HUMAN BODY AND HEALTH IN SCHOOL CURRICULA: WHEN SOCIOCULTURAL APPROACHES INTERPELLATE BIOMEDICAL AND HYGIENIST HEGEMONY

This article presents a discussion about human body and health approaches in the Brazilian science curriculum. Taking into account the hegemony of the biomedical approach, alongside a hygienist and behaviourist health vision in school Science curriculum, the article suggests that alternative approaches about human body and health – namely social and cultural approaches – have challenging that hegemony. Based on school knowledge theoretical perspective (Forquin, 1993; Lopes, 1999) and taking into consideration Ball (2001)’s definition of contexts of influences within the curriculum political cycles, it has been identified evidences of dispute among those curriculum approaches in three contexts of curriculum politics production: (i) teacher mediation and school constraints – analysing studies about teacher mediation and selection; (ii) knowledge production both in the Science and teacher Education research – using as empirical data a literature review in Science Education journals; (iii) education politics – analysing official curriculum documents which express meanings of health in the school curriculum. In other to show disputes among the curriculum approaches, the analysis of the evidences suggests that the biomedical and hygienists approaches have been progressively challenged. The analysis also shows that these approaches conflict to the social and cultural ones, bringing changes in the human body and health conceptions within the science curriculum