Work as an Educational Principle in Mathematics Activities in Technical and Vocational Education and Training

Abstract

This paper seeks to reflect on how Brazilian Mathematics teachers consider work as an educational principle in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) at Secondary School Level. To this aim, our empirical data consists of reports of experiences with students on TVET courses, published in the proceedings of the National Meetings on Mathematics Education, from 2010 to 2019. Our theoretical framework includes a Marxist perspective and Brazilian research on Professional and Technological Education. The study’s methodological design is based on a protocol for the inclusion and exclusion of paper in the corpus of analysis, considering the occurrences of the terms “technical”, “technician” or “professional” in the text body. The analysis followed an inductive perspective, inspired by Lincoln and Guba (1985). Based on the textual units found, we built up categories from which we discuss the idea of work as an educative principle, highlighting three possibilities of actual effects on teaching. Beyond creating a typology, we aim to shed light on different teaching strategies resorted to implement the curricular guidelines of TVET in mathematical activities. With this, we hope to stress the potentialities and limitations of each approach, to encourage teachers to transform their educational practice and, thus, consolidate the integral education of their students.

Work; Technical and Vocational Education and Training; Integrated Curriculum; Integral Education