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SCIENCE EDUCATION AND THE CULTURAL-HISTORICAL ACTIVITY THEORY: CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE REFLECTION ON TENSIONS IN EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE

Activity Theory has its origins in the works by Vygotsky and currently spans diverse fields of knowledge. Recently, much of Science Education research have used Socio-Cultural-Historical references, however their potential use is far from being achieved. To broaden the discussion around this theoretical perspective, we present some principles of the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory in the context of Science Education. This is carried out through the making of three explicit categories - the relationship between the individual and the collective, the content of educational activity and the expected result for the educational activity. This allows the clarification of certain tensions that arise in this type of educational practice and, according to our point of view, they correspond to contradictions that need to be overcome. The questions presented here are not exhausted and we expect them to become elements for future debate on this matter.

Activity Theory; Teaching and Learning; Subject Formation; Dialectical Logic


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