Theachers and students representations on school research: critical reading autonomous writing and the construction of knowlesge

Abstract

The representation of school research and its influence in citizenship formation through the teachers’ and pupils’ voice is provided. Research discusses the formation of knowledge and the development of autonomy. Its aim is to verify specifically whether representations on research result in the activities of reading, reflection and writing. The constitutive elements of a research, such as motivation, search for theme, problematization, investigation and discovery, are revealed. Since the idea of a research is a form of knowledge building, the current qualitative and interpretative assignment, set within Applied Linguistics Theory, is based on several authors in the educational field. This is even true because the research methodology is in focus. Research has been undertaken in four public and private schools in Maringá PR Brazil. Two schools are integrated within institutions for Higher Education. Corpus consists of sixteen questionnaires for teachers of Portuguese and 395 questionnaires were answered by 5th to 8th grade primary students. One hundred and thirty-seven are selected as samples. Analyses emphasized the use of the school library, reading habits of teachers and students and their ideas on the research act, or rather, the frequency, contents, organization, results, evaluation and the benefits thereof. According to the ideas most of teachers and students in all schools, research is an interesting and creative activity which fixes contents and the acquisition of knowledge with evident advantages for their cultural formation.