The ray of history teaching in the colorful spectrum of science: particularities of the Brazilian case

Abstract

This essay discusses History teaching in Brazil emphasizing its complexity and interactions with other disciplines, such as Anthropology and Sociology, as an exercise in epistemological definitions. History teaching is approached as a scientific field under construction, from the perspectives of History, Sociology and Philosophy of Science, based on the assumption that the trajectory of the development of this field is not uniform, either in time or space, but responds to characteristics and demands by society in which it is inserted. Although History teaching has expanded as a field of academic research, it is facing a crisis that dates to the country’s political transition and epistemological changes in History, and which reached a new level with ideological rise of the extreme right in the 2010s. Thus, it is argued that there are national and regional particularities linked to historical contexts and specificities of the social uses of historical knowledge in each chronological/ spatial context. It is argued that, in the Brazilian case, this field was born in elementary school, and at university level, it was born within the field of Education, although it never loses its reference to History. Disputes over social legitimacy of science, gender issues of subjects, and research funding have turned the field from a stone in the shoe to a cornerstone for History. Finally, the potential and problems of this evolution are discussed, proposing a reflection on prejudices and elitism that permeate the clashes in the field.