Discourses of primary school teachers about the relationships between school, health and environment

Abstract

In this paper we analyse the discourses about education and health of a group of students on an initial primary teacher training course, in the context of projects aimed at relating science education to problems in the community. Analyses were conducted according to theoretical perspectives identified with Bakhtin’s Philosophy of Language with an emphasis on the concepts of dialogism and polyphony. Results describe a plurality of socio-conceptual standpoints identified in the subjects’ utterances and discuss the relationships they establish between socio- environmental problems, the community and school as well as possibilities for educators’ actions.