The National Examination of Middle School (Enem) and the competences for a Critical Statistical Education

Abstract

The article presents the National Upper Secondary Education Examination (Enem), an important examination of large scale evaluation in Brazil, and aims to discuss how the statistical issues proposed in the Enem tests can contribute to the development of a Critical Statistical Education in the Brazilian secondary education. The research is theoretical in nature: bibliographical and documentary. In the first stage, we characterized the competences of a Critical Statistical Education: statistical reasoning, statistical thinking and statistical literacy. In the second, we mapped the evidence from the period 1998 to 2016, analyzing all statistical issues in the area of Mathematics and its Technologies. The study allows us to infer that: i) it is possible to develop a Critical Statistical Education in upper secondary education, and we indicate some potential elements for educational processes; ii) Enem, in the parameters in which it is organized, cannot be its mobilizing element, because it lacks critical elements, reflective, problematizations and contextualizations, impelling an uncritical formation.

Education Critical Statistics; Enem; Upper Secondary Education; Skills