Brazil’s National Curriculum Basis: an analysis about the health topic

Abstract

The health theme is present in the school environment in Brazil since the early 20th century. Currently, health education (EeS) is the most indicated approach to work with this topic, concerning itself with meaningful learning, which encourages voluntary actions from the students. However, it is still very recent in the school’s routine, in which we can find views aligned with the passing on of knowledge and behavioral standardizing, such as education for health (EpS). In order to understand how health must be treated in the near future of Brazilian education, we have analyzed the BNCC (Brazil’s National Curriculum Basis), a document which standardizes basic education’s curriculum in the country. The analysis was done taking into consideration the points of view of EeS and EpS. For that, the analysis of three versions of the BNCC was made, and passages which refer to EeS and EpS have been found. Health is addressed in the areas of Natural Science, Languages, and Human Sciences. The last two areas are the ones with closest contexts to EeS, in which the term “health†is not explicit, being thus

connected to well-being and human rights. In the Natural Science area, however, the two approaches are intertwined. This shows that there is not a singular tendency in the document, most likely because this is a new concept.