Contextualization and interdisciplinarity in chemistry teaching in Brazil: After two decades, everybody knows but nobody understands

Abstract

In Brazil, a new law dedicated to the establishment of the policy and bases of national education (law 9.394/1996) was published in 1996. Then with the publication, in 1999, of the National Curricular Parameters for High School Teaching in Brazil,  modifications in the chemistry teaching that should be promoted by a contextualized and  interdisciplinary teaching were proposed. Based on textbook analysis and interviews with high school teachers, the present study argues that the proposed modifications were not achieved, taking into account that both, chemistry teachers practices and chemistry high school textbooks, have not changed in two decades.