Bioethics education: challenges in the teachers’ training

Abstract

This article presents a study focusing on the initial formation of science and biology teachers, in which it analyzed, under the graduating teachers’ point of view, the implications of their role in the students’ ethic and moral formation. It sought specifically to identify the most relevant topics that they considered as relevant, capable to arise ethical discussions with their future students. In addition, it was raised some of the difficulties in dealing with these topics, according to interviewees. The methodological path went through analysis of answers given by the graduating teachers, who belong to three higher education institutions from the municipality of Sao Paulo. Such analysis, based in bioethics, in the perspective of protection and the studies of psychology of the moral development, identified topics related to repetitive and emergent situations, to the environment and school situations. The identification by graduating teachers of topics traditionally approached by bioethics sets forth the challenge of their insertion in the basic education, being a major instrument for the conquest of active citizenship

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