Sociology in 50 minutes: didactic transposition, sociological imagination and disputes over meaning in a public school in Pernambuco

Abstract

This essay presents the theoretical-methodological framework of an ongoing master's research project dedicated to analyzing the teaching of Sociology in Pernambuco, Brazil, within the context of the recent reconfiguration of secondary education, marked by curricular fragmentation and the reduction of the subject to 50 minutes per week. It investigates how teacher agency, shaped by structural precarity, operates the mediation of sociological codes and which meanings for the discipline are disputed and (re)produced in conjunction with students. Field immersion revealed the insufficiency of the original project, grounded in social representations, prompting a reorientation of the theoretical framework toward a dialogue between Hall (2003), Bodart (2024), Mills (1982), Freire (1981), hooks (2013), López (2005), and Collins and Bilge (2021). Methodologically, the qualitative, microethnographic-inspired investigation is being carried out in a High School in the Metropolitan Region of Recife, combining participant observation, document analysis, and semi-structured interviews. Preliminary analyses indicate that precarity reconfigures the conditions of pedagogical work, demanding a constant translation of the curriculum and the daily fabrication of teacher authority, within a scenario of intense dispute over the legitimacy of Sociology in Basic Education.