A Metalinguistic Study on the Photon Interpretation Present in Physics Textbooks Approved in PNLDEM 2015: Elements for a Symmetric Sociology of Science Education

Abstract

We present a work on Symmetric Sociology on Science Education from a theoretical framework that articulates Bruno Latour's and Mikhail Bakhtin's Philosophies. We perform a metalinguistic analysis of the texts about Quantum Physics present in the Physics textbook approved by the PNLDEM 2015 in dialogue with the philosophical interpretations about the photon in scientific papers. We present the dialogic relation among the different scientific and didactic speeches, explicating the re-elaboration of meaning that exists in every text. We show that the textbook authors hybridize different visions into a particular vision, which is not in dialogue with contemporary research in most textbooks, so these narratives could not even be considered Quantum Physics (since they attribute to photons a performance with many classical aspects). Furthermore, we show that all textbooks omit the theoretical construction that encompasses the photon, following the same didactic and ideological proposal found in undergraduate textbooks, as described by Kuhn, that is, omitting controversies and pushing the establishment of a paradigm. Such didactic parallel suggests the subordination of Science Education to the Scientific Community in a sort of didactic colonialism. Even if we agreed that the goal of Science Education is to educate "little scientists" (which is not the case), there is the problem that the paradigm presented by the texts has not been hegemonic for, at least, eight decades. Finally, the developed theoretical articulation proved to be fruitful to analyze Science Education and its symmetrical relations with nature and society.

Louis de Broglie's wave-particle duality: from textbooks’ blackboxes to a chain of reference presentation

“…A possible way to escape this ontological controversy in QP Education would be to follow the suggestion made by some researchers of relativistic quantum mechanics: there are no particles, only fields [24], [25]. However, the wave-particle duality is still a major theme in contemporary Quantum Physics historiography [15], [26] and its historical and conceptual relevance also motivates contemporary research in Quantum Physics Teaching [27]- [29], besides of being a common subject in Quantum Physics courses in undergraduate and high-school levels [18], [30]. We highlight that this topic may be approached in different trends of Quantum Physics Teaching such as the development of didactic experiments [31]- [36], the use of metaphors [37], [38], production of tutorials [29], [39], [40], the use of computational simulations [41]- [46], the analysis of didactic textbooks [47], [48], and so on .…”

“…Moreover, the authors argue that the analysis of textbooks written in the period of scientific crisis, such as the quantum revolution, has shown that they cannot be seen as a "mausoleum of scientific truths" (as Kuhn would describe it), but that they contributed actively to the scientific development. Furthermore, the narrative of undergraduate textbooks sometimes is so relevant that is more diffused than the original paper narrative [18].…”

A gênese da interpretação probabilística em livros didáticos de mecânica quântica

“…Ademais, é reconhecido que o livro didático apresenta um papel central no processo de formação de cientistas [16] e na formação de professores [17]. Por isso, analisar como livros didáticos apresentam determinado conceito é uma forma prática de entendermos como a comunidade científica vem formalizando essa noçãoproposta que vem sendo discutida desde o trabalho seminal de Thomas Kuhn [18], com diferentes implicações para o Ensino de ciências [19,20].…”