Insucesso e selecção social na disciplina de Português: O(s) discurso(s) dos professores - uma abordagem interdisciplinar

Abstract

In this paper, research data are introduced and analyzed on the basis of a Seminar organized in Minho University, in 1985, under the title «Culture, Language and Curriculum». The data collected revealed that: - As a subject in the school curriculum, Portuguese (language and literature) is one of the most selective subjects: not only because it is where most students fail, but also because the students who fail belong, in its majority, to the lower social classes; - For the teachers studied, the most important subjects in the school curriculum are the academic ones, specially Portuguese (language and literature); - That judgement was based on the importance of the instructional and socializing aspects of the subject; - The given reasons for explaining students’ failure in the subject were predominantly of sociological and methodological character; - The main criteria pointed out by the teachers to support those students who succeeded were the communicative competence and the knowledge of the main contents of the subject expressed in the official programme. It was found a contradiction between the teachers’ «pedagogical» discourse and their school practice, which was not congruent with the orientation they had expressed before. Some explanation and some research problems to be studied in the future are advanced by the authors.