Social Sciences Course Curriculum, the Labor Market and Teacher Education

Abstract

In this article we discuss the tensions between the education provided by the social sciences course, substantiated in the curriculum, and the demands of professional practice, considering the reality of the labor market. Although the courses are geared mostly to educating researchers, most graduates work as high school teachers. Thus, an unsolved problem remains: deficiencies in teacher education and frustration to the expectation of becoming a researcher. We thus suggest a thorough review of the course and the skills it now seeks to develop. Regarding teacher education, one of the possible professions for which the course prepares students, we present a preliminary analysis of teacher education at the undergraduate and graduate level based on a discussion of the relationship between a bachelor’s degree (for researchers) and teacher accreditation in high school sociology, using as an example the case of the University of São Paulo (USP). Another reference is the education provided in the graduate course, in which the divorce between research and teaching is wider, deepening the problems of teacher education: disintegration, hierarchization, imbalance between the courses, which resul in poor teacher education.