reality, but it needs to be developed considering the active role of the student and the mediating role of teacher (who does not give ready answers, only questions and mediates the dialogue).